Hockey Hall of Fame awards engenders spit and drizzle from an unlikely source
By terrance gavan - PTE Managing Editor
Okay I get it.
 |
| Sorry for the pic Rosie. From her Guelph Mercury days. For a beautiful story by Rosie Click Here: http://news.guelphmercury.com/opinions/article/266364 Dynamite piece! |
A terminally bright and wonderfully talented columnist, she cut her teeth in sports and has moved forward to produce eye-popping correspondence from some of the world’s hot spots.
Her reportage from the gawker backdrop of the Afghanistan elections was gutsy, edgy and raw.
I like Rosie. She’s a formidable talent.
I have always been drawn to her sports writing, simply because she’s a stretched envelope in a twitter-cheep, dumb-downed world.
Cantankerous when she needs to be. Seldom reclusive with her opinions.
No surprise then that she was front and center in the Star’s coverage of the induction of the first women – Angela James and Cammi Granato - to the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday (Nov 8) night.
That Rosie was a bit less than genteel or politically correct in her assessment of the landmark event was de rigueur.
“The first woman to have her name engraved on a Stanley Cup was Marguerite Norris” writes DiManno. “The year was 1954 and her Detroit Red Wings had just won the NHL championship. Ditto the next year.”
Norris was the eldest daughter of deceased owner James Norris and oversaw the Wings until a palace coup removed her.
“If any female deserves recognition by the Hockey Hall of Fame — and I’m not convinced that moment has arrived, despite Monday night’s induction of (James and Granato) as estrogen trailblazers enshrined in the Yonge St. tabernacle — it should probably have been Marguerite in some builder or executive category,” says DiManno.
“I mean, this appears more a socially engineered exercise in smashing gender barriers than rewarding sublimely skilled players whose careers reached superlative heights of grandeur. There are plenty of Olympic and world hockey squad gold medalists, male division, who’ll never get so much as a sniff at Hall selection.”
And so what’s your point Rosie?
The fact that male players are stronger, faster and more famous than their female counterparts like Granato, James, or Hayley Wichenheiser, should have no bearing on eligibility in the Hall of Fame.
For a time the NHL beancounters didn’t allow players named Valeri (Kharelemov) and Vladislav (Tretiak) a spot at the altar.
That changed because demographics – goofy gob-smacked xenophobe Don Cherry notwithstanding – demanded change.
Rosie - if you can wiggle your way to the end of this extremely tangential sally forth to circular and cockeyed logic - concludes that entitlement programs for women’s sports have muddied the waters.
“There is a world of difference between recreational sports, which should always be open to everybody, and elite competition that aspires to greatness,” says Rosie. “That quality isn’t there yet for women’s hockey. And the Hall of Fame is no country for old broads whose only claim to fame is that they played a man’s game, feminized.”
And boy, am I glad that she wrote that; and not me.
The stark implication being that Canada’s women’s team is a basement rental in the grand scheme.
I met Hayley Wickenheiser some years back, and don’t fancy my chances in a straight up, no-holds barred donnybrook. On or off ice.
So Hayley. If you’ve got future plans for Ms DiManno, please let me know. Have camera; will travel.
And of course DiManno is dead wrong.
I was listening to a full phalanx of young female hockey players reacting to the Hall of fame news on CBC radio last week.
Young girls who have no aspirations to play in a Stanley Cup.
But young girls with some heady dreams to follow Granato’s and James’s footsteps to a spot on the national team.
And many girls who now have aspirations to follow their own heroes to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Why?
Well, simple really.
Because now, it’s possible.
Years ago Jackie Robinson had a dream.
He and Branch Rickey paved the way for dreamers.
It’s a Hockey Hall of Fame.
I didn’t get the memo Rosie.
You know the one.
That memo that says – “Hockey Hall of Fame – No women please.”
More apropos of nothing at all, but a point that I find particularly salient in light of this Rosie DiManno snuggle.
Our very own Scotty Morrison – a Highlander - is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
And he never once dangled down a left wing to score a Stanley Cup winner.
He was a referee for god’s sake!
A referee Rosie!
Really!
They let half-blind, doddering old weezers into the Hall of Fame!
John D’Amico, Andy Van Hellemond, Ray Scapinello, Red Storey, and Neil Armstrong.
Roise, oh Rosie.
If referees … why not women?
How can I place this in its proper perspective?
Ah yes. Don Koharski.
A referee.
Once reprimanded by Jim ‘The Witless’ Schoenfield with Churchillian high-dudgeon in a corridor scrum.
“Yeah? Yeah?” said Schoenny to Sir Don the Rotund.
“Go have another donut, ya’ fat pig!”
Don Koharski … not in the Hall of Fame.
But, clomping around in the large muddle of Rosie’s lethargic logic and somewhat neolithic puddle-jump.
I rest my case.
Chicks with sticks rock!
No comments:
Post a Comment