Don't Want Him to Celebrate; Stop Him

The hot topic, and I don't mean the store that 12-year-olds go to in order to be punks/goths/young republicans, is Alex Ovechkin and his 50-goal celebration last night in Tampa. There are plenty who have weighed in on the blogosphere, there's many NHLers who have weighed in on it who played in the game and those who were on the outside looking in. I'm sure Don Cherry will weigh in on it Saturday and now-- it's time for me to do so.....mostly because I tried something else, and it flopped before I started.

For those who are still unfamiliar with it, here it is in all it's YouTube glory.



Fascinating.

Anyway, was this a little over the top?? Sure, of course it was. It was very Terrell Owens-esque and it's something you really don't want to see at all in the game-- but dude just scored his 50th goal, the first one to hit it this year and the third time in four seasons he's done it; that's cause for celebration. He's going to be the Caps all-time goal leader soon enough and could be the best Russian and left winger to play the game when all is said and done-- he can celebrate. If you don't want him to, stop the kid. It's as simple as that.

People have squawked about it being disrespectful and that the Bolts should have done something about it or will do something about it when they play Washington next-- but this was done in the first period almost eight minutes in. The Bolts had 52 minutes to do something and they didn't-- now that could have something to do with the team itself, but it's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that if you want to stop Ovechkin from celebrating at all, you have to be able to stop him.

Plenty are clamoring to see what Don Cherry will say, which will obviously be negative because that's how Cherry was last time when talking about Ovechkin. The one thing I want to know is whether or not he enjoyed the outlandish celebration by Tiger Williams or Tie Domi, in which they ride their sticks down the ice. If he did say he enjoyed that, then he's nothing more than a hypocrite when talking about Ovechkin's celebrations. For sure, Cherry would reply (if he actually read this blog) that Williams and Domi rarely score and they can get happy when they do so, but isn't a bit of a double standard if they can get over-the-top excited, but a kid with true skill and talent can't. As much as I enjoy Cherry's rants, raves, and suits-- he's losing his goard to think that this is any worse than what has been done by some in the past. Yet, he's a traditionalist and will always think anything not from the late-1970s is crap-- just look at his fine, fine suits.

There's plenty of "traditionalist," or people who call themselves that, who hate Ovechkin's over-the-top joy of scoring, but you have to remember-- Ovechkin isn't a traditionalist, he'll never be a traditionalist; he's a rock-star. He's bigger than life and shows it night-in and night-out. He doesn't want to be part of the flock, he wants to be the black sheep and standout, which he is succeeding in. He has a right to do that too, because he's just that damn good. So keep on keeping on Ovie-- but don't make this a common occurance. If it's a special moment, fine-- go outlandish. Yet, if it's #24 on the season and you pull a stunt like this and it's not a memorable goal-- I may have to change my thought about this whole thing.


EDIT @ 5:30 MT-- Thanks to Hangar 39 by way of Puck Daddy, but LA Kings announcer Bob Miller just went up 100-fold in my book, which works because I loved him in D2.


Just remember Bob, I'm all about the Kings.