Make it stop.
We can only wish. Jets fans are having to endure another round of speculation, judgement and assumption about the team, the players and the city itself courtesy of media outside the city...again.
Jonathan Willis penned a piece for the Bleacher Report about the latest rupture in the Jets fabric, that of Ladd's desire to be with his wife for the birth of their second child thus missing the game against the Stars. This time though it involved Bryan Little and a quote he gave to the Winnipeg Sun's Kirk Penton. In it Little responded to Ladd getting flak for missing the game before he knew about the debate. You can read the article from Willis HERE.
Here is the quote Willis highlights to make his point about Winnipeg having a hostile image.
We were joking around before that only in Winnipeg someone would say negative comments about the birth of a child. Then I heard someone actually did. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not
I read it a bit differently than Willis does and perhaps only Penton and Little know if there was more after that could provide a greater context to the point Little was trying to make. Or perhaps not.
This comment seems like one that comes from some one who is famliar with the nuances of a place, it's people and their identity. Looking at it in that light I see the comment as fair and accurate. Winnipeg is odd in some ways with people. Talking about how much you make, your mortgage, the price of your cottage, boat, car etc is coffeeshop fodder here. It took me years to understand that was 'normal' and so is the cynicism Little speaks of as it relates to the populace of Winnipeg. Except for politics, no one in Manitoba is cynical about that.
I struggle with the point Willis is trying to make that Winnipeggers are hostile towards NHL players? Haven't seen anything tossed on the ice here. The part that really gets me is this bit, "Little says that the team was joking "only in Winnipeg" before any comments were actually made. That speaks to a preexisting belief among the players that the market is unusually hostile to NHLers. Westwood’s comments—which I don’t agree with, but also don’t see as beyond the pale—feed into a belief that Little and at least some of his teammates already hold."
I guess no person anywhere has made a self-deprecating joke about the place they live or work in a joking manner based on what they have experienced. It seems sloppy to me and Willis is above that, way above.
Only in Edmonton... Only in Philadelphia... Only in...
See my point? It's a phrase, an expression and the way Little uses it seems fitting with how anyone would make a crack about a city or place. I'm curious how it speaks 'to a pre-existing belief among the players that the market is unusually hostile to NHLers'? Really, how?
First there are no NHLers on the team from Winnipeg, they are all new to the city by choice and be relocation. They are just like me, a non-native living and working in Winnipeg and they experience the same eccentricities that I do.
The bigger point is that Willis latched onto the word (his) hostile. Little didn't say hostile. Like any good journalist he found, (or in this case fabricated) his wedge and is trying to open it and see what's there in the darkness. Probably nothing but by Willis' logic as outlined above we could conclude the following.
If Canucks players were talking about how some one from Vancouver were complaining about the rain I could say that it 'speaks to a pre-existing belief among the players that the market is unusually hostile to NHLers'.
See the problem?
If you didn't click on the link to Penton's story you should be confused. Willis draws on the rest of the story, assuming his reader read it, to help round out his argument. You would need to do the same with the above example if it were actually true. Penton did the leg work and makes the point that maybe NHL free agents might be aware of this but how many are really looking up what Bryan Little has to say daily? The issue here is why did it become such a big deal and how did
I can't go and say that there is a pre-existing belief. Too far-fethced for me based on a joking comment. But I will say Little identified an issue that exists everywhere, there's an idiot in every crowd. Just like the ones in Edmonton tossing jerseys, he/she or they are not representative of the entire fan base and I think Little knows that about Winnipeg. It's too bad Willis can't as easily make that assumption, probably because it's not worth writing about.
There was going to be a game preview but this took longer than I thought.
Jets 3, Sharks 2
No Pavelec and Bogo is apparently a no-go. Yes, it's an optimistic prediction.