Azaroth

The jealously and homerism of Canadian fans and media.

On any messageboard in the hockey universe, you can see people slamming Crosby. He’s a diver, he’s a whiner, the refs are biased for him, he fakes everything, etc. We all know the score.

It drives me nuts, personally. I certainly can’t get into an argument with every jealous moron on every message board, though. Even more frustrating is the fact that I could, if I wanted to. Mostly because these people generally have no idea what they’re talking about. They seem to be spewing the same uniformed, rehashed opinions that have been circling since two months into Crosby’s NHL career.

So obviously these people aren’t experts on the subject. It’s obvious they haven’t been watching the games. Since that’s the case, and these people aren’t exactly analyzing Pens games every night and forming opinions on their own, where does the steady stream of overwhelming bullshit come from?

What’s the root of the problem?

In the end, it breaks down to a media propagated meme that stems back to their overexposure of Sidney back in the Summer and Fall of ‘05. The media coverage (at least in Canada, I wouldn’t know much about the US coverage) was absolutely over the top in the first couple months of Crosby’s career, to the point where it became sickening.

But that was their doing. They wanted a story so bad, they wanted to milk that story so bad, for so long, just for all of the viewership that they could get - that they turned people off. Suddenly it became vogue to BASH Crosby in the media, and talk up Ovechkin (since that was the other option). Even when Crosby was playing much better. Even though Ovechkin has as many flaws as anyone.

But he isn’t called on those flaws. Ever.

When was the last time someone in the media, and by extension someone rergurgitating something they’ve heard on a messageboard, talked about Ovechkin being BENCHED for his lazy defensive play? How many times has Crosby been mentioned as a “complete” player, as compared to Ovechkin - who plays ONLY in the offensive zone, and does little more than shoot and (sometimes) hit? How often is Crosby labeled soft, despite every fact in the world pointing to the complete opposite conclusion - while Ovechkin is labeled “much more physical”.

I ACTUALLY listened to announcers say that Crosby “doesn’t like to go into the corners” a couple of games back. These people not only sew the seeds of bullshit for fans with no real knowledge to regurgitate, but they themselves have no ******* idea what they’re talking about.

This game even, listened to Senators announcers go on for fifteen minutes about what a diver Crosby was. Saying that nobody is allowed to shoot the puck on the Penguins powerplay until Crosby touches it. On and on. I won’t even go on about their other comments about the Penguins in general, because as much as that IS applicable since the Penguins are synonomous with Crosby in every way in regard to hate and jealousy because Crosby IS the Penguins in a sense.

But they’re just like all Canadian media. From Don Cherry to the lowly broadcasters on late night third rate Sportsnet highlight packages, they all have a hardon for hating Crosby.

They’ve created this monster, and they continue to feed it because it’s what the majority of viewers want to sink their teeth into - they themselves also being jealous of Crosby, they themselves also hating to see Crosby burn their team.

Quite frankly, it’s sickening - and it’ll become moreso the second Canadian media and fans jump directly on the Crosby bandwagon at and after the 2010 Olympics, or to a lesser extent, even pending a long playoff run for the Penguins this year.

While tonight, listening to the Senators announcers was particularly sickening at times - it’s nothing new. Especially not here in Canada. Where Sidney is from. Yet the Kid gets all of the hate while Ovechkin gets all of the credit (especially credit for things that aren’t true - like constant claims that he’s a “complete player”) - because Ovechkin is the media-twisted “underdog”, he’s actually received the real hype while “he’s NOT getting any hype, CROSBY gets all the hype” was being drummed into the ears of impressionable, knowledge-lacking fans. Or, at least last season when he was competing with Crosby… not a WHOLE lot to hype him about this year, since he does little more than shoot the puck 10 times a game. But the meme persists.

When does all of this end? When does Crosby start getting the general respect the way that Gretzky and Lemieux did, after being jealousy hated on earlier in their careers?

I sure hope it takes something less than Olympic bandwagon-jumping, and it comes sort of more organically through people actually watching games and becoming informed about the subjects they speak on (often very loudly).

But I’ll tell you what. I’ll always smirk with disgust whenever anyone from Don Cherry on down to a random Senators poster on a messageboard rambles on with love about Crosby after these early years of self-propagating, ignorant denigration. Quite frankly, anyone jumping on the 87 bandwagon at this point or after can die in a horseless carriage conflagration for all I care.

This is taken from a posting of mine on a sports message board tonight after the hockey game. I know most people who read this site won’t actually be interested in this type of thing, but I figure this is easier than writing something NEW. :D