Little Gary Bettman has taken Octogate a step further. As John Niyo points out, he’s now stationed an off-ice official at the Joe’s ice entrance to prevent Al Sobotka from even touching an Octopus, much less swing it.
Last game, as you’ll remember, Sobotka waited and waited for the linesmen to do his old job for him—there’s a skill to it, they discovered—then after they brought the octopus to him, he swung it in the tunnel, and the fans roared as the JLA jumbotron showed him twirling in exile.
Saturday, Van Massenhoven was there to make sure that didn’t happen, apparently. The first octopus was picked up by Avs rookie Cody McLeod, who taunted the Wings’ bench with his catch and then hurled it over the visitors’ bench and into the crowd. But the two splats that followed at the other end of the ice—a message to the NHL front office, I’d say—were scooped up by linesmen, who then passed them down the chain of command, bypassing Sobotka.
Pathetic. A little issue taken on by a little man.
10K per Sobotka incident is the going fine. I think I heard somewhere that Mike Ilitch is worth more than 8 trillion dollars, 6 trillion after taxes.
Mike, send the league a check. Pre-paid fines. Get Sobotka on the ice after every history-laden toss of the Octopus. Al, do your thing. Twirl that bastard like Darren Garcia with a baton. If a punk-ass Dive can pick one up, throw it in the crowd, wearing rubber gloves as a sign of pre-meditation? No fine there, of course.
Ilitch is already an icon in Detroit. If he tells Bettman to stick this issue up his ass? An even bigger hero.
Rubber gloves, eh? Gary Bettman continues to piss me off. Swing away in the next one Al!
Posted by John in Austin from Austin, Texas on 04/27 at 12:28 PM