Draft talk Mckenzie- Good, McGuire- bad

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Hiishawk

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Feb 28, 2002
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I watched a tape of TSN's draft coverage and I must say that draft followers should listen to Bob M.- he's always balanced in his commentary and he never lets emotions get ahead of him.

But Pierre M? OK, he's a colour man so is supposed to be- er- colourful. But sometimes he's too much of a cheerleader, fanboy or even agiator. My beef this time was with his comments on Hanzal (whom- with great wit- he compared to Gretel). Hanzal doesn't pay the price or go into traffic? Excuse me?!
Ok, at the U18s there was one play where Hanzal had the puck near the boards and he was going to get creamed by Bertram. Without a reasonable play to make- to avoid getting plastered- he tried to duck the check. I saw it live and it was a reasonable play (I was sitting a few feet away) to avoid a concussion. But then, later on video, I hear McGuie harping on and on about Hanzal "bailing out" and questioning, nah- condemning- the guy's entire character, followed by the rant at the draft- based on this ONE play! Now, except for that one play, Hanzal did play in traffic, took and gave hits and was a MAJOR factor in that tourney both in terms of finesse and power. How he could say Hanzal didn't play well at that tourney is beyond me. For most scouts that tourney was his blossoming, his coming out party. His selection to the all-tourney team had NOTHING to do with Czech ballot-box stuffing.
Kudos to Mackenzie for skipping around those bizarre comments.

1 year ago at the WJCs- same thing. Ladislav Smid takes a shot to the hand and he goes down, then goes to the bench. He returns next shift. Suddenly Pierre- who doesn't know exactly what happened- is all down on the guy, treating him as a wimp or actor and proceeds to repeat this mantra regarding Smid (who generally plays a pretty tough game) throughout the broadcast. This one play ends up defining the players' whole potential for McGuire. Moreover, he later alludes to talking to a scout who apparently "confirmed" Smid's alleged wimpiness based on that play- that the scout too "had doubts about Smid now". In fact, as an overhearer of this exchange, Pierre pretty much TOLD this scout his own feelings about Smid first and the scout was coming back with "yeah, hmmm, I was kind of wondering too..." - that sort of thing. And then later, on the air, Pierre talks as if the scout took the initiative in confirming his rant.

The other thing is he DIDN'T know how much Smid hurt himself. Anyone who has played knows that sometimes pretty innocuous, innocent-looking plays can really hurt whereas at other times you can take a real full on bodycheck from a 240 pounder and be fine. If it was a Canadian kid, McGuire would have been lauding his guts for returning to the ice soon after he got hurt. If its a Czech though- he must be faking it OR he's a wimp. And that one fanboy impression will determine and define an entire player for McGuire.
 

boredmale

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i despise McGuire, to this day he always brings up the fact islanders drafted Nilsson over Parise. His beef at the time when Islanders were drafting was that teams were unwilling to pick up smaller players, so Islanders take a small player and he goes balistic how they didn't pick parise. Worse thing was next pick San Jose took a big forward and he didn't say a word.
 

KariyaIsGod*

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Pierre takes it too far but to say the Czechs weren't diving at the World Juniors is just idiotic.

I do dislike how Pierre is so in love with Jeff Carter. I honestly think he would sleep with the kid if it was possible.
 
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