Trottier said:
"...no one here is suggesting what Crosby did was a crime against humanity. It was wrong
According to you, maybe. I have now seen the incident in question and I don't see anything wrong with it. And knowing you're a LONG time hockey fan, I am trying to figure out if you've wiped out of your memory the pre-90s era of hockey from your mind or if you've just decided to buy what Cherry's selling because he's Cherry.
I had not seen the so-called incident last night but now that I did, I am actually shocked that it may offend genuine hockey fans. This is the all-new all-shiny attitude hockey has taken this last decade thanks to increased scrutinity and yes, it's BAD for the game bad for the players and bad for the fans.
You want to talk about really crass incidents that shouldn't happen in pro hockey? Primadonnas engineering their own trade to Los Angeles. Primadonnas refusing to wear their Pens jersey when they are drafted. Primadonnas and their parents refusing to play in Quebec City. Laughable refereeing and laughable disciplinary measures by the league, players nowadays using their stick with virtual impunity even on the face of opponents and getting at worse a TWO MINUTE penalty for it, and so on. Those are the real culprits as to why the game is going down the shitter.
A young guy scoring a beautiful goal in a hockey game? Nope. That's skill. And I'll tell you, that's certainly not the kind of stunt I would like my player to pull in a super-close hockey game still on the line.
Trottier said:
What is really much more disturbing is that a few here are actually endorsing 'rubbing it in,' or suggesting he 'did the right thing.'
As if the very concepts you cite - 'the basics of respects and sportmanship' - are 'foolish' as one poster put it. Or unimportant."
Sportsmanship has taken a brand new meaning the last few years and you seem to have bought into it. What is the right or wrong thing to do when you play the game according to the parameters remains an on-ice thing.
I think it was last year that the Caps were involved in an 8-0 game and there were laughable cries of outrage about it.
Whaaaaaa Sportmanship whaaaaa 
All of a sudden you had dozens of internet hockey fans crying about it, citing a lack of respect by the coach, a lack of respect by the players, blah blah blah.
Well, guess what? If you go back
not too far in time, you will see that in the 90s, the Red Wings, captained by the ultra-respected Steve Yzerman and coached by the ultra-respected Scotty Bowman humiliated the Habs and Patrick Roy in something like a 12-3 game
in Montreal.
And that's what is beautiful about the sport. You don't have to say a thing, emotions take over and history is created. Roy loses it, whines to the president that it's his last game here (you want to point at reprehensible things in hockey, THAT is one, not the blowout) and is eventually traded to the Avs.
We then witness the birth of one of the most interesting and intense rivalry of this last decade between the Avs and Wings. Hockey fans are winners because emotional events lead to more emotional events.
That's bad for the game, right?
The concept of sportsmanship has taken on a whole new meaning lately, one that it should never have taken. Lack of sportsmanship is diving, lack of sportsmanship is when Pavel Trnka is called for a penalty against the Sabres when he was clearly one feet away from the player and nobody says a word and the referee calls something HE NEVER SAW. Lack of sportsmanship is betraying your teammates and the fans who have supported you by sitting out when you have a *signed* contract. Lack of sportsmanship is Fleury's Pejorative Slured, disgusting behavior in New-York that would have had me worried if I was bringing children to the game. Lack of sportsmanship is seeing Giguere in his Michelin armor stopping pucks with whatever piece of equipment happens to be in the way that given moment.
No matter how blessed with talent Crosby was to begin with, I have no doubt that he has worked extremely hard to play at the level he is playing right now. It was a fair goal, it took skills. The puck wasn't flying from a cannon, you know. He beat guys and he beat the goalie and he showcased great skills doing so, like hundreds of players have done before him. It's not any better or worse than Pavel Datsyuk a few nights ago scoring with around 10 seconds left to go in a 6-2 (I think) win by nicely lifting the puck up.
I think you have a LOT of things to worry about if you are worried about sportsmanship. The bottom line is that this Crosby goal is not one of those.
If someone, ON-ICE, feels he was disrespected then it will be resolved on-ice. You, as a fan, will probably benefit from this with more intense hockey instead of the bland, overly polite, emotionless virtual business course we seem to be witnessing more and more.
