I’m never wrong. Not even when I’m sarcastic.
An NHL Standard Player Contract will have terms setting out that the player will participate in promotion of his club and cooperate in the promotion of the League and professional hockey, and will conduct himself with the highest standards and refrain from conduct detrimental to his club, the League, or profesisonal hockey.
Thomas was free not to go - it is a free country - but frankly, it’s a dick move.
He was invited to the White House as a member of the Stanley Cup Champions, not to provide his personal opinion on the state of things in Washington. In my honest opinion he had a responsibility as a professional to suck it up and go with his team. I think he’s a dick for not doing it, and I’d have said the same of a player who did the same under the Bush administration.
Again, it’s a free country and you are free to do things that are dickish, dishonorable, and insulting, and I think it was all three.
He can do whatever he wants. A few years back when the Steelers won the Super Bowl, a few of the players refused to go to the White House (iirc) because they didn’t like Bush. No big deal. People are under no obligation to meet the President.
So much for his team spirit and sportsmanship.
So I guess he was compelled to let his team mates at one of the greatest occasion in their lives feel like crawling into a hole.
No different from all the Hollyweird types who claimed they would move to Canada, if Bush was re-elected.
On the one hand, yes, sports teams visiting the White House is about as apolitical as it gets (like Obama gives a crap about hockey), so from that standpoint it’s a dickish way to take a stand. But it’s also true that you have to answer to your own conscience and I can see it being very difficult to go shake hands with a president I was strongly opposed to. He’s not hurting anybody.
By the way, James Harrison of the Steelers refused to visit the White House after the team’s Super Bowl wins in 2006 and 2009.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with disrespecting the president but as a member of the NHL championship team, was it appropriate?
Like I said, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with disrespecting the president but as a member of the NHL championship team, was it appropriate?
And no I have no reason to believe he is racist but I don’t remember him being quite as fired up about Bush. I suspect its a partisan thing rather than a racist thing.
Again, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with disrespecting the president in general but as a member of the NHL championship team, was it appropriate?
Yah, Noone said that all or even most of the tea party was racist but a lot of racists were in the tea party.
Well I think it was a dick move. I don’t remember any member of a championship athletic team declining to go to the white house under Bush. Its a non-partisan moment. Going to the white house after winning the stanley cup is not a political statement and only an idiot would think it was but NOT going is turning a non-political event and turning it into a political statement.
I don’t care if someone doesn’t want to meet the President because of his policies or because he’d rather stay home and sleep in.
His employer might have something to say about it, but it’s still not my business.
A party pooper: putting a dampener on the celebration for the achievement of his team and teammates as a whole for some issue aside from the very occasion of the celebration is at least a party pooper in my book. If you have a beef, get on the ring; there are places for fight and there are occasions to celebrate.
Also just because there was a single act of precedence that doesn’t make any less-than-considerate action an acceptable behavior.
I don’t think some Hollywood folks, having said at some unrelated point that they’d “move to Canada if Bush was re-elected,” specifically made any of their colleagues at a specific function with Bush felt like crawling into a hole. Maybe it’s just me but these are not exactly compatible issues.
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Cite? As a Steelers fan, the ONLY player I know of who neglected to go was James Harrison. His reason?
Because of course, the president has nothing to do but invite every team in the NFL to the White House. But then, no one ever accused Harrison of being all that bright. (And like I said, this is coming from a Steelers fan!)
I disagree with Thomas’s decision, like I said – I think he really let down his teammates. But, I support his right to do so.
Although I’m guessing that Vice-President Biden was a no-show the last two years, considering he’s a Flyers fan. (The Flyers lost the Cup in 2010, and the Penguins, the Flyers’ biggest rivals, won in 2009)
Why is it that political cranks can never tell the difference between a proper noun and a common noun?
I don’t see anything wrong with it. If one of my staff had a political or religious objection to going somewhere or dealing with something, I would honor it.
I dislike Obama, because I feel he was dishonest when he campaigned, by making promises he knew darn well he couldn’t keep. Sure others do that, but they weren’t conning other people at the same time as the voice of change.
I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to meet Obama, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to meet GW Bush either.
Wait, whut ? I’m not sure I’m parsing that statement right. Is he saying that if Bush had invited them because he was a big fan, he would have gone ; but because he invited them out of decorum and the charge of his office, it’s like so whatever ?
What’s this guy’s position on the field, and does it require one to take many blows to the head ?
It is a dickish move because the news stories are about how Thomas didn’t go and then had to announce to the world his reason for not going. That completely takes the focus away from the photo op of the team meeting the President.
Plus, the Bruins have two outstanding goalies right now. I wouldn’t want to give Bruins coach Claude Julien any possible reason to consider starting Tuuka Rask more often.
I seriously don’t see why we’re even having this conversation. It’s not a big deal. I’m mostly just disappointed that meeting with sports teams is something the president wastes time on. Folks who have somehow bettered humanity? Sure. Hockey doesn’t make the list.
I find views like this deeply unsettling.
In countries with separate heads of state and government, does this sort of stuff fall on the (usually more symbolic) head of state?
It’s the sort of bullshit that the tea party uses. They claim to be non-partisan and all that but really they only hate democrats. Ten years of Bush running up the deficit, not a peep. A few months of Obama being unable to reverse that 10 years of damage and suddenly it’s THE GOVERNMENT IS OUT OF CONTROL!!!111111
The guy would’ve gone with Bush in there most likely.
Actually, he has a reputation as being the dirtiest player in the NFL, inflicting a lot of concussions deliberately. Maybe he’s bitter that everyone else is smarter than him and is trying to lower everyone else’s IQ to his level one concussion at a time.
So it would have been classier if Thomas had pulled an Eartha Kitt and let Obama have a piece of his mind in front of all his teammates?
"Kitt, according to some accounts, caused (Lady Bird Johnson to cry at the White House luncheon in 1968) when she said, “You send the best of the country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.”
It might’ve been fun if the goalie and the Prez had a mini-debate on overreaching federal powers in front of the slack-jawed Bruins team and various White House functionaries. I’m sure Obama could have held his own.
It looks as though a number of Steelers who were no longer with the team at the time didn’t make the trip. Which is fairly understandable, IMO (also, they didn’t make a big public thing about it).