Give him hell

My two cents: it's logical and utterly sane to hate what Chris Pronger did to the Oilers. Does it still really matter why he left? Yes, it actually does because the last time I checked it was the Edmonton fans who, after suffering like the rest of us through a lockout so the owners could get their heads out of their asses, helped pay for Chris to have the pleasure of a job on that team. You think a team that plays with no paying fan base for home games - like, ironically, the Blues? - would be committing a large chunk of their cap for multiple years to just anyone? This isn’t baseball where this sort of thing is tolerated.

Someone needs to explain to Chris that NHL players do not have their responsibilities start and stop with the game buzzer. I'm not talking about community outreach stuff, more like an unspoken agreement that the marquee guys, who command these massive salaries, owe a bit more to the team that employs them because the fans are arguably the stakeholders who in great part fund them. If a player wants to leave, explain yourself like the professional you are and leave. Fans can accept that sort of thing because even if we hate the reason. But if you're not going to explain yourself and, instead, hide behind a sense of ill-deserved privilege, you deserve every syllable of venom raining down on you and every rumor that connects you to everything from boning TV reporters to causing global warming.

What do I mean by ill-deserved privilege? Something like this:

"I'm not going to degrade myself and my family and substantiate or deny any rumors," Pronger said. "It's not what's going to happen here." He made no apologies. Asked if he should have canceled a long-planned Mexican vacation to stay in town and explain his request, he said he had no regrets over his actions. He said he had hoped the matter would stay quiet and saw no reason to change his plans. "I've got a life to live," he said. - LA Times

I read this as him basically saying “Yeah, to all you people who supported me by buying tickets and jerseys, by being nice to me when you saw me in town and generally supported me for the year I was here and now want a reason why I just up and left with no reason? You don’t deserve one. I owe you nothing.” Hey Chris, fuck you. You can't have it both ways by getting the opportunity to hold a honored slot on a team and act like a selfish child without giving a good reason at the same time. You skipped town, you permitted the rumors to fly about by your own actions, and you're the one hiding behind a facade of being a family man now? Please.

The point of my rant being this: it's a bad day when Pavel Bure shows more of a spine sulking out of Vancouver then Pronger did escaping during the night from Edmonton. So, for one night (and one night only!), I'm an Oilers fan. Go Oil and make his night a living hell.