Canucks & Beyond
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In Defense of Dany Heatley (sort of)
by Alanah McGinley on 07/02/09 at 03:32 PM ET
Comments (11)
One thing I was struck by yesterday as speculation unfolded on various signings, is that hockey fans and journalists are often very willing to believe the worst things about hockey players, and usually without any substantial confirmation that those things are true.
The Dany Heatley drama appears to be a grand example of this. Ask nearly any fan today what he thinks of Mr. Heatley and odds are he’ll tell you that the guy is a lying sack of waste who screwed over his team for greed and some kind of internal drive to subject the world to his brand of pure evil.
Here’s one comment found on this website yesterday…
I think I can say, without Hyperbole, that Heatley is worse than Hitler.
...maybe even Yashin.
Well, at least Senators’ fans can still muster a sense of humor. Nontheless, most of the rhetoric floating around seems to go off the charts.
And why? Well, the justification for this is clear, we’re told. First, Heatley went public with his desire to leave Ottawa. Next, he turned down a possible escape trade to Edmonton, making the situation infinitely worse.
However, being that I’m willing to give Heatley the benefit of the doubt, I’m also willing to believe in at least the possibility that there were other factors at play in the choices he’s made in the last few weeks. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that a goalie named Ray Emery was in the hot seat, getting blamed for all the destruction around him as his once-mighty Senators took an abrupt and unexplainable plummet into the crapper. And back then, everyone whispered all sorts of unsubstantiated and shocking gossip blaming Emery for the team’s fortunes.
But then Emery left and seems to have done reasonably well since then. And yet Ottawa is still… Ottawa.
So isn’t it remotely possible—just an tiny bit possible—that the problems in Ottawa might have more to do with the Senators organization itself than any one player? If so, then maybe Dany Heatley’s comments to Darren Dreger last night, implying he felt he was getting deliberately screwed around by the team, are at least reasonable from his point of view. (Not that I have any reason to believe he was, simply that I’m no more likely to let the Senators off the hook than I am to let Heatley off for this mess.)
On the other hand, Heatley is the one that made this public and that wanted out of a contract that HE willingly signed in the first place, so he has plenty of fault in this no matter what. And I’m not saying the Senators are the “bad guys” in this drama, either. Only that we don’t necessarily know the whole story. And since Heatley strikes me as a reasonably smart guy able to anticipate he’d look pretty bad in all this, I can only assume he felt he had good reasons to take this path.
Whatever the truth, it seems likely there’s far more back-story to this than simply “Dany Heatley is an evil psycho,” and everyone’s sanctimonious moaning about how terribly Heatley has treated the “poor Ottawa Senators” strikes me as an infantile over-reaction. At the end of the day, it’s just business, and conflicts aren’t unheard of in business, especially given the amounts of money at stake.
And given that this is such a very public industry, of course it’s bound to get messy on occasion.
So until some clever and gutsy Ottawa hockey journalist writes a tell-all book about Heatley and/or the Senators, I’m reserving judgment. And hoping against hope that a decent solution to this mess can present itself, since the only people anyone should feel sorry for in all this are the Senators’ fans.
Update 1pm PT:
Here’s a good overview story of this mess from Pierre Lebrun at ESPN. He tries to look at the chaos from everyone’s point of view (and does a nice job, I thought).
Filed in: nhl general | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: dany+heatley,
Comments
But then Emery left and seems to have done reasonably well since then.
I agree. After all, he really only has just one stunt driving charge and just one fight with one of his team’s trainers.
Posted by kushiro on 07/02/09 at 03:14 PM ET
Yes, it’ll be nice to hear both sides of the story.
Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 07/02/09 at 03:21 PM ET
Hey now, I’m sure there are lots of players who are worse than Hiller.
Posted by Earl Sleek from Anaheim, CA on 07/02/09 at 03:31 PM ET
I have actually tried to look at this from Heatley’s point of view. From his perspective, he has a legit no trade clause that gives him a say in where he’s moved. He gave Ottawa a list of teams he’d accept a trade to, in good faith, hoping that they would negotiate an acceptable deal with one of those clubs.
Instead, Ottawa negotiated and accepted a trade with a club that was not on the list. They then brought the completed, and public, deal to him - forcing him to either accept it, or weild his no trade like a veto (and appearing as a monster in the process). As far as the Heatley camp is concerned, this was an unfair position for the star to be placed in.
If you could ignore everything else that’s going on in this situation, they might actually have a point.
But Heatley came out with his trade request publicly, handcuffing Murray in any attempt to trade him for value. He also did it just before the draft, right before a big bonus was due. He’s ignored the legitimate imperative the Senators had to trade him (referring to the timeline imposed by the bonus as ‘artificial’). He’s publicly defamed his coach, and prevented Murray from acting freely in free agency.
Now he’s caused what could be a PR disaster in Edmonton as well - for which Edmonton brass may choose to blame him, Ottawa management or (most likely) both.
He’s also left his fans in the lurch. While volunteering at a Canada day celebration yesterday, I got in a conversation with a mother who told me her son’s closet was filled with t-shirts, books, hockey cards, and jerseys emblazoned with the #15 and the name of his idol. Much of it purchased on the belief that Heatley was committed here for the long haul.
That kind of betrayal is hard for people to swallow.
But Ottawa fans have been here before, and we’ll take it with whatever humour we can.
Case in point - Scott Feschuk’s blog on Macleans.ca:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/07/02/dany-heatley-like-stalin-but-with-a-slightly-better-one-timer/
(apologies for the long comment)
Posted by Da lil Guy from Ottawa on 07/02/09 at 03:37 PM ET
The best option would have been for Heatley to comply with his coach’s request that he work harder at both ends of the ice. If he had done so, he would have helped both himself and the team.
As someone pointed out somewhere on the interweb (it may have been Jay Feaster on NHL Live!), if Heatley was/is looking for a soft landing in New York with the Rangers and John Tortorella, he was/is dreaming. And while nobody mentioned it specifically, he would face pretty much the same thing in San Jose. Todd McLellan—like Mike Babcock—expects his best players to be his best players in all situations.
It will be interesting to see whether Heatley is named to the Canadian Olympic team after all this drama—especially given that GM Steve Yzerman once faced a similar career crossroads and chose to do what his coach asked. Hmmm...and that seemed to work out pretty well.
IMO, Heatley has created this situation and continues to make it worse and worse. NMC or not, Ottawa is not obligated to take anything less than what they deem fair value in order to make him happy. He demanded a trade. He okayed them trying to make a deal with Edmonton. Sorry that city wasn’t at the tippy top of his wish list.
Posted by YzermanZetterberg on 07/02/09 at 04:04 PM ET
I wouldn’t say he’s pure evil or even nearly pure evil a la Dick Cheney. What I would say is that he doesn’t have a lot of foresight or sensibility in how things can unfold. As I said in my post, beggers can’t be choosers and if you’re wind up in the “begger” position, public appeals will only make it worse.
Just like Jim Balsillie, I bet Heatley would have what he wanted if he kept things quiet, respected the process, and accepted the realities of the situation.
Posted by Mike Chen on 07/02/09 at 06:33 PM ET
I wouldn’t say Heatley is evil at all. He’s just wrong.
Posted by yzermanzetterberg on 07/03/09 at 01:33 AM ET
The main problem, as outlined in the Feschuk piece, is that he’s just done such a piss-poor job of explaining himself to Senators fans. He could have done any number of things to cushion the blow of all this, but so far, he’s done nothing from him.
Only a letter to the editor from his family’s wacky neighbour.
Really.
Posted by Josh from Fort St. John, BC on 07/03/09 at 06:05 PM ET
Well, he seems to have a history of “changing scenery” when things don’t go his way.
* Jumped from a poor Wisconsin NCAA team to play with Atlanta. This was his right, but many people associated with Wisconsin felt this was a poor way to move on his part.
* During the lockout, jumped from SC Bern (Nationalliga A) to Ak Bars Kazan (RSL), abandoning his contract with Bern.
* After the lockout, demanded to be released from his contract in Atlanta. Upon refusal from Waddell to release him (effectively making Heatley a free agent, and Atlanta would have received no compensation), he demanded a trade. Many people here understood why he wanted to leave, but felt the way he left was classless. In case people wonder why Atlanta fans boo him, it is because of the way he left
* Has now, very publicly, demanded a trade from Ottawa
From my point of view, Heatley has earned the ire of many fans across N. America and the world. Sorry Alanah:
Posted by Alan from Atlanta on 07/07/09 at 12:21 PM ET
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About Canucks & Beyond
Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.
She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.
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So until some clever and gutsy Ottawa hockey journalist writes a tell-all book about Heatley and/or the Senators, I’m reserving judgment
Don’t hold your breath, the guy would have to be retired and have no connection to the team to have the guts to write that story (or the woman).
Posted by Pension Plan Puppets on 07/02/09 at 02:49 PM ET