DALLAS – It’s time for the league to step in. It’s time for Gary Bettman to order Philadelphia chairman Ed Snider and GM Bob Clarke to stop with the public character assassination of Eric Lindros.
General managers, coaches and players are gagged by the league as a matter of course, sanctioned routinely if the league’s ruling body believes the game’s integrity to be compromised by the exercise of an individual First Amendment rights.
Well, the league’s integrity is compromised by the relentless attack against Lindros and his parents, Carl and Bonnie. It is compromised by the tasteless remarks Clarke offered this week concerning No. 88’s relationship with his mother and his father, who, no matter how smothering, no matter how intrusive others may perceive them to be, are the young man’s parents for goodness sakes.
“I pity him. I feel sorry for him,” Clarke said of the man he stripped of his captaincy. “What’s it like to be 27 years old and have your mom and dad run your life?
“Can’t even go to the doctor on your own without your mom and dad coming along.”
I have news for Clarke and Snider, the holier-than-thou CEO who no doubt approved, if not ordered, the smear: children don’t cease to be your children simply because they get older and move away from home. Parents have every right to go to the doctor with their child after a concussion or a collapsed lung, wouldn’t you think? Even a child, unmarried, living alone, who is 27.
How dare they! How dare they judge!
The dysfunctional relationship between management and the team’s former captain may well have been a contributing factor to the concussion he suffered at the shoulder of Scott Stevens in Game 7 of the Eastern Finals. People who cared about Lindros’ well-being might not have allowed him to return under such heightened conditions of combat after more than two months out of uniform.
We’re told that the timing of Lindros’ return became a contentious issue within the organization, that Lindros informed the team he believed he’d be ready for Game 7 but was told that the Flyers dictated to him rather he to the Flyers. He was told to make his return in Game 6 against the Devils or not to bother returning at all.
The Flyers are on record promising to present Lindros with the $8.5 million qualifying offer prior to July 1 necessary to retain his rights. Truth is, this latest ruthless personal attack against one of the NHL’s marquee players – somehow, letters from the Lindros family accusing the team of all but trying to kill Eric after last season’s collapsed lung in Nashville last week made their way into the Philadelphia Inquirer – is designed to stop Lindros from signing it.
The last thing the Flyers want is to be obligated to Lindros, whose medical condition has reduced his trade value to next to nothing, next year. Snider and Clarke are terrified Lindros will accept the offer. Thus, they go after Lindros, they go after his parents, hoping that out of spite Lindros will decline the offer.
He won’t. He’s too smart to get sucked in. If he truly does get the offer, he’ll sign it.
A year ago, this Snider stood in his team’s locker room after a first-round loss to the Maple Leafs and all but accused the referee working the game of being on the take. Now, the Flyers embark on an ugly smear campaign against Lindros.
Bonnie and Carl Lindros are Eric’s parents, whether anyone likes it or not. They’re his parents.
It’s time for Clarke and Snider to shut up.
GLEN Sather promises that policies will change around the Rangers. And that means?
“I’m told that [Pavel] Brendl and [Jamie] Lundmark didn’t attend rookie camp last year, but that Michael York did,” the GM said this week. “Well why not? I don’t understand that. I don’t care whether players are drafted in the first round or the sixth, if they’re rookies, they’re rookies, and they’ll be treated equally.
“No free rides.”
And more from Sather, who said Brian Leetch was “gung-ho” in the wake of a 90-minute conversation by phone he’d had on Tuesday with the captain:
“I go to practice every day. I like to be around the locker room, I like to be around the players. That’s how you learn about them. And I want to be around the coaches. I coach the coaches.
“I’m going to be a big influence on these guys.”
MIKE KEENAN, victim of a steady stream of bad-mouthing throughout the league, organized or otherwise, has not received a call from any team. His agent, Rob Campbell, has advised Sather of Keenan’s interest in coaching the Rangers, though Keenan told Slap Shots he’s yet to talk with the GM.
“I always had a good relationship with Glen,” Keenan said on Friday.
But so has John Paddock, reasonably successful behind the bench in Winnipeg while competing head-on in the old Smythe Division with the Oilers, and completely successful in directing the Wolf Pack to the AHL title this season.
Unless there’s a mystery man waiting to emerge, it appears as if Paddock, soft-spoken but tough, will become the next Ranger head coach.
Question is whether Paddock, who has no direct experience with Mark Messier, will be in favor of bringing The Captain home.
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DETROIT’S assistant GM Jim Nill was set to be hired as Calgary GM, but only until he asked for $500,000, a well-placed source told Slap Shots. The Flames hired Dallas player personnel guy Craig Button. Former GM Al Coates earned $260,000 before being dismissed at the end of the year … Columbus GM Doug MacLean has conducted approximately a half-dozen telephone interviews as he seeks a head coach, with Dave Lewis and Dave King among the leading contenders for the post of sacrificial lamb.
Turns out that Mike Van Ryn, the Devils’ 1998 first-rounder out of Michigan who is seeking unrestricted free agency after leaving school to play major junior hockey, was a guest of Lou Lamoriello’s in Toronto during the series against the Maple Leafs. He was joined by his parents.
“We all had a great time together. There is nothing personal about this at all. He’s a great young man,” Lamoriello said. “I think we all know where the pressure on this grievance is coming from.”
He couldn’t mean the Players’ Association?
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FINALLY, at the end of another season, it again could not be more clear. No television outlet in the States, national or local, covers hockey with the expertise of MSG. The production is first-class, from open to close. The camera angles, the replays, the awareness of how this sport breathes and thus should be televised, all second to none.
Fact is, MSG is this country’s Hockey Night in Canada.
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