Elliotte Friedman on NHL Network: “The one thing I have heard is that some of the Blue Jackets veterans came out and said they weren’t bothered by what happened, but I think there was concern about how some of the young players reacted or felt about it.
Elliotte Friedman on NHL Network: “The one thing I have heard is that some of the Blue Jackets veterans came out and said they weren’t bothered by what happened, but I think there was concern about how some of the young players reacted or felt about it.
[Continued] #CBJ
— The CBJ Center (@CBJcenter) September 14, 2023
by yout33rrr
6 Comments
Hearing Elliotte talk about the young players being the future of the franchise really made worried. Maybe it is best to fire the coach. If they don’t then those young players won’t like to re sign
Could straight up just be teenagers having never worked a job before where a one on one icebreaker with your new boss is uncomfortable because it’s your boss and/or it’s awkward vs malicious intent.
Like I straight up was asked (along with every other employee in a meeting) to share a picture of what we did over the summer to the projector screen.
Or the fact that a 30-year old has a different relationship with their digital footprint aka their phones than an 18- or 19-year old does that a 60-year old very plausibly would not understand
I said as much in the other thread. Older players with families aren’t going to find this strange. It’s normal to show pictures of your vacation, kids, etc… Younger players are probably going to find it strange because they don’t have that lived experience yet. And, if I’m being honest, young professional athletes are more likely to have stuff on their phones that they’d definitely prefer NOT to share.
Uncomfortable does not mean abusive. Sports culture is different than corporate pleb business world. You MIGHT not show your boss pictures based on your relationship with them… but your boss also isn’t going to have you bag skate after a bad day at work.
Every coach in the league will make their players uncomfortable from time to time. It’s quite literally their job to get them out of their comfort zone.
That being said if there were any ill intentions it’s not acceptable. I’ll wait for the NHLPA report before i make any conclusions
Either fire him now or get the NHLPA to say nothing crossed the line here. The longer it goes on the worse it gets.
So much of this story doesn’t add up to me, and while I’m not a Babs apologist, this feels like a witch hunt.
Biz supposedly got a text from a player that formerly played for Babs that started this shit storm, but it was unconfirmed at that point until he reached out to someone who plays for the team. How did this former player get this info in the first place?
Speaking of, it seems odd to me that none of the players who were made uncomfortable didn’t reach out to any of the other vets on the team or even anyone in the org, but they supposedly leaked this info to, not just someone outside of the org, but someone who has a large platform with a substantial audience.
The fact that it was reported that players’ accounts had shown that Biz’s recounting of the event was not consistent with what had actually happened, but then they back tracked and said that after some “intense” meetings with younger players about it, had changed there understanding of it. It kinda makes me wonder if the younger guys were grilled into saying something that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
I haven’t heard anyone mention Air Play outside of Biz’s original statement. Maybe it did happen, but I haven’t heard anything about it since.
Babs never denied asking for photos, he said that Biz’s “side” of the story was a gross misinterpretation, he denied that there was no sinister intent in doing so.
Playing the devil’s advocate, I can’t imagine if Babs was planning to do something like this, it wouldn’t be before training camp had even started yet. I would think that he’d wait until he was a bit more established with the team and the outrage of him being back in the league had subsided some.
Babs deserves to be under scrutiny because of his past, but I feel like jumping on every little thing that he does is going to diminish the impact of the actual bad things that he did or will do in the future (hopefully not)