Thursday, May 8, 2008

Calling A Spade, A Spade

Jerry Del Colliano at Fox Sports has this great article on Pittsburgh's own diving sensation Sidney Crosby...

"Meanwhile, over in the Rangers-Penguins second-round series, anyone with functional eyes could see the NHL's brightest star, Sidney Crosby, flailing his arms and losing his footing at every choice opportunity to draw penalties. He often actually succeeded in fooling the most established of referees, and he wasn't the only Penguin to benefit from some dubious calls.

In the series-deciding game, Ryan Malone from the Pens clipped Chris Drury in the face and drew significant volumes of blood yet somehow no call was made and the game was lost by one goal. Conspiracy theorists start your engines, because this tomfoolery will not end when Philly and Pittsburgh square off starting this Thursday night...

...The Flyers have to know that their early season suspensions and Broad Street Bullies reputation from over 30 years ago will likely follow them into this series. Crosby will dive until some referee makes a point of calling him for it and he stops. The Flyers' second-ranked power play from the regular season could make that meaningful point with a few pucks behind Fleury if so desired...

...The refs will be looking for reasons to get Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa on the power play, and so ultimate discipline will be an absolute key to the series. If the Flyers can accomplish this, there is no reason the league shouldn't be calling PETA to report some animal abuse, because the Penguins can be beaten."

...I guess there's still some members of the hockey media who can't be bought by Bettman. Great article by Del Colliano.

...the thing that gets you so pissed off at Crosby is that the guy doesn't need to do it. He's a great player.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the thing that gets you so pissed off at Crosby is that the guy doesn't need to do it. He's a great player.

Yup, totally agree.