Hot Dog or Hot Commotity

Hockey players do not do choreographed celebration

Big talk today about Brendan Gallagher and PK.  Both worthy of consideration when selecting a future Capetian of the Montreal Canadians.

The NHL has never seen a player with the skill, personality and drive like PK.  His formative idols were not hockey players. He is not doing anything different than NFL, NBA. tennis, golf and other athletes have done for decades. The rub is he is the first hockey player. 99 had the deals but he was not a hot dog, and the worst self promoter in history, Mario and Sid had/have little interest, or frankly little time for hustling self promoters.

I agree with the Gallagher's of the world. The crest on the front comes first, not the number on the back. Montreal is never going to let a player become bigger than the club, and thats why he was traded. The only way PFK would have worked in Montreal is if he was treated like Karlson is is Ottawa. They were not going to do that. Eric Karlson does not promote himself. Thats the code. The NHL is built upon codes. Violate the code and your going to be like Paul Henderson. Score the greatest goal in Hockey history, but never see your name in the hockey hall of fame, thats the bottom line.

Sports is a bidness, its a fact, no matter how hard you try to convince your head to leave your heart behind. The code is written to benefit the NHL, not the Montreal Canadiens, not the Managers, not the hockey players who at the end of the day are just contract labour. 

PK is only playing the real game. Dont blame the player, blame the game. In a world of sports the teams would all be owned by the cities they play for.  Growing the sport would be a second thought before preserving the integrity of the game. Ken Dryden would be the lawyer in charge. The subsidy for losing cities would have the shelf life of Celine Dion's frozen Swartz.

The fact that most including myself are confused by PK shows that we are still held by the masters chains.