Yahoo Says Gregory Campbell Playing Hurt Is Everything That Is Wrong With Hockey
Yahoo – Oh, the plaudits for Gregory Campbell after he broke his leg blocking a shot and stayed on the ice. So brave. So meritorious. Gutting out a broken fibula and even trying to poke-check the point man. It doesn’t get tougher than that. It also doesn’t get stupider than that. I don’t know what it is in hockey’s DNA that makes this kind of thing — both the infrastructure that led Campbell to play that way, and that he did it at all — praiseworthy, rather than brow-furrowing. Well, I do. It’s the macho ideal that guys aren’t supposed to act as though being hurt hurts. You gotta gut it out. It doesn’t matter if you’re worried about a pick or a stick or a skate taking out one of your eyes permanently. Or if you don’t want to see guys get tangled up and crash scarily into the boards trying to leg out an icing call. Or if a broken leg has ended several professional athletes’ careers. What’s the rest of a 29-year-old non-superstar’s career versus the so-called glory of 60 seconds of ineffectual standing around on a broken fibula? That kind of stuff shouldn’t make you a legend. It should make you another sad case in a sport that pushes participants to the edge of reason. But that’s not how it is. Hockey is for tough guys only.
According to Rear Admiral this is this writer’s shtick. To just say the most ridiculous shit possible which is solely designed to enrage people. Like not only is the entire hockey world, but the entire free world is basically saying that Gregory Campbell just reaffirmed everybody’s faith in humanity, the will to win and competitive spirit. So naturally this idiot has to say Campbell is the antichrist now just to sell a few newspapers. Therefore I’m not going to spend a ton of time dissecting this. I just wanted to make one quick point though.
Anybody who thinks a guy can have a slapshot shatter his leg and can think to themselves that they need to get up because that’s what hockey players do or because it’s some hockey code in real time is a moron of epic proportion. Gregory Campbell got up because he’s a tough SOB. Something primal in him told him his job wasn’t done despite the pain. That he couldn’t let down his comrades. That he had to fight till the end. That inner spirit is something he was born with. I don’t care what hockey code says or whether the refs blew the whistle or not. A pussy stays down. A warrior gets up. It doesn’t matter what sport or situation Campbell is in. It’s in his DNA to get up in that situation. Playing hockey doesn’t automatically make guys tough. The guys who play it are inherently tough which creates the culture. Not vice versa.