Have you ever drove to work on a holiday and then dumped your entire coffee in the car and been so mad you drop kicked the one that didn't spill when you try to get out of the car with your hands full and almost dump it all over the bag you are carrying that is full of documents that it would - obviously - be preferable not to spill coffee on?
Me neither.
Anyways the Coyotes play the Canadiens, and that should be fun because it is always nice to play the Canadiens in the same way that in baseball it's cool to play the Yankees.
But no one is talking about the game, they are talking about an interview that Don Maloney gave to Sports Illustrated's Alex Prewitt where he says the following:
"It's really reflective of our team," Maloney said. "Last year, we plunged. I did not do much to help our team (in) the last two months. If we were going to be bad, my attitude was, let's be real bad. There was a pretty big prize for being really bad."
Everyone seems to be really shocked that Maloney just admitted to tanking.
Which is so typical, and so stupid.
We live in this never ending media cycle where everything is so white-washed and watered down and no one ever says anything even half-way honest or interesting for fear of being slagged on the internet and hurting their brand.
It's so bland and pathetic that Kanye West creates a new controversy every single day as if the people reacting had never been on the internet in the last twenty years and didn't know what Trolling was.
Like, the guy says things he clearly doesn't have any need to say just to get a rise out of people - and people complain about it constantly "That Kanye, his music is alright, but I don't know, kind of a jerk...."
The guy is a great musician but you can't talk about the music without hearing all this dumb other crap no one should even care about. Hell, we live in a world where can't swear or show a nipple, but where we regularly broadcast real actual murders with some kind of lame disclaimer.
And that brings me to Maloney: So what if he admitted to tanking. Anyone who thought about it for two seconds already knows that's what he did. You don't trade away Keith Yandle for prospects and picks if your goal is to win now.
Vermette and Michalek are declining heavily, but they were still playing regular minutes and were traded for replacement players.
How does it take him admitting what everyone already knew to be true for it to be some kind of dumb controversy?
If Maloney was honest, he'd admit to tanking this year too. It's only an accident that they aren't near the bottom of the standings since their terrible roster gets out possessed on a regular basis, has a high shooting percentage, and has gotten near miraculous goaltending from a rookie.
If entering the season with Vermette, Grossman, Michalek, Dahlbeck, Downie, Vitale and John Scott isn't tanking, then I don't what is.
There is no way the Coyotes could have honestly looked at the team they dressed on opening night and thought they had a playoff team. You are much less cynical than I am if you don't think they signed Vermette and Michalek in the off season for PR reasons and to look like they weren't tanking, while simultaneously doing exactly that.
Or maybe Maloney loves his guys and honestly believed in them. Who knows? The point is that there is clear evidence the team gave up on last year - as many teams do every single year.
I mean, Jeez, it's the entire point of the dread deadline is it not?
If the trade deadline exists, how much can you blame a guy for tanking? It's not like he said we openly tanked from the start of the season. And even if he did say that, who cares, since its kinda sorta not really what he did this year anyways.
Every once in a while a player or situation comes along that makes losing the best course of action. I don't know why this offends people when, quite literally, every single thing you ever do, that anyone does, is predicated on the incentive for doing it.
If there is incentive to lose, people will lose on purpose.
If you want to lose on purpose, the punishment is you lose, you put your team and fans and employees through a losing season and it might cost you some money or respect. But we don't need further rules to limit it - it shouldn't even be that big of a deal anyways.
And finally, congrats to Maloney for being interesting and honest. If there is one thing you can count on, it's that people will over react.
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