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The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:24 am
by cprice12
We didn't have a thread on this...
What is everyone's thoughts on it?
For those not up on it...
Hockey fans made John Scott an All-Star, and the NHL made him pay for it
And we're all to blame.
John Scott isn't going to the 2016 NHL All-Star Game.
A few months ago, that sentence wouldn't have carried any weight to it. Of course he isn't going! Scott is a 33-year-old grinder, known mostly for face-punching, big (and sometimes controversial) hits and limited ice time. He's spent eight years in the league and amassed 11 points. He's played in 11 games this season.
On the grand scale of the sport of hockey, John Scott is a nobody.
But dammit, if he didn't become a somebody to me over the last few months.
To spice up the stale All-Star Game, the NHL overhauled the format into a 3-on-3 tournament between divisional teams. The league was so excited to drum up fan interest that they opened the fan vote to any player they wished to nominate. The result was unsurprising. Because the Internet can't handle things, everyone started voting for Scott.
Was there some meanness involved here? Of course. If John Scott was good, then voting for him at all wouldn't be a story. But John Scott is bad, so watching him skyrocket to the top of the vote totals was admittedly hilarious. The All-Star Game is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and so, of course, it became the target of a joke. Scott just happened to be the punchline.
Every ounce of the NHL's displeasure was obvious. "As long as voting is legitimate, we will honor the results," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said through gritted teeth as the league simply stopped promoting the fan vote to quell the rising Scott tide. Scott himself didn't seem to enjoy the attention. And why would he? While we were all pointing out how dumb the All-Star Game is, we were also making fun of him to prove it. That's uncomfortable.
But he won. And he was announced as an All-Star Game captain.
At some point, the joke morphed into something else: appreciation. I know I went through this change. Before this started, Scott was just some bruising player. But then I started finding things like this:
And it dawned on everyone: There's an actual person at stake here! You know, with a personality and feelings and everything. And before we could feel guilty about the whole voting thing, Scott himself started to come around on the idea. He has two kids and a wife who's due with twins the weekend of the All-Star Game. He could earn bonuses and a shot at splitting $1 million if his team wins the event.
This suddenly mattered to him.
"It's one of those things where I never thought I'd be able to get to go, so when I found out it was a possibility my family was like, ‘you have to go. It's going to be so cool,'" Scott said in a phone conversation with Puck Daddy last week. "They're excited for it — probably more excited than I am. It'll be one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime' experiences."
An embarrassing joke All-Star vote campaign had become a feel-good story for a hard-working, good guy and his family. Everybody wins.
That makes what happened on Friday so tragic.
Scott was traded to the Montreal Canadiens, who immediately stashed him in the AHL and said they weren't going to call him back up. He's ineligible for the All-Star Game now. And everything about it was so transparent.
https://twitter.com/TSNBobMcKenzie/status/688117234556735488
Add that to the fact that the trade was announced on a late Friday afternoon (universally understood as the ideal time to dump bad breaking news) and it's not hard to connect the dots. The NHL wanted Scott out of the All-Star Game, and they got their wish.
Family uprooted, experiences and contractual benefits sacrificed days before Scott's wife gives birth just to ... what? Ensure the sanctity of the All-Star Game? Get higher-profile players in? Keep the league from being embarrassed?
Too late on that last one. This is embarrassing for everyone, really. Sure, the campaign turned from semi-malicious intent to something meaningful at some point. The end result was still the same: John Scott and his family paid real-life consequences for our Internet fun.
So we, as fans, share some of the blame. But nobody is more at fault here than the NHL, for a myriad of reasons. The first is obvious. If you're going to create a system that creates a situation like this you're beholden to stick with it no matter what. Suffer the consequences, fix it next year. By all accounts, they already were. This muscle flexing was unnecessary.
Scott's removal from the equation confirms what fans were trying to prove with the vote anyway: The fan vote doesn't matter. The bottom line, and the marquee players that bring in eyes and cash do. Whatever legitimacy the NHL All-Star Game had left is now sabotaged beyond repair.
Most importantly, the NHL failed Scott. They took a surprisingly heartwarming moment and story for the sport and obliterated it out of pettiness and pride for a fake hockey game, causing real-life consequences for a low-paid player and his growing family. Fans may have started this debacle, but the NHL made sure they looked like the villains by the end of it.
It's callous. It's humorless. It makes my head spin and my heart hurt.
And it was all over a stupid All-Star Game.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:53 am
by abc789987
Has the NHL actually come out and said that Scott isn't playing in the ASG now? If you check the official allstar game webpage it still has him as being the captain.
Who says he's ineligible to play? I can't find any official rules on who's eligible or not..
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 11:22 am
by gaijin
abc789987 wrote:Has the NHL actually come out and said that Scott isn't playing in the ASG now? If you check the official allstar game webpage it still has him as being the captain.
Who says he's ineligible to play? I can't find any official rules on who's eligible or not..
It will be interesting to see what the "Official Rule" says on who is eligible or not, but I'm sure it has something to do with requiring a player to be on an NHL roster, not an AHL roster.
Regardless, what a dick move by the NHL. What's the harm in Scott playing in the ASG?
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 11:23 am
by Fradi
Disgusting how the NHL are handling this. And seriously, who gives a shit if there's one player who wasnt supposed to participate, it would've been fun, and maybe one reason to tune in for a few minutes to an otherwise meaningless game. In hindsight, fans should've voted for only obscure players and goons, and see how the league gets it fixed. I'm sorry for Scott, dont know much about him, but he surely doesnt deserve this...
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 11:59 am
by dmiles2186
Fradi wrote:Disgusting how the NHL are handling this. And seriously, who gives a shit if there's one player who wasnt supposed to participate, it would've been fun, and maybe one reason to tune in for a few minutes to an otherwise meaningless game. In hindsight, fans should've voted for only obscure players and goons, and see how the league gets it fixed. I'm sorry for Scott, dont know much about him, but he surely doesnt deserve this...
Agreed.
First Rory Fitzpatrick (I think that was his name), Zemgus Girgenserasejraernwersafen last year, now John Scott.
If the NHL were smart enough, maybe they'd have a protocol for this sort of thing alreayd.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 12:42 pm
by SamJunior
I would sacrifice a 7th round pick to trade for John Scott and then call him up, just to say a big fat (Frank) you to the NHL. Hell, I would trade Brouwer straight up for him...
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:14 pm
by glen a richter
I agree with Don Cherry's take. The fans screwed up a number of peoples lives by voting in a guy as a joke.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:24 pm
by ecbm
Burnside's article on it at espn was the last nail in that guy's coffin as a hockey commentator if you ask me. Let the NHL off the hook and in fact included the line:
Given that he had no business being at the All-Star Game to begin with
WHAT?
OK, NHL-so the fan vote is a meaningless gimmick. You know what? The people who voted for Scott knew that and in fact while mainly just being sarcastic, to at least some extent pointing that out was the goal.
Let's recap.
NHL insists on all-star game despite most of their fans being absolutely apathetic about it and actually probably a plurality would like to see it eliminated. Check.
To drum up interest from said uninterested fans, the NHL allows fans to vote on who goes to the ASG. Check.
Fans, doing what the NHL has suggested-nay, urged them-to do, select...John Scott. Check.
The NHL is embarrassed-not that it shouldn't be but wow, the relative grace with which Scott and the league dealt with this situation. It's unreal. Anyway, check.
The league taps a couple teams to make a ridiculous trade sending him out of the conference. Oh, you don't think that happened? Well let me check my BS detector...a failed prospect for a goon who is immediately parked in the AHL? That's the priority for these teams? Yeah, I'm getting a reading...
And why? To protect the dignity of a game...that's an exhibition anyway...that isn't real hockey...that's been even further busted down to a 3v3 tourney...because the league is flailing to make it seem relevant or entertaining-EVEN TO HOCKEY FANS...
Good job, Team Bettman!
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:25 pm
by ecbm
glen a richter wrote:I agree with Don Cherry's take. The fans screwed up a number of peoples lives by voting in a guy as a joke.
Meh. Weak. The fans have little power. The NHL and its clubs have great power. But I guess there's a time-honored tradition of blaming the lowest guy on the pole.
That said, yeah, I wouldn't have voted sarcastically. I've never voted at all because I don't care about the ASG and because it seems like a real stupid way to pick all stars.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 2:54 pm
by dmiles2186
The problem is: Is the game a popularity contest? Is it supposed to be important?
The league is treating it as both here. You can vote players in....except the ones that are deemed unworthy. But how can a player be unworthy if it's just an exhibition? My vote would be to do away with the all star game. No one gives two deuces about it.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:48 pm
by Kerfuffle
He's a goon. I hated him when we signed him and I was thrilled when we got rid of him. He cannot skate nor play hockey. He is just a large man with a huge arm reach so he can punch others without getting punched as much and that makes him an 'enforcer'.
The voting was clearly a joke by the fans to throw a wrench into the process by voting a guy in that was completely ridiculous to begin with. If anything Scott should feel ashamed - this was the equivalent of a bunch of high school kids voting the ugliest girl in school the Homecoming Queen. The fact that Scott actually felt like he should go tells me one of two things - that he's either too stupid to figure out he's been duped OR that he wants to go to get the bonus money and paid incentives. The league did the right thing and buried him in the AHL. Now he can't go - good riddance.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 4:10 pm
by cprice12
Here's my take...
I didn't vote for him because I don't care to see him play in the All Star game.
However, he was voted in fair and square...deserving or not...joke or not. He was voted in by the rules...fair and square.
He should be in Nashville and be the captain of his team because that is how the fans voted. Period.
If the NHL didn't want this kind of thing to happen, then they shouldn't have allowed fans to pick any NHL player to vote on. They should have provided a limited list of players. But they didn't do that. And the probably should have, because like the article mentioned...this is the internet. If it can find a way to screw with the system, by God it will...and will it ever.
The Coyotes and Canadiens are also to blame for this as well, orchestrating this trade to "get rid of" Scott so he is ineligible.
This isn't the fans fault. They voted him in by the rules. People who blame the fans are blaming the wrong people. Blame the NHL, the Coyotes and the Canadiens. They are the ones who couldn't handle the voting results and decided to uproot a family to squash the idea that Scott would be an All Star captain.
Probert was an All Star one year. Who the hell cares? It's an exhibition where players are goofing around and having fun. It doesn't mean anything.
The NHL really screwed this up...but there is still time to right the wrong.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 5:18 pm
by Oaklandblue
Let's be honest: The ASG is nothing more than a PR stunt. It's purpose, I would imagine, is to be used as a sort of gateway to bring people who don't normally follow hockey, into it. There are people who idolize the top players in the league and they're the ones who follow it. There are some who idolize the mid-range players, like myself. And there are the rest of the people, who don't know how to play or even spell hockey, who would look up to a guy like John Scott and his story. His story alone buys viewers and interest. It's a story of a guy with a great deal of character who loves the game and let's be honest, if this was 15 years ago this guy would be big news. Things have changed.
The NHL, by doing this, has proven without a shadow of a doubt that they rig things. So when I look at a team that is loaded, like ours, and is constantly running into the same issues, no matter what they are, it's obviously rigged. Anyone who wants to argue that now needs to pay attention. This is single-handedly the worst thing the NHL could have done, regardless if the vote was a joke or not. This loses them face and anything that comes up from hereonin will be questioned and ridiculed and I'm sure they will lose fans due to this.
The saddest part about it is, in the format the ASG is in now, what really is the harm of letting John Scott play ONE game? How many minutes did Brian Elliott play when he was named an All-Star in the ASG? Five minutes? Three? One?
The harm the NHL has caused by doing this and getting the Habs and the Yotes to conspire on it, has done immesurable damage to the league's integrity with disregarding a fan vote, the ability to influence two teams with a trade ("Habs Bergy" should be fired just for that trade. The Habs are small enough as it is, all they did was make the Yotes stronger) and the "Future Considerations" I am sure the Habs got from that trade (translation: What else are going to rig to pay the Habs back for this and who gets screwed over in the process?)
Is this really a league you'd trust? I don't.
This is far from over.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 5:41 pm
by Kerfuffle
guys this was a joke by the fans and the league had every right to step in as the adult in the room and fix it. Yes the all star game itself is a joke but I still want to see the top players in it and not some goon that Internet trolls thought would be great fodder to mess with the process. scott should have the right thing and graciously bow out but since he insisted on attending the game the league had no choice but to step in and bury him in the AHL.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 5:53 pm
by cprice12
Kerfuffle wrote:guys this was a joke by the fans and the league had every right to step in as the adult in the room and fix it. Yes the all star game itself is a joke but I still want to see the top players in it and not some goon that Internet trolls thought would be great fodder to mess with the process. scott should have the right thing and graciously bow out but since he insisted on attending the game the league had no choice but to step in and bury him in the AHL.
Or...or...the NHL could have honored the actual vote of the fans.
This sets a very bad precedent in that your vote doesn't matter unless you vote for who everyone else should be voting for according to the NHL.
Am I supposed to tell my kids that they shouldn't vote for Ryan Reaves, because if he does happen to get enough votes, the NHL won't let him play anyway?
So, how bad is too bad to not get to play in the All Star Game if you do happen to get enough votes? What is the line? And according to who? Who makes that call? This is stupid.
Some great players have made the all star games having some pretty shitty seasons. So why were they let in? Why did they get to play? They didn't "deserve it". Why did Probert get to play when he was voted in?
(Frank) that noise. If the NHL lets us vote for anyone we want, then they need to honor whoever we pick. Period.
And I didn't vote for Scott. But he got enough votes to be voted in, and that's all that need to be said.
We're going to have a good chat about this on our podcast tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to the discussion/debate.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:38 pm
by crazyhorse
Hey, can we get a thumbs up/down button on all submissions?
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:04 pm
by Oaklandblue
Kerfuffle wrote:guys this was a joke by the fans and the league had every right to step in as the adult in the room and fix it. Yes the all star game itself is a joke but I still want to see the top players in it and not some goon that Internet trolls thought would be great fodder to mess with the process. scott should have the right thing and graciously bow out but since he insisted on attending the game the league had no choice but to step in and bury him in the AHL.
It's not about a game, it's about integrity. You can vote for who you want, John Scott was voted in. The reasons don't matter.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:28 pm
by Winning Unlimited
The real problem is there isn't an explosive player in the Pacific Division at the level of Ovechkin, Jagr, Kane. Who gets pushed in the division? Perry, Gaudreau, Hall, Doughty? Maybe if McDavid wasn't broken, it would be different.
Just let John Scott play. If he does play and scores or plays well, the NHL would look really bad.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:28 pm
by Kerfuffle
cprice12 wrote:Or...or...the NHL could have honored the actual vote of the fans.
And that's where I challenge it - I don't believe this was ever a real vote by the fans. Rather these were people just trying to muck up the process and make a mockery of the thing. Had the NHL done nothing the discussion would be about what a joke the NHL is to let a guy like Scott play. If "fans" are going to make a mockery of the game and selection process then the commissioner and league have to correct that wrong.
Re: The John Scott Situation
Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:32 pm
by dmiles2186
Kerfuffle wrote:cprice12 wrote:Or...or...the NHL could have honored the actual vote of the fans.
And that's where I challenge it - I don't believe this was ever a real vote by the fans. Rather these were people just trying to muck up the process and make a mockery of the thing. Had the NHL done nothing the discussion would be about what a joke the NHL is to let a guy like Scott play. If "fans" are going to make a mockery of the game and selection process then the commissioner and league have to correct that wrong.
I agree with you that the fans didn't have the best intentions with their vote, but the point is that the NHL has it set up so that players can be voted in. If the fans want to vote in John Scott, regardless of intention, then he should be voted in. The NHL can't have it both ways. Either the NHL who controls players on the ballot or you do away with the fan vote. You can't tell a group they can vote players in...except that guy! Can't do it! And this isn't the first time it's happened either. The NHL should be able to handle this by now.