Krys Barch is an NHL warrior. He's a heavyweight. He's the guy who skates 5-7 minutes per game. The warrior who steps up and protects his team mates when trouble occurs on the ice. Touch his stars, he'll melt your face with his gnarled up fists. Barch is a rare breed of cat. Guys like him are few and far between in today's NHL. You hate him when he plays against him. You love him when he is in your room and on your bench during battles. He's like the carpenter. The butcher. The car mechanic. The pipe fitter. He 's a working class stiff whose hard work and dedication result in grease under his nails, sweat in his brow, and blood on his knuckles.
Like it or not, not all NHLers are down with the lockout. Not all NHLers are earning $5 million plus per season. The foot soldiers and fourth liners put it all on the line for a lower salary, and a chance to live out their NHL dreams.
After "8 OVs" and some Porte wine, Barch's inhibitions were gone. His defenses were down. He spoke from the heart. His Twitter timeline became must-read content on Saturday night.
The tough guy gave the fans a glimpse into the psyche of an NHLer who is upset by being locked out of the game that he loves to play. Albeit temporarily, the door to the job that he loves to perform is locked. The paychacks are frozen. No work, no pay. Barch opened up the door to his soul, and vented his spleen about the upsetting nature of the NHL lockout.
He was in a dark place. Was he depressed? Perhaps. Was he upset? For sure. He's sick of the owners and their greed. He's tired of being locked out. He's upset that he cannot provide for his wife and three children while sitting at home on Ontario, while he should be playing NHL hockey right now. No NHL. No paycheck. Barch is not alone. He needs the paycheck to support his young family. The longer this lockout drags on, the deeper his concern grows. Perhaps, the darker his mood grows.
I'll admit that I could not help but be riveted by his truth-based testimony and his candor. en I read his tweets, I was concerned for him. I still am. I have friends and family who suffer from anxiety and depression. Its a serious thing. When I read Barch's tweets on my tweet deck, I couldn't help but wonder where his friends were. Who could help him to shake off the blues?
During Barch's 90+ minute tweet session, I reached out to Barch's former Dallas Stars team mate, Steve Ott, to see if he could lend some words of encouragement to his hockey bro.
@otterN9NE came to the emotional rescue of his bud with a tweet that read: ."@krysbarch I love you sweet dreams". Otter also tweeted: "@krysbarch and that MF has a big heart!"
Ott knows Barch better than most. He was a team mate of Barch in Dallas, and he knows the guy's true character, morals, and ethics. I applaud Ott for taking time away from his own family to reach out to a friend in need of a pick me up.
Barch's phone isn't ringing off the hook right now from teams in Europe that want him to play hockey during the lockout. He's not Ovechkin, Nash, Thornton, Malkin, Tavares, Ehrhoff, Couture, Tavares, or Ennis. He's the body guard for the skilled players that he plays with.
Here's Barch's heart felt appeal to end the current NHL lockout:
I sit here from Gand Bend, Ontario putting a pen to my heart and writing on paper what bleeds out. My name is Krys Barch. I have played.....
..... approx 5 1/2 years in the NHL and have worked for every second of it. I Haven't been a 1st round pick, bonus baby........
...... or a son of a hall of famer. I have made it through sweating, bleeding, cut Achilles, broken hands, concussions.....
........ broken orbital bones, 8 teeth knocked out, etc, etc, etc. I sit in front of a fire, 8 OV deep and starting a bottle of Porte.......
..... that will assist in the translations of my emotions to words! No different than a truck driver, farmer or line worker..........
....... I have a shot and a beer. Not to deal with the days ahead but to ease the nerves from what my body has endured the days before....
I sit here with both my boys sleeping and my wife due with our 3rd. My thoughts racing on what I can conquer tomorrow to get our family.....
..... ahead. Some times wondering if I should have existed when a word and a gun solidified and solved all problems. I feel the Wild West..
.... would more simplified than the world we live in now whet an employer who makes billions of dollars and a league with record revenues...
... can tell me that I can't do the things that my heart tells my me to do! All what my heart tells me to do far surpasses what my ....
..... body has endured. As I write this I dive deeper and deeper into my bottle of Porte giving wider views to the depths of my heart.....
.... As my pen warms from the fire, Neil Young and a fall Canadian night, I wonder how this work stoppage effects the owners?
I wonder if the owners of Boston, New York, Washington, etc, etc, have endured any of the injuries that I or any other player in the .....
... NHL have endured. Still they probably sit their smoking the same brand of cigar, sipping the same cognac, and going on vacation .....
..... To one of five houses they own.... While we sit here knowing they want to take 20% of our paychecks. One half to 3/4 of my peers
.... Will have to work for the next 50 years of their lives. Congratulations to the lucky select few that I have played with who have made..
... Salaries that they can choose to do whatever they want when they are done. But I have played most who do not!
f the NHL wants to teams in the south or struggling markets than the players along with the financially well to do teams need to start....
.... Working together. Or they need to start to move teams to the North where they will make money. The system allows the owners to......
....... continually take money from the players contract after contract where eventually over 40 some years the owners will have 80%....
..... Of revenue. The only way to stop the work stoppages long into the future is fix the root cause of the problems. The lockout.......
..... Is a procedure to take from the players to pay for the NHL mistakes. Let not allow the NHL to make any mor mistakes....
... Let the league and the players to come together to fix the mistakes that have been made and make sure non are made in the future....
...... Lets get a deal where the owners, players, and fans benefit from. We're we can be sitting around in beautiful Canadian fall's......
....... around a fire playing and watching the game we love. Here's to the truth and our next conversation. As always speaking from my.....
..... Heart! Goodnight! Like me or hate me I speak what comes from my heart!
At this pace, Mikhail Grigorenko may well score 100 points by New Year's Day.
Grigo scored twice in Quebec's 5-0 win over Sherbrooke on Saturday night. The Russian Rifle finished the game +2, as he scored the first and fourth goals for the Remparts, who improved their season record to 3-0.
Lindy Ruff and his assistant coaches won't have to go far to peep the progress of the Sabres' farm hands. Ruff will be setting his GPS with his home address in Clarence, NY and the final destination of the Blue Cross Arena 50 minutes down the 90 East.
The Amerks will skate on Sunday morning, and Ruff will be on hand to take notes and to observe the progress of the kids.
On Friday, Ruff told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that he's intrigued by the crop of blue chip talent that Darcy Regier and his scouts have been assembling for the past 3-5 years.
“Marcus (Foligno), Luke (Adam), Cody Hodgson, you want to spend time with them,” Ruff said, “and we want to evaluate the young guys, too; guys like (Jerome) Gauthier-Leduc and (Mark) Pysyk.” At the same time, Ruff said he doesn’t want to be intruding on what Amerks coach Ron Rolston and assistants Chadd Cassidy and Chris Taylor are doing.
“There’s a fine line, there is,” Ruff admitted. “As I told Ron yesterday, ‘It’s your camp, it’s your team. You set it up the way you want.’ ”
Ruff spent a great deal of time in Rochester during the 2004-05 NHL lockout and was on the ice at practice, too. He saw Ryan Miller mature as a goalie. He watched Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville pile up goals. He saw Paul Gaustad develop into a power forward.
“Being around the team gave me a real appreciation for what those players can do,” Ruff said. “There’s nothing like getting on the ice and being able to evaluate guys. For me, it was invaluable.”
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