Trying to start off a sports blog like this with a thoughtful and inspiring quote seems like it would be a bit pretentious. And that’s not at all what I’m going for.
Hey everybody, my name is Zachary Horner and I am a freshman at Elon University. I love sports in general, but mostly I am a humongous fan of the NHL, particularly the Carolina Hurricanes. I have been to five or six games every year for about 5 or 6 years save the 2004-2005 lockout season, which was quite possibly one of the most boring years of my life. That aside, I am writing this in order to entertain you guys and inform you about the world of the NHL. I will also write about my opinions about certain things. My first entry will be about Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Dan Ellis and his recent Twitter debacle.
I’m going to be casual and serious at the same time, something that is genuinely me. So no pretentiousness. I’ll have a blog entry every Sunday. Starting in October I’ll be recapping the week for the Hurricanes with some other random news and notes about the rest of the NHL.
Sound good everyone? Good.
---
Chalk up a victory for the unabashed, nitpicking critics who populate Twitter.
On September 6, Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Dan Ellis made a few tweets in response to New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush’s response to a fan about the sticking point in the NFL’s CBA negotiations. Bush had said it was the players would have had to take an 18% pay cut. Ellis re-Tweeted that and then commented that the NHL players had to take a 24% cut (by the way, if you haven’t realized by now, Twitter is complicated). He followed that with these five successive tweets:
“If you lost 18% of your income would you be happy? I can honestly say that I am more stressed about money now then when I was in college.
“I can’t explain it and I never thought it would be the case but it is true. $ (money) in no way makes u more happy or makes life much easier.
“If you don’t make a lot of money I don’t expect u to understand in the same way I could never understand what it is like to risk my life
“Daily as a fire fighter or police officer...especially not a soldier. There r pros and cons to every profession. U r kidding yourself..
“If u think money makes things any easier.”
Instantly there was backlash. The one response Ellis re-Tweeted, from @ArsonistSavior, said this: “you get PAID to PLAY HOCKEY...suck it up. feel free to go work construction if the “pressure” gets too rough for you #rollseyes.” Another tweeter, @wyshynski, linked to a story he wrote on Yahoo! Sports. In the story, Wyshyniski writes, “Monday night’s ‘Dan Ellis Problems’ flare-up wasn’t a call for him to be more benign and less opinionated - it was a well-deserved kick in the teeth for a professional athlete seemingly incapable of understanding what an elitist jacka** he comes across as being on social media. It’s enough to make a paying customer not want to pay.”
So obviously, some people were taking this as a humorous story. #DanEllisProblems become a popular topic on Twitter with several tweets marked with the hashtag.
I’ve followed Dan Ellis for a while on Twitter and have enjoyed his tweets quite a bit. His opinion makes complete sense to me.
People should not be criticizing how a guy feels unless it is something horribly and morally wrong. People are just being unabashed, self-righteous people who can not wait to criticize someone semi-famous to feel good about themselves.
I am more on the side of Elliotte Friedman with Hockey Night in Canada. He tweeted this on the 9th:
“Dan Ellis twitter story proves one of my long-time theories: We only want to hear the truth from people so we can rip them.”
Accurate statement, Elliotte. Accurate statement.
By the way, I have met Dan Ellis. He was a genuinely nice guy, like most hockey players are. He was a pretty popular player on Twitter because of his down-to-earth personality and sometimes humorous tweets. It’s a real shame he had to go.
You can e-mail Zach at whorner@elon.edu or find him on Twitter at @canesfan21367.