For a league that needs zero help showing its ass, it got a huge assist this weekend from all of its fans, exalting one of its most useless players in its sad history.
The John Scott All Star game campaign was always too-clever-by-half from a sect of self-labeled hockey progressives thinking they were being cute, funny, ironic or any number of numerous annoying adjectives. And what just happened in Nashville shows that the fans of this league get the exact Mickey Mouse operation they deserve with how ridiculous it all became.
But first, some noxious hyperbole.
If watching John Scott win the MVP doesn't put a smile on your face, you aren't human. This game is supposed to be fun! #AllSmiles
— Brody Sutter (@Sutts19) February 1, 2016
Hero pic.twitter.com/mZkbkPiCQl
— NHL (@NHL) February 1, 2016
john scott may have saved hockey
— big time astros fan (@Whoabot) February 1, 2016
In a perfect world John Scott would've been given the MVP immediately after the cameras caught him laughing at Kane getting booed.
— Kyle (@kyleholton) February 1, 2016
As a 6’8″ tabula rasa, John Scott became all things to all people this weekend, with the amount of fan projection on what they wanted him to be at an all time high. Somehow all at the same time John Scott became emblematic of a farcically run league, a dying breed of hockey player, a post-modern idol for a deluded and self-congratulatory fandom, a vessel for physical vengeance, and somehow a sympathetic figure because someone at his job said something mean to him. From personal experience, I’ve had a boss threaten to kill me and mock how little he was paying me in front of co-workers, and nearly every other working human being on earth has had the same experience of having a boss say something shitty to them. But because John Scott plays a game wherein he gets to injure people not all that reluctantly, his profanity laced screed that he didn’t write himself somehow brings people to tears. Vomit.
Perhaps most idiotic was Scott’s introduction during last night’s skills competition, where him getting the loudest cheers immediately after a rain of boos came down upon Garbage Dick was met with laughter by Scott, yet somehow interpreted as mocking derision and a statement on Kane’s firmly entrenched status as a piece of trash accused of sexual assault. The fact of the matter is that Kane and Scott are friends (and not friends with any fans), and that he was accused of sexual assault and is now getting booed is one big fucking joke to them, because they are both professional athletes without consequence. Bonus points to the Nashville fans as well for being able to straight-facedly boo Kane while having an equally big piece of shit in Mike Ribeiro wearing colors that they root for.
Again, John Scott saying he didn't like Patrick Kane was a joke. They're friends. Scott was laughing when he said it.
— Chris Kuc (@ChrisKuc) January 29, 2016
John Scott on laughing at Patrick Kane in intro: “I was dying. He said, ‘Watch this, I’m going to get booed and you'll get biggest cheers.’”
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) January 31, 2016
This is all a big fucking joke to the players involved, but not the joke that the fans thought they were all a part of. The same people who abhor fighting but want John Scott to suplex Gary Bettman. So congratulations to literally everyone involved this weekend, down to every person who took the time to type out a hashtag to write Scott in as a vote for MVP (and the fact that he was able to score two goals in 3v3 only furter proves how idiotic it is that the format is deciding regular season games). This weekend the NHL’s fans proved they get the exact caliber of league operations they deserve by making this man the 6’8″ hill they were willing to die on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ6293ab6vA