To me, retiring and walking away from millions of guaranteed dollars to spend time with your family shows incredible character and understanding for what's important in this life at the end of the day...But to each his own.
IF this is what happened... I suppose we would ALL be ok with it.
Is this what happened?
Or did he make some controversial political comments/actions that created a storm of controversy and a backlash against him... which he then immediately ducked... and which turned his game kind of crappy leading us into a second half tail spin and a very disappointing playoff performance?
and then after that... did it all get out of control to the point that he decided to take his ball and go home? He has been acting like a bit of a spoiled brat in his public stance for the past year... spouting off his political views {which i happen to agree with} and using his celebrity status to give weight to his opinions, but then ducking out all followup debate that those opinions create.
Celbrities have a certain obligation to their fans when they are making millions of dollars at our expense to be our heros. The ONLY REASON these people make this money is because we fans put them on pedestals and make them IMPORTANT to us. When these people speak... their words mean something because we choose to make them mean something.
If a celbrity wants to be political then ok... but stand by your convictions. Answer the damn questions when you get asked to clarify your positions. Dont run away from your responsibilities to your fans if thing get hot for you. You were the one that spoke up and took a stance in the first place.
Thomas signed a FRONT LOADED contract that was a reward to him from the team for his good service. He as GIVEN NO TRADE PROTECTION to help him and his family for the first few years of the deal {despite his age}
He actually let us down for one season during the deal and the deal looked like it sucked for us. Everyone here was screaming he needed to get dealt cause Rask was looking so good for us. Luckily history shows us we didnt end up dealing him and he played a key role winning a cup for us {I will always love Thomas for this whatever else I feel about how he handled his exit}
Bruins honored their end of the bargain here. Thomas got the lion's share of his money and the team allowed him to be part of a cup winner. What else can any player ever ask for? All the problems Thomas ended up with were brought onto his own head when he begain his controversial political stance. Even that might have been addressable if he had simply answered the questions everyone asked. But he didnt... and it grew and grew and grew... and eventually he said he needed to take time off for his family but why?
And who got hurt?
The team and us fans had every right to expect to be able to deal Thomas for a valuable return. thats how the contract was done. We also had a right to expect him to keep his mind on the game instead of politics last year when we should have had a decent chance for a second cup. Its such a shame Rask got hurt going down the stretch driver cause the way Thomas was playing, it would have been nice if we could have turned the ball over to Rask and try to salvage the season.
There is NO DOUBT in my mind at all that Thomas would have been dealt had he choosen to play this year. It was 100% in the rights of the team to do this. Thomas decided instead to screw the team over. If we do end up with a second... then at least we get something, but Thomas didnt make it easy for us at all.
Its very very very hard to sugar coat this no matter how much we appreciate his on ice play while he was here. As a performer... a player... he did very good for us. He earned his paychecks. he was fun to cheer for. But as a man, even despite his attempts to wrap himself in patriosm and family and god... it just isnt an easy pill to swallow for us how this ended up and we as his fans have every right to feel let down by the guy. Its a real shame