The Carolina Hurricanes were chided by many, including Rogers Sportsnet dunderhead Nick Kypreos, for including the players' spouses and children in the on-ice celebrations after their Game 7 win over Edmonton in the Stanley Cup final.
Let's give Kypreos and anyone who espouses a similar line of thought, so-called, the benefit of the doubt. They don't know any better, and don't realize they come off as complete idiots. (Note to Nick: No one's calling you an idiot. You just played one on TV yesterday. Sit down.)
Who knows what Kypreos has against women's place in hockey. Maybe he read somewhere their periods attract bears, and was worried that the Carolina Hurricanes had put the entire RBC Center crowd in danger.
Athletes' wives, especially in the age of Anna Benson, make easy targets, since they're easily stereotyped: smokin' hot but in a generic type of way, former cheerleader or model, dressed to the teeth. Likely a shopaholic who doesn't have work and is blessed with a genetic ability to remain within 10 pounds of what she weighed on her wedding day despite having four children under the age of seven. There's also that vibe that she probably wouldn't be married to her current partner if his career had ended with post-concussion syndrome in Sault Ste. Marie or some such place. Unfairly or not, the perception is there.
Even if that's not what you're all about, there's pressure for these women to keep up appearances. Ask any sociologist -- the wives of the players get very competitive.
Sticking up for this subspecies of the female gender is probably on par with defending Jennifer Love Hewitt's thespian skills, but what the hell.
What people don't get about being married to a pro athlete, or being the child of one, is how all aspects of family life are held hostage by the sports thing.
Getting to the top in hockey, or the Big Three team sports in the U.S., takes a single-mindedness that pushes out the other aspects of a quiet, normal life. The men who get there need to be self-absorbed, and the aspects of contemporary fatherhood usually are left to their so-called "trophy wives," who often have to fill the role of both parents.
For the kids, especially the male children, there's the burden of living up to the old man's legacy. How many stories have you read about an athlete's kid who went off the rails somewhere?
If the Carolina Hurricanes are enough of a bunch of Sensitive New Age Guys to realize the sacrifices their immediate families make so they can play hockey without what athletes always file under the heading of "Distractions," that's a feather in their cap. It's not as much the wives' triumph as the husbands', but they are part of it.
This is just a post-modern spin on the late, great Harold Ballard's take on the '72 Canada-USSR hockey series, when Team Canada rallied to win -- but only after their significant others were allowed to join them: "The wives came over with mattresses strapped to their back, and the guys got the sex over with and went right to work."
It wasn't Phil Esposito's leadership or Paul Henderson's last-minute heroics, or Bobby Clarke busting Valery Kharlamov's ankle. It was having the women there.
To sum up, anyone who would see having the players' significant others on the ice for the Cup presentation as unnecesssary clutter ... well, let's hope the rest of your general point of view is a little more removed from the Stone Age.
OTHER BUSINESS
- Near the top of the to-do list today was to get Scott Carefoot's take on the Raptors dealing for Rasho Nesterovic. Highlights include Scott pointing out the the notoriously soft Nesterovic was taken fewer free throws in his entire career than Chris Bosh did in all of last season.
Carefoot's other trenchant insight is that with this trade probably is a a signal Andrea Bargnani will be the Raptors' top pick, since, in his words, the trade "cleared out two guys who could potentially cut into Bargnani's playing time. Like I've been saying for a while, the only way to stop Sam Mitchell from over-playing Matt Bonner was to trade the guy." - Deadspin has offered a list of epithets that Ozzie Guillen could have thrown at Chicago columnist Jay Mariotti. Personal fave here is "Knobshine."
- Not to get all navel-gazey, but Out of Left Field has been drowning in a glass case of emotion around here in the past 24 hours:
- Syrupy about Carlos Delgado;
- Melancholy (in my own smart-assed way) about the end of Bonner's "Toronto period";
- Rather smarmy about Keith Hernandez;
- Downright snarky about José Theodore and Paris Hilton.
- There's a follow-up to the Hernandez/Eddie Vedder saga from Michael Malone at B.C. Beat. Vedder has a body of solo work, although Malone talked to his cousin who's a music writer and he surmised that Hernandez was "probably talking out of his ass."
That's all for now. If you watch the NHL awards tonight, you officially need a life. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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4 comments:
Interesting perspective. Usually I'm not one to stick up for trophy wives of any sort, but you made some good points there. However, what about the ones who shove the kids off to the nanny while they work out 5 hours a day to keep their figures? That's usually what I think of when I consider players' wives.
Are you saying that ability to stay trim isn't some marvel of genetics? :)
Where are the pictures of these trophy wives?
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