News Article: Raanta hoped for 1st round sweep (out of context and/or not accurate?)

[Periwinkle]

Finnish sports journalists are super bad.

Personally I rather read profiles with some honesty, rather than some PR fluff piece. I don't know how this incident reflects badly on Finnish sports journalism, rather than revealing out-of-proportion outrage by NA media.

 

[BobbyJet]

To sum things up...

#1 Yeah, looks like he did say that. It wasn't all that much out of context either. He was disgruntled.

#2 He wasn't actually unhappy about being 3rd string. He was unhappy about not getting to play at all. He would have been content with being sent to Rockford instead of rotting away in the press box.

#3 What the noise really seems to be about is not about the guy feeling that way in the first place - in fact, most would probably expect him to feel that way. It's that he chose to out it.

#4 He did not out his feelings while he was a Hawk. That's a minor plus.

#5 While we can lambast him for outing it, we can also lambast those who gasp over a person admitting something they probably knew already. Players are people too, not cattle.

Okay, so the emperor has no clothes. Next, please.

It's another example of a player being honest. There's a reason why most players elect to give vanilla cliché-type responses to questions.... and this is it. Just like when Bickell said he couldn't play his A game every night. It still gets brought up.

We can't handle the truth!

 

[x Tame Impala]

Exactly. People complain about cookie cutter interview responses but as soon as a player says something real and honest, even when it's inconsequential to the team, there's all sorts of negative blow back.

He was just being honest. I'd have a huge problem with him saying that if we were in the middle of the playoffs but we're not. It's the offseason and he's not even on this team anymore. The guy was sick of essentially pointlessly sitting in the press box for 2 months and wanted to go home and get married. Who cares?

In his time as a Hawk I never felt like he was anything other than extremely excited and happy to be here. The guy always had a smile on his face and was in love with the Hawks and with playing hockey.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Fair point. Fans and the media do have a tendency to complain about generic empty responses and then freak the **** out when any form of honesty goes against the grain.

It definitely didn't sound good, but I'm willing to buy the idea that Raanta's hope that we got swept was momentary and just an example of frustration before he met his teammates again. I mean... when Versteeg or Teravainen or Vermette or Bickell or Crow or anyone else got benched, can you honestly say that none of them had a momentary bad thought about the team getting beat? I'd be more surprised if none of them had that pang of bitter feelings.

 

[Hawkaholic]

I just find it really odd that he had a chance to get his name on the Stanley Cup and get a ring to go with it, but he would have rather gone home instead. Do other people not see a problem with that?

 

[Periwinkle]

I just find it really odd that he had a chance to get his name on the Stanley Cup and get a ring to go with it, but he would have rather gone home instead. Do other people not see a problem with that?

I know that personally for me it would always be in the back of my head that if I didn't really offer a meaningful contribution to the cup run (not playing at all in the playoffs, very limited amount of starts during the season even for a backup) I wouldn't be able to feel like I'm a champion, even if my name was on the cup. I assume back-up goalies, as a part of the job, have to know how to adjust those feelings but he wasn't even the back-up in the end, but the 3rd goalie.

 

[Hawkaholic]

I know that personally for me it would always be in the back of my head that if I didn't really offer a meaningful contribution to the cup run (not playing at all in the playoffs, very limited amount of starts during the season even for a backup) I wouldn't be able to feel like I'm a champion, even if my name was on the cup. I assume back-up goalies, as a part of the job, have to know how to adjust those feelings but he wasn't even the back-up in the end, but the 3rd goalie.

True, but for a guy who has played very little in the NHL up to this point in his career, shouldn't you just be happy to be there? Let alone having a chance to have your name on the Stanley freaking Cup?

 

[x Tame Impala]

Tough for me to speculate on that because I've never been anywhere near that level of accomplishment that Raanta has, even as "only" a 3rd string goalie.

I just think his words are more a case of him having a human moment than something sinister or unappreciative

 

[FinPanda]

http://www.satakunnankansa.fi/Kiekk...keli/antti+raanta+the+bumpy+road+to+fame.html

Whole story translated into English.