By Jacob Saltiel, Special to All Habs Hockey Magazine
“A fire is quietly burning below the surface for the Montreal Canadiens defenceman, and it is being fuelled by a desire to answer his critics. Not only is Subban out to prove that he’s an elite player, he’s also eager to show he can be a leader and an exemplary teammate.” — Chris Johnston, Sportsnet
MONTREAL, QC. — In an excellent interview written by Chris Johnston for Sportsnet, P.K. Subban discussed his thoughts on the media coverage of his career, his team, and his goals for both. Let me recommend this article as mandatory reading for Canadiens fans. As covered elsewhere on Bob Gainey’s Stare, certain facets of Canadian sports coverage turned a dispassionate and routine feature of pro sports into a spectacle befitting tabloid coverage. All that was missing was unsubstantiated gossip about Subban and Marc Bergevin chucking hands at each other over a mysterious woman to turn a matter of money and a signature into three act dramedy. What seems to have gone on bears little resemblance to the reportage.
Who remembers the farcical coverage now?
Pernell Karl Subban, that’s who. To wit:
“It’s very easy now for people to speak positively about our team and about my situation because of the way we’ve played this season,” Subban told sportsnet.ca during a candid one-on-one conversation Thursday. “But I don’t forget the people that said that I’ll never play in a Habs jersey again or that I’m selfish or that I’m greedy or that I’m confused. I’m thinking I’m a lot better than what I actually am.”
Then and now, such imputations were overblown and unfair. The issues raised in this coverage were the following:
1) The Montreal Canadiens hate P.K. Subban.
and
2) P.K. Subban is selfish and hates his new GM.
To address these silly claims in order:
1) Every employed person in North America likely has at least one co-worker they do not enjoy working with. Whether they work part-time or full-time, most people somehow remain productive while working in close proximity with all manner of individuals they happen not to have as a best friend.
When this happens in sports, it seems as if people forget this simple comparison. Sure, the pervasive “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” Shakespeare sentiment, influences such thinking, but pro sports is a business. The Canadiens are not a pick-up shinny game at Jeanne Mance park between strangers or bankers. The labour force of pro sports happens to be players who have been at or near the top of every team of every level they’ve played in. There will be egos. There will be players who don’t like each other. It’s unclear whether or not this was even the case. If it was, the media failed to provide even an anonymous Habs player badmouthing Subban.
What this has to do with a player’s productivity is difficult to gauge from the fan’s perspective. An easy way to get in trouble when discussing a player’s productivity is to resort to armchair psychology- now hold that thought for later.
and
2) Why fans support the players collectively against the owners turn against an individual player when he exercises his rights to maximize his value is a mystery. As with any pro sport, players can get injured and their careers can be ended by freak accidents, hence the need to capitalize on any leverage they have at any point that they can. Media or fans who neglect this key issue may do so because of their desire to have the player in the lineup for their narratives or passion for the game, but neither of those have much to do with contract negotiation.
Now, Johnston indicates that he believes that Subban is playing with a motivating chip on his shoulder because of some of the above coverage. In Subban’s words:
“I knew that after the negotiation was over I’d be back in Montreal, and I knew that it was only the beginning of my career and not the ending, […] I was very sharp in terms of listening to what certain people had to say in the media about the organization, about Marc Bergervin [sic], about myself, about my agent, and I documented all those things.”
Certainly one way to interpret this is that throughout the game Subban is thinking about how he’s going to show that John Lu a thing or two about hockey. More likely, Subban internalized the experience for the next contract negotiation and to be mentally prepared for when Bergevin backs up the money truck on him. Notice also that Subban includes Hambergervin as someone impugned by the media. One can interpret this comment another way then, that Subban’s learned the opposite of Johnston’s interpretation. Specifically, Subban is playing without worrying at all about John Lu, Don Cherry, P.J. Stock, Reuters, or anyone who covers his life and times.
In today’s world of increasingly overbearing sports coverage*+, it may in fact be a virtue for a player to ignore that his every breath, movement, and twitch will be interpreted as proof positive of some indicator of his or her performance. Regardless of Subban’s motivation, it’s a joy to watch him play the game, and maybe that’s where the focus should always rest.
***
*Having established that simply watching the games and reading hundreds of pages of journalistic content weekly is insufficient, sports media has gone all-in and produced more and more shows that consist of camera crews following pro athletes about their lives within and without the locker room. Not only can the viewer partake in the vicarious experience of watching someone perform athletically during the gameplay, the viewer can vicariously live their lives as millionaire athletes.
+ Brief personal intrusion: I’m aware that by writing this and submitting it for posting by a public site makes me a part of this.
RIGHT ON !!!!!
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