I DON'T understand why anyone would ever complain that another team didn't show them mercy. I never have.
I first heard about it in the mid-90s in college football. I thought it was stupid. But I gave them a pass because it's college football and who really cares, right? I mean some teams are obviously much better than others because some teams invest exponentially more money into their football program.
I understand the concept of mercy when a coach has a decision to either pull a starting goalie - Patrick Roy - out of the game or not. Sometimes goalies just have a bad game. They're just not in it that night, or the team is playing like crap in front of them. And if a future Legend demands a trade because his head coach is essentially calling him lazy and trying to motivate him by embarrassing him, I understand why he'd want out of that situation.
But when it's one professional team vs. another professional team, WHY THE **** SHOULD THE OTHER TEAM HAVE MERCY ON YOU????????
"They were padding their stats". You hear that one a lot. What the hell is wrong with that??? They give out awards at the end of the year for the guys with the best stats!
I don't get it, never have, and I've lost any shred of tolerance I ever had for this whiny ******** mentality.
It makes sense in pee wee or little league, becuase you don't want to hurt the feelings of 8 year olds.
This is the NHL and like you said, people pay to watch their team. And these players and coaches are grown men who make a killing playing. I'm not concerned about their feelings
um. people pay out the ass to see their team play the game. the game is 60 minutes long. If your team isnt up to the task of playing 60 minutes, you deserve to lose 1000-2. ok? People pay to see them win, and play a full game. i agree berube, people need to shut the **** up about it, and if a team doesnt like it, do something, dont allow a team to score 7 times. for real.
There is a thing called class. Some teams have it, some teams don't. It's not about having mercy. Winning 7-1 in hockey or 45-0 in football is pretty legit if you aren't throwing the number 1 PP unit out there with 2 minutes to go, or throwing in the fourth quarter.
Berube, are you referencing anything specific, like a specific event? Or is it just out of pure frustration. I agree with you. If you dont put everything youve got into every game you play, you deserve to be blown out. Even if you do put everything in, as does your entire team, that just means your team sucks, nothing to complain about. But as the previous poster said, in pee wee, mercy is a given. I always hated getting killed by teams.
But for example, the Flyers 9-1 loss at the hands of the Sabres deserved no mercy, we basically quit after the first goal they scored.
There is a thing called class. Some teams have it, some teams don't. It's not about having mercy. Winning 7-1 in hockey or 45-0 in football is pretty legit if you aren't throwing the number 1 PP unit out there with 2 minutes to go, or throwing in the fourth quarter.
Thank you devil's advocate. Now, please explain how that has anything to do with class. Please explain why, when players are making millions of freaking dollars, anyone should give a crap that they have to go eat dinner with their family that weekend knowing they got their ***** handed to them.
edit. Huh. Ass isn't censored but the plural is. That's weird.
It's about class...like Mountainhawk said. I can understand having restraint in certain situations.
However, this current talk about the score being run up in that Caps game doesn't exactly apply, as there was a reason for it.
Stevens was pissed off about Brashear's cheapshot on Powe, and therefore purposely put out our top unit on the PP. He did the same thing last year when we wound up romping the Pens 7-2 or 8-2 maybe.
If you're well up on a team, and they start taking cheapshots...the best retaliation is to run up the score. I like the way Stevens handled that Caps game, just as I liked the way he handled last year's Pens game. I'm not sure if he spoke to the media about it after the last Caps game...but after that Pens game he explicitly stated that he was putting our big guns out there on the PP because of the cheapshots.
I don't get it either, why should any team have to stop trying to do their job because YOU decided to stop doing yours? If you don't want to get embarrassed, work a little harder then. I say exploit it, if they want to give you the ice take the ice and never look back. No one ever complains when their team is blowing another team out. Everyone has fun, everyone likes to see who else will get in on the scoring. Yet the second someone "piles on" their team, it's classless. Not taking responsibility for playing like **** and deflecting blame elsewhere, that to me is classless.
If the Crapitals are pissed about the Flyers dropping 7 on them, and then trying to score more, maybe they should have tried harder to score and win. Not our fault Niitymaki showed up and severly outplayed both their goalies. Not our fault the decided to run our players instead of playing the game. I dont ****ing care if us scoring agian would "hurt" their feelings. Juts like if they score 11 on us tonight. They were better. Play 60 minutes. Not 40. No fan pays to see that ********.
Is it really necessary to explain something like this?
It's classless to keep sending your top players out on the ice for a PP in the waning moments of a game when you're already up 5 or 6 goals. The game is already won...it's been clearly decided...there's no need to rub the hell out of it in the face of your opponent. Your bench is full of hard workers who never get a chance on the PP...and not letting them play in those situations is also a major dick move.
On the other hand, if the PP is a result of the opponent partaking in some cheap activity, all of that goes out the window.
Since I started posting on this site, I've pretty much come to hate the term "class" and any terms associated with it. People throw that **** around here waaaaay too much. Every other thread, every little thing that this guy or this team did was "classless." Classless classless classless. Blah, blah, ****ing blah. It's so annoying...the usage of the term on this site is pretty much a joke in most cases.
However, this is one instance where I think the term "class" absolutely does apply. And I have no problem stating that sending out your top unit on a PP in the final minutes of a game in which you already have a healthy lead, is not a very classy move. The players and teams in the league do have a certain amount of respect for one another. The coaches generally respect each other, and there's simply a certain amount of class and respect with which they try to handle such situations.
The players and teams in the league do have a certain amount of respect for one another. The coaches generally respect each other, and there's simply a certain amount of class and respect with which they try to handle such situations.
But what is so painful and hurtful about a sports score?
Am I mistaken or didn't Michel Therrien kind of accuse the Flyers of the same thing after we beat them soundly earlier this season? And wasn't it mere days after the Pens "fairly" put up 9 goals on the hapless Isles (It's not running up the score if Cindy's involved I guess)?
Is it really necessary to explain something like this?
It's classless to keep sending your top players out on the ice for a PP in the waning moments of a game when you're already up 5 or 6 goals. The game is already won...it's been clearly decided...there's no need to rub the hell out of it in the face of your opponent. Your bench is full of hard workers who never get a chance on the PP...and not letting them play in those situations is also a major dick move.
On the other hand, if the PP is a result of the opponent partaking in some cheap activity, all of that goes out the window.
Since I started posting on this site, I've pretty much come to hate the term "class" and any terms associated with it. People throw that **** around here waaaaay too much. Every other thread, every little thing that this guy or this team did was "classless." Classless classless classless. Blah, blah, ****ing blah. It's so annoying...the usage of the term on this site is pretty much a joke in most cases.
However, this is one instance where I think the term "class" absolutely does apply. And I have no problem stating that sending out your top unit on a PP in the final minutes of a game in which you already have a healthy lead, is not a very classy move. The players and teams in the league do have a certain amount of respect for one another. The coaches generally respect each other, and there's simply a certain amount of class and respect with which they try to handle such situations.
Your bench is full of hard workers who never get a chance on the PP...and not letting them play in those situations is also a major dick move.
I completely agree with this, but to me that's about doing right by your own team. If the Caps are blowing us out 8-0 and they've got Ovechkin out there in the last 5 trying to get a hattrick, I really don't give a **** from a Flyers fan perspective. If we're giving it up they might as well take it.
Let's say you're the captain of a team. It's devasting to you if your team gets beat by an order of magnitude. Again, maybe it's not your fault. Your biggest stars are hurt, your talent is decimated.
That happens to most teams at some point in the season. What is the idea behind showing mercy on them? What difference does it make?
I get it that it can be extreeeeeeemely demoralizing.
But that's part of sports. Losing the biggest game of the season will always be extremely demoralizing, any way you slice it.
And it's just a sport. Enough of this sissy crap. Screw emotions when it comes to sports, especially if the players make 3, 4, 5 million dollars a year.
And if on a pro hockey team a player makes less than 1 milllion a year? Screw him too. He's not feeling as bad, because not as much was expected out of him.
How quickly we forget. Jose Theodore came in and just played like crap. The Caps were pouring it on in the shot total. If they didn't like it, they should have done something about it.
But what is so painful and hurtful about a sports score?
Why should anyone care so much?
Because those sports scores are their lives. It's their careers, their profession, their livelihood. They want to win, but at the same time they respect others within their profession, and make an effort to conduct themselves with a certain amount of class. I'm sure that you, I, and everyone else here tries to treat others within our professions with a certain amount of respect and class. Sure, our work situations and environments may be very different from the NHL, haha...but the thinking still applies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovalchkin
I completely agree with this, but to me that's about doing right by your own team. If the Caps are blowing us out 8-0 and they've got Ovechkin out there in the last 5 trying to get a hattrick, I really don't give a **** from a Flyers fan perspective. If we're giving it up they might as well take it.
I agree...with that issue I'm saying that it's poor treatment of your own team...and something your fans and people within your organization should be bothered by. It's not very "classy" treatment of your own players. But I'll stop now, because I've gotta stop using the word "class" before my head explodes.
I agree...with that issue I'm saying that it's poor treatment of your own team...and something your fans and people within your organization should be bothered by. It's not very "classy" treatment of your own players. But I'll stop now, because I've gotta stop using the word "class" before my head explodes.
Yep, but why should the Caps coach care about that? I'm sure he's not emotionally invested in the well being of our fourth line
Because those sports scores are their lives. It's their careers, their profession, their livelihood. They want to win, but at the same time they respect others within their profession, and make an effort to conduct themselves with a certain amount of class. I'm sure that you, I, and everyone else here tries to treat others within our professions with a certain amount of respect and class. Sure, our work situations and environments may be very different from the NHL, haha...but the thinking still applies.
I completely disagree with you. It doesn't apply at all. Because not only is it competitive in nature (like a lot of things we CAN identify with in our own careers), but competitiveness is the whole, entire point. The idea is to always beat the other team. Every single time. We don't let the other team win once a year just because it's christmas. And if you let up on them on christmas? Even more insulting. That would be patronizing. That's the nature of sports.
If you want to make me understand what mercy in sports has to do with class, you shouldn't make analogies to regular life. Try another tack.
