Monday, November 17, 2008

Oh those Habs fans...

from supporting headshots from behind to supporting unfairly stuffing the all-star ballots, is there anything they won't do to blame it all on Toronto?

Dave Stubbs wrote a piece about the ballot stuffing incident calling it an "embarrassment". Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. This is hardly as embarrassing as losing your playoff spot to the Maple Leafs after giving up a two goal lead in the last game of the season. (and then losing that spot to the Islanders...)

In all seriousness for a second, the All Star Game is a joke, as is the entire balloting system. The fact that Habs fans exposed it for a sham is lessened by the fact that it was already a sham putting two guys who have never played a game this season and a goalie who is second-worst in the league onto the ballot. Honestly, if all 6 Habs players made it onto the ice I couldn't likely care less, it's popcorn entertainment and almost fitting for their (fake) centennial celebrations.

But what is embarrassing is trying to pass off behaviour clearly not in the spirit of the arrangement as having "pride" in the "tradition" and "glory" of your team like so many of the commenters on that article seem to want to do.

If Canadiens fans had managed to vote all six of their candidates onto the ballot through an organized and spirited campaign, that would be something worthy of pride. If they had done that, it would have cemented their place as the hockey city in the greatest hockey country in the world, and cemented them as the best fans in the league.

Artificially stuffing the ballot via an auto-voter doesn't show pride, it shows that Habs fans are:
a) Insecure about their hometown guys being able to make it onto the starting lineup.
b) Arrogant enough to believe that they deserve a starting lineup of Canadiens without having to organize or work for it.

It's the All Star game after all, so who cares? Apparently Canadiens fans, both far too much and far too little.

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