SAYING NO TO YOUR COUNTRY
Povinne čítať tento článok, lebo to čo slováci poznajú už nejaký ten piatok sa v súčasnosti rozmáha v celom hokejovom svete...
Ja len vypichnem pár pekných citácií:
I am tired.
I am not motivated, and I am thus of no use to the team.
I am injured (…but had my team advanced to the next round of the playoffs I would have played)
I don’t want to leave my family. Three weeks is an awfully long time away from home.
I have no contract for next season. If I am injured, my career is in jeopardy.
I have this summer cottage in Europe, and the sooner I can start working on it the sooner it will be finished.
I promised to fold napkins for my cousin’s wedding.
An estimated 100 players (probably closer to 120) who could have played at the 2010 IIHF World Championship have declined to participate. Many of them turned down invitations; some of them communicated at an early stage “if I am out of playoffs, don’t even bother asking me”; and, some of them cited injuries which were serious enough to prevent them from playing in Germany, but which would have been no obstacle had their pro teams advanced in the playoffs.
How can a player who is 22 or 25 or 27, and who was just eliminated from the playoffs be tired? Tired is a miner who works in a damp pit in Miktivka, in the Donetz Plateau in Ukraine, who never sees daylight and who provides living for a family of five in a modest two-room apartment. That is tired.
Tired is a divorced mother with two young kids who double shifts as a nurse assistant and cleaning lady to make ends meet.
Why is a 22-year-old Sidney Crosby tired when a 34-year-old Ryan Smyth is answering the bell for his country despite having represented Canada at the Worlds already on eight occasions?
Why is the only Swiss superstar, defenceman Mark Streit, tired, despite not having played one single playoff game in two seasons? Streit played his last NHL game on April 11 and he had almost a full month to recuperate before the start of the World Championships. But he was too tired to play.
But the eight Swiss players from SC Bern and Geneva-Servette who played a punishing seven-game final series which ended on April 24 are here and representing their country.
What reasons do Red Wings Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall, Thomas Holmström, and Johan Franzén have for not showing up when Red Wing Pavel Datsyuk jumped on the plane after their team was eliminated by San Jose?
Why is that a 23-year-old Niklas Bäckström is suddenly injured and unable to come to Germany when he played 22 minutes per game in Washington’s seven playoff games and would have played had the Caps advanced?
(Yes, it’s the same Bäckström, who last Monday signed a 10-year, $67 million contract only three years after graduating from the Swedish hockey system in 2007).
Why is that Bäckström’s 25-year old linemate Alexander Ovechkin is never too tired to play for his country, despite having an energy-draining style of play while averaging 23 minutes per game in the playoffs and constantly dishing out hits all over the ice?
Why did it take soon-to-be-free-agent superstar Ilya Kovalchuk less than two days to make his mind up to join team Russia in Germany, while journeyman Alexander Steen referred to his unsigned status as a reason for not playing for Team Sweden?