“There’s no hate and I miss that….it frustrates the s–t out of me, quite honestly.” -John Tortorella.
Torts is 100% right. While there is no lack of hate in the world, we need it back in sports.
I work very hard to make Hockeybuzz a place where you can escape from all the political crap in our world. If you want more info on Trump or Trudeau there are a few places out there for you..just a few people are writing about them…and getting traffic a hockey website could only dream of…I want you to come to hockeybuzz when you get sick of all of that…and I know everyone is sick of all of it.
We all live in the real world. Sports are what we do to get the hell away for a while. A place we can go with our anger from our jobs, our bills, and even our country …and place a more fun-filled hatred into our team’s rivals.
I love New York City…but as a kid I HATED the New York Rangers. Especially Tomas Sandstrom..There were some moments I remember escaping my stress of school and other things and LIVING for Flyers/Rangers games.
I was there when this happened…somewhere in the mid 80s...
Flyers forward Lindsey Carson broke his stick on a shot and then was tied up momentarily with Sandstrom. Carson stole Sandstrom’s stick and skated away towards the bench. The puck came to Carson and he took it, with Sandstorm’s stick, and dumped it into the Rangers zone before going off for a line change. Sandstrom was going NUTS and skated to the referee screaming with his hands in the air. Meanwhile, Carson is sitting on the bench. He breaks Sandstrom’s stick and throws the two pieces over his head and into the crowd. I will NEVER forget it. I LOVED IT. The Spectrum LOVED it. It was real. It was AWESOME
And it would NEVER happen today.
The NHL has always been a small world. You would be hard-pressed to find any player on any team who hasn’t somewhere along the line been a teammate with someone on the team he is playing against. That is nothing new of course. But Torts is dead-on when he talks about how players used to work hard and they used to kill each other on the ice and THEN have a beer after, but never talk about it during the game. It bothers me to no end when I see players on opposing teams give a tap to their opponent. We need that fourth wall in sports. At least try and show some dislike...respect each other, but take no prisoners.
Even the “rivalries” are becoming tame now. Maybe the players have become more unified by the NHLPA…or maybe we don’t have enough of the kind of players in the league that we love to hate.. Of course I am not talking about cheap shots, but I can’t tell you how many people write me, die-hard fans of teams who LIVE for every game of the season, who complain with how bored they have become. How their team has virtually no character to it.
Are you one of those fans?
Sports at its best keeps us from killing each other in the real world…by re-directing the strong dislike we have grown up with. Otherwise we are just rooting for a group of people who are wearing our city's name on them...and people who hate sports are always saying that is what they don't get about those of us who actually do love sports.
What’s the Buzz?
Really want your input here:
Do you still have teams out there or players out there that you hate?
Who are your most hated players of all time?
Do you miss this part like Torts?
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