Chelios runs mouth about Bettman

[CarlRacki]

As the one who kind of started this mess with the "gassed" comment, let me say that those of you supporting Chelios are missing the point entirely. No one is saying Chelios was making an intentionally anti-Semitic remark. In fact, I think the consensus is he lacks the mental capacity to make the connection between "gassed" and Bettman's heritage.

That said, the comment was wholly inappropriate and should be retracted regardless of its intent. If I were to describe a black man who leaves a poor tip as "nigg-rdly" I would be correct and intend no harm. It's nonetheless entirely out of line. Phrases like that shouldn't be tossed around lightly, particularly when the target belongs to a race of people literally gassed by the millions. Is Chelios a Nazi? No. Is he an idiot? You bet.

 

[kdb209]

That said, the comment was wholly inappropriate and should be retracted regardless of its intent. If I were to describe a black man who leaves a poor tip as "nigg-rdly" I would be correct and intend no harm. It's nonetheless entirely out of line. Phrases like that shouldn't be tossed around lightly, particularly when the target belongs to a race of people literally gassed by the millions. Is Chelios a Nazi? No. Is he an idiot? You bet.

I disagree whole heartedly about the term "Racial Slurrdly". It's origin is from ancient Norse into Old English and has absolutely nothing to do the other N-word.

I thought it was appalling back in 1999, when a member of the Washington DC Mayor's staff had to publicly apologize for a completely appropriate use of Racial Slurrdly. Ignorance is no excuse to be offended, and especially to continue your rightful indignation after the inconvenient facts are pointed out to you.

 

[Pepper]

Your the biggest idiot to post on these boards. You know dick about the game and the NHL.

Chelios is 100% correct. Bettman focused so much on the PR battle and trying making the players look like the bad guys that it's now going to backfire on him. Now Bettman and the owners run a sports league in which so much people hate the actual product. Just another mistake by a "man" who knows nothing about the sport and about running a sports league.

Leave it to the usual pro-PA suspects to turn this into personal attacks when someone dares to call comments made by player in public 'idiotic' (=which they were according to most people here it seems).

Incredible.

 

[King'sPawn]

gassed isn't as common as axed. But I've heard it used plenty of times.

How does that change anything?

I've never heard gassed in that context. I've heard axed and canned.

 

[Hasbro]

I haven't seen Porn* or Fischel on this subject, but I'm Jewish and I didn't take Chelios' remark as antisemitic. He's just being an ass.

 

[myrocketsgotcracked]

Your the biggest idiot to post on these boards. You know dick about the game and the NHL.

Chelios is 100% correct. Bettman focused so much on the PR battle and trying making the players look like the bad guys that it's now going to backfire on him. Now Bettman and the owners run a sports league in which so much people hate the actual product. Just another mistake by a "man" who knows nothing about the sport and about running a sports league.

you mean how bettman made modano look like the bad guy with the "cant feed my dog" quote?or how bettman made mccabe look like a bad guy with the "i'll never play under a cap" quote? i think the players are doing a fine job making themselves look bad, without bettman's help.
also, i didnt know that "so much people hate the actual product". last i check, people still like nhl hockey. unless you are suggesting that "the players are the product", which will bring up that unpleasant discussion again.
lastly, whats the point of the quotation mark around the word 'man'? are you suggesting that bettmans not a man??

 

[me2]

Show of hands for people who honestly believe that "gassed" meant anything other than Bettman being fired.

Me. Though I don't think he meant killed, poisoned gassed or actually injured.

 

[me2]

Totally new one for me!

I guess I will own up and apologize then. I truly tried to find some examples and was unable to (although I didn't really search hard..)

Gassed. Hmph.

Not here either.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gassed

 

[ArtG]

it's not even in urban dictionary as 'fired'

hmmm...

 

[Wisent]

Wow... you are all really oversensative. I lived in Sharon, MA for four years (backgroum\nd: Sharon is 76 percent Jewish - my high school had Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana off each year and kosher food served during Passover) and the kids up there used that phrase all the time.

Perhaps the energy would be better spent figuring out how to pitch the game now that everyone has sold the "the players are idiots and I will never, ever put another penny in their pockets again" viewpoint to at least three of their favorite neighbors and family members. I will maintain until my last breath that people don't go to see "Tom Hicks'" team or "Bill Wirtz's" team, they go to see the Stars or Blackhawks, and the identity of those teams is much more associated with the players than the owners.

I lived in germany for 29 years and I assure you, that if a person would have said that to the media, he would be ripped to shreds by the media. It happened there for less obvious statements.

 

[Kritter471]

I lived in germany for 29 years and I assure you, that if a person would have said that to the media, he would be ripped to shreds by the media. It happened there for less obvious statements.

*shrugs* They're oversensitive too (though they have a semi-recent history that causes that). I still think everyone is looking for things to flip out about in regards to player comments.

 

[A Good Flying Bird*]

As the one who kind of started this mess with the "gassed" comment, let me say that those of you supporting Chelios are missing the point entirely. No one is saying Chelios was making an intentionally anti-Semitic remark. In fact, I think the consensus is he lacks the mental capacity to make the connection between "gassed" and Bettman's heritage.

That said, the comment was wholly inappropriate and should be retracted regardless of its intent. If I were to describe a black man who leaves a poor tip as "nigg-rdly" I would be correct and intend no harm. It's nonetheless entirely out of line. Phrases like that shouldn't be tossed around lightly, particularly when the target belongs to a race of people literally gassed by the millions. Is Chelios a Nazi? No. Is he an idiot? You bet.

Get lost.

When people have to start apologizing because something completely harmless is taken the wrong way, then we've got a major problem.

If we did things your way, then we'd have to have to consider a persons race/religion/ethnicity before everything we say ...
The world needs LESS recognition of race/religion/ethnicity ... Not more of it.

 

[Face Wash]

People.... C'mon. Clearly Chelios wants someone to fart on Gary Bettmann.

 

[Wisent]

Get lost.

When people have to start apologizing because something completely harmless is taken the wrong way, then we've got a major problem.

If we did things your way, then we'd have to have to consider a persons race/religion/ethnicity before everything we say ...
The world needs LESS recognition of race/religion/ethnicity ... Not more of it.

i think that you would be right in most of the cases, but I would exclude remarks (accidently or planned) about genocide. People have a right to be pissed of about that.

 

[Greschner4]

Hate to disagree, montrealer, but I have heard the term "gassed" used many times as a reference to being fired. I will grant you there are other more commonly used phrases or words - axed, canned, etc. - but gassed is in the common parlance.

Chelios didn't say "gassed," he said "get the gas."

Pretty bad, from where I sit.

 

[Greschner4]

Maybe it's just because I'm a pro-owner lackey - but my rememberance of Bettman during all of this is his sincere press conference when they cancelled the season. I don't ever remember him attacking individual players - maybe critizicing the PA's lack of urgency around negotiating, but I don't remember it getting personal on his part. I think that the NHL just did a much better job of communicating their POV throughout this entire debacle. If the PA got total obliterated in the PR campaign, it's because they almost went out of their way to look spoiled and ignorant. Best example - Goodenow's press conference after the season was cancelled.

If this ends as expected - Bettman got the EXACT final outcome the owners wanted. I don't think there was any realistic way for it to end any sooner than it has, and have the owners get what they felt they need. That is why Bettman is going to keep his job.

Chelly continues to show that athletic ability have no correlation to class or intellegence. I can't take away his accomplishments on the ice, as he has been a total stud during the vast majority of his career, but he has continually proven to be a total piece of crap off the ice.

Chelios almost certainly was behind the Olympic Village trashing in 1998 and the subsequent cover-up. Total POS.

 

[Greschner4]

Get lost.

When people have to start apologizing because something completely harmless is taken the wrong way, then we've got a major problem.

If we did things your way, then we'd have to have to consider a persons race/religion/ethnicity before everything we say ...
The world needs LESS recognition of race/religion/ethnicity ... Not more of it.

Why do you assume that Chelios meant it in a harmless way? There are a bunch of different words he could have used -- "axed" and "canned" being two obvious ones -- yet he said "get the gas."

 

[Larionov]

Get lost.

When people have to start apologizing because something completely harmless is taken the wrong way, then we've got a major problem.

If we did things your way, then we'd have to have to consider a persons race/religion/ethnicity before everything we say ...
The world needs LESS recognition of race/religion/ethnicity ... Not more of it.

Hey, Newsguyone has got a point. Six million Jews gassed in history's most massive and appalling genocide -- no big deal, right? People should move on and stop being so sensitive about little things like the Holocaust.

Face it - not only is Chelios a mouth breather, which we already knew, he is also an anti-Semite. Not a pleasant combination. Pro-PA types should stop trying to defend this guy or spin his comments, as they are completely indefensible.

 

[norrisnick]

i think that you would be right in most of the cases, but I would exclude remarks (accidently or planned) about genocide. People have a right to be pissed of about that.

It wasn't a remark about genocide, planned or otherwise. Are we going to call for the resignation of refs that cruely and maliciously tell Chris Simon to "take a hike" (Trail of Tears anyone?) when he's tossed from a game? Or a coach that tells a jewish player to "hit the showers"?

This is beyond ****ing ridiculous. You have a right to be pissed when someone does something wrong, not when you think they did something wrong.

 

[SuperNintendoChalmrs]

I am pretty sure that Chelios knows that Bettman is Jewish. I don't think people use the terms "gas" or "gassing" in relation to someone unless the concentration camps of WW2 come to mind.

Chelios is just a very twisted, screwed up individual. He isn't setting any kind of precedent. After all, Chelios went and threatened the livelihood of Bettman and his family back during the NHL strike of 1995.

Just retire old man.....retire

 

[London Knights]

Come on. Chelios is just being played by that evil Liberal media.

 

[GSC2k2*]

This thread has now evolved into one of the most idiotic threads in the history of idiotic threadds on this board (and that is no small feat, believe you me).

As many of you know, I am a staunch pro-league defender - or pro-owner, if you prefer.

To suggest that Chelios' remarks pertain in any way to the holocaust is outrageous and offensive in its own right. Unbelievably offensive. It trivializes the holocaust to connect it to a remark about gassing someone, particularly when the previous remarks pertained to how Bettman HAS A JOB. He was not talking about how Bettman should be executed.

The absolute tools who even raised the spectre of the holocaust in the context of these remarks owes the entire board an apology, although I expect they are too clueless to understand why. There are a lot of people out there who actually pride themselves on being able to ferret out remarks which can be twisted to be politically incorrect. They pride themselves on beig able to do so because they can then say to thmselves "wow, I am really empahetic and sensitive to the feeligns of others".

I do want to recognize the perceptive remark someone made about worrying whether somoen can say to a jewish player to hit the showers.

Here is a quick clue for the clueless wonders who started this. People on death row also have been gassed. Soldiers in WWI got gassed. Kurds got gassed by Saddam. Contrary to the poster immediately above who suggested that gassing is only used by people in relation to WW2 concentration camps, it has a lot of applications, INCLUDING the very common parlance of referring to someone getting fired.

A final message to those who started this garbage, and to those who are perpetuating it by continuing to defend the indefensible: finding offence in imaginary places does not make you more sensitive or empathetic than the next guy. It just makes you a big phony and in this case also insults the memory of many dead people of the jewish faith IMO. Shame on you.

 

[Snap Wilson]

I'll say this about Chelios, he can sport a five o'clock shadow like nobody else. I've been trying for years to get that look down.

 

[chara]

Who cares?Chelios is almost toast. He's like what 44 now.

Can Chris spell R-E-T-I-R-E-M-E-N-T ?

He should be more worried about the crackdown on obstruction or measures being put in to speed up the game. Chelios looked terrible keeping up with Calgary's young guns. He's too slow and too expensive to play in the league anymore.

Bye, bye Chris...Just keep your mouth shut and you might get into the HHOF.

 

[HockeyCritter]

Show of hands for people who honestly believe that "gassed" meant anything other than Bettman being fired.

Me. The only context I've ever heard "gassed" was to refer to the act of killing. Granted I am pretty certain Chelios meant "fired" but I can see how some would take it otherwise ---- his choice of words was poor, to say the very least.