Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach
It’s all just super disappointing. Shatters the illusion of Toews’ leadership qualities and the legacy of that whole group. This type of behaviour doesn’t happen unless the captain and coach are condoning and participating. They were still young players at the time, but this is a lot to try and side step with any sort of appeal of growth since then.
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Toews and Kane were 22 at the time, so I could at least see the argument even if it isn't a good one. Though Toews's complete denial of it just doesn't hold water to me.
Where were guys like Campbell, Madden, Sopel, Hossa, Sharp and even Keith? All of these guys were long past the point of age being an excuse.
It's hard to pin the blame on anyone specific, because for all we know it wasn't some black ace/tweener like Jack Skille or Brian Bickell, but a younger guy who was already playing a role and who we would otherwise be pinning the blame on. I think, eventually, it's going to come out. But what we do know is that there were a group of guys who didn't take it seriously and instead used it as ammo to bully another player, which is disgusting. I don't really care for the stories from a few players saying "oh everybody knew!" because great, if you all knew, why did you act this way and do nothing to help? That doesn't make it better.