Quote:
Originally Posted by curves2000
I think the thing upsets me a little more than anything is that we seem to have different sides of Johnny depending on who's asking the questions.
When he was playing in college there was always the rumor that he didn't want to sign in Calgary due to the distance from his hometown. There was always articles quoting him and his family wondering where these "rumors" came from. In the Spittin Chicklits podcast he confirmed his mom was devasted when she found out how far Calgary was compared to his hometown.
When he was on his ELC and he made it to the first 2 All-Star games there were all sorts of articles about how he was "surprised" to learn he landed this $250k bonus, and other bonus's for other performance metrics. There were lots of quote along the line of "I love playing in Calgary, I don't care about money and I let my agent handle that stuff, I just want to play hockey"
Rewind to last summer and we have a player who had only played 2 seasons and was a full training camp holdout with rumored asking contracts A LOT higher than he ended up getting. In the previously mentioned Spittin Chicklits podcast he was quoted as saying that the Flames dangled the 1 game, burn a year on your ELC deal with him but in hindsight he was "kind of screwed" since he never had any arb or offer sheet rights to get even a bigger contract.
It's 100% perfectly natural for players to want to maximize their earnings during their careers, it's the nature of the business. Just be open and honest about it so it doesn't rub the fans, ie: your paying customers, wrong.
In a lot of other interviews there was always the quotes of wanting to play in Calgary for his entire career but than we have quotes like the one given in the interview about playing for the Flyers.
I don't think there's anything wrong with a player dreaming about playing for their hometown team, lot's of players talk about what a dream come true it is to wear X jersey as they were fans growing up. I don't get the impression from Douggie Hamilton, Gio, Brodie, Monahan or Sam Bennett that they are itching to get traded to a Ontario based team but I do get the impression that we may lose Johnny a lot quicker than a lot of posters here want to believe. I don't know if him leaving Calgary would really bother him. It's just a DIFFERENT vibe with him than with other marque players on our roster.
Just my $0.02
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Why focus on that when he is playing here for another 5 years? He is at a tourney promoting funds for students in need and wants them to feel good about his hometown? Why is this even newsworthy when he is signed committed to playing for the Flames? He just expressed his excitement at possibly winning a cup here?
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What more does need to do to show Calgary that he wants to play here? Johnny is honest about his feelings and Philadelphia is his first love so he says exactly what he thinks and feels. Good on him for saying exactly what he feels but still signed a contract to play with the Calgary Flames! The guy is excited to be here and is even calling and welcoming new players to the Calgary Flames.