Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
Another tidbit that makes this story a bit more difficult to believe was what Warrener came out with on his first day on the Fan960. He mentioned that Regehr and him were trying to get Dion to buy more into defence, and Dion's reply would be "as long as I am scoring and making big hits, that's all I need to do" or something like that. It gives a bit of credence to the above story.. but then there is this tidbit:
Because Dion refused to get direction from either Warrener or Regehr, the two of them approached Keenan and asked him to force Dion. Keenan basically didn't take them seriously, and kept playing Dion quite a lot. Now, if it was true that Keenan didn't like Dion and wanted him traded, citing his 'two cent brain', then why give Dion that much ice? Why not heed the advice of his two defensive stalwarts and take advantage of their willingness to spend time with Dion and teach him the finer points of defending?
Too many plot holes interlaced with some truth in the OP's post for me to really take it seriously. I am sure Dion was a bit polarizing, even in the locker room, but I imagine it wasn't at that level where his teammates openly cheered him moving on.
If a coach doesn't like a player, he doesn't play said player. Coaches love their vets. Why? Because they trust them to help them win a game (or at the very least, not lose it for them). If Keenan really thought Dion was that stupid and that bad defensively, why on Earth would he be playing him on the top pair against the top lines in the league? He was obviously angry over getting fired, so his motivation was definitely not one of "I want them to fire me".
Too many plot holes in the OP's story (I mean, not the OP's story, but the story that he re-posted here).
Good read though. Not much happening, so any hockey-related story (fiction or not) is a welcome distraction.
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If you read his post, the mandate from his boss was to keep playing Phaneuf without cutting his minutes.
The same mandate given to Brent Sutter.
It's right there in the post.