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Around the League 2019-2024 Edition

Preston said:
It's the Balotelli "why always me?" effect. Drama follows him everywhere he goes. Maybe that's pure racism and nothing else but I think there's something to it personally.
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Like I said, I try to read everything there is public about how problematic he is and all I ever see is stuff like this:

October 28, 2011: That same week Kane’s “business manager” Jeffrey Uppal had been approaching restaurants in the Winnipeg area requesting $500 for his client in exchange for positive promotional tweets from Kane’s Twitter account. Small time stuff in a big city, but irksome to the people of Winnipeg who weren’t used to these kinds of “business moves.”
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“He’s a young guy when we got him. He was on the Twitter world a little bit so that was a little bit of a challenge. I really didn’t have a lot of problems with Evander. I mean, Evander can be a real good player and Winnipeg’s a fairly small, passionate town, smaller city.
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That was Don Hay explaining his "problems" with Evander in Winnipeg.

February 6, 2015: Kane opted for surgery on his shoulder, meaning he’ll be out the remainder of the season. Since the forward has been able to play with the injury for as long as he had, some viewed it as the relationship with the Jets straining further, and his decision to go under the knife a reaction to the events from the day before. Kane’s agent, Craig Oster, vehemently denied those assumptions.
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He wasn't one of the boys, I don't think the analysis needs to go a lot deeper than that.

Even the allegations about him have largely turned out to be fictitious or massively overblown. The assault turned out to be bullshit. The gambling on hockey games turned out to have no evidence. Yeah, dude has a gambling problem 100% but if that's some sort of moral failing then we need to rethink the drug addicts we put up our thoughts and prayers for every time they enter treatment (we totally shouldn't rethink that btw).

As for any other incident with Buff, I don't see it anywhere publicly. You'll have to illuminate.

I'm just saying that we can't on one hand nod at each other when a discussion about how toxic hockey culture is, but then on the other completely accept that someone who didn't fit into hockey culture didn't fit into hockey culture because he's a horrible human being. It seems that a lot of people use a feedback loop of sorts in their assessment of Kane. Half and untruths on both sides of the ledger get used to prop each other up to paint a picture about the guy. I don't know if I love the "drama seems to follow him" bit as anything more than an another indictment of the culture either. Seems like more complaints about his lack of conformity into what we all accept as a fucked up, often broken culture when we discuss it regarding other issues.
 
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MindzEye said:
Like I said, I try to read everything there is public about how problematic he is and all I ever see is stuff like this:







He wasn't one of the boys, I don't think the analysis needs to go a lot deeper than that.

Even the allegations about him have largely turned out to be fictitious or massively overblown. The assault turned out to be bullshit. The gambling on hockey games turned out to have no evidence. Yeah, dude has a gambling problem 100% but if that's some sort of moral failing then we need to rethink the drug addicts we put up our thoughts and prayers for every time they enter treatment (we totally shouldn't rethink that btw).

As for any other incident with Buff, I don't see it anywhere publicly. You'll have to illuminate.
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Okay then whatever the reason he's 0 for 3 in not breaking up dressing rooms. Even we feel he's actually a great person the fact is his track record sucks for one reason or another.
 
Locker room cancer is a thing, and it has derailed teams in the past. You guys mock "character" but I'm 100% convinced team chemistry is a crucial element of building a winning team. Now that then devolves into what is the definition of character, a team can win with a knucklehead on the roster, etc. Difficult to evaluate from the outside, so fans generally don't really know what's going on. And these guys don't tell the media the true story with most of these incidents.

The fact that most of the Sharks don't want him back is also a huge red flag, especially considering he's flamed out with other teams as well. As I said before, I would normally have zero interest. But as M.E. has suggested, it's also true that the stuff we've heard publicly doesn't really explain anything. Any GM would definitely need to do their due diligence. It would be easier to bring him in to a team with strong veteran leadership, or to a bubble team willing to roll the dice. We are neither of those things. But he is really good on the ice, so I would make some calls if I was Dubas.
 
axlsalinger said:
Locker room cancer is a thing, and it has derailed teams in the past. You guys mock "character" but I'm 100% convinced team chemistry is a crucial element of building a winning team. Now that then devolves into what is the definition of character, a team can win with a knucklehead on the roster, etc. Difficult to evaluate from the outside, so fans generally don't really know what's going on. And these guys don't tell the media the true story with most of these incidents.

The fact that most of the Sharks don't want him back is also a huge red flag, especially considering he's flamed out with other teams as well. As I said before, I would normally have zero interest. But as M.E. has suggested, it's also true that the stuff we've heard publicly doesn't really explain anything. Any GM would definitely need to do their due diligence. It would be easier to bring him in to a team with strong veteran leadership, or to a bubble team willing to roll the dice. We are neither of those things. But he is really good on the ice, so I would make some calls if I was Dubas.
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Thing is, both Buffalo and Winnipeg continued to have poor lockerrooms long after he left.
 
I think the covid stuff is enough for me really It hurts the team, it's selfish, and its VERY fresh.

Everything I'm hearing from the team screams we're all business here right now. It's risky.
 
hockeylover said:
I think the covid stuff is enough for me really It hurts the team, it's selfish, and its VERY fresh.

Everything I'm hearing from the team screams we're all business here right now. It's risky.
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Yeah, the covid bit is easily the worst thing that I see.

The only bit that has ever been confirmed that is a massive red flag
 
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