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Is it just me, or are we all losing our minds?
The world's financial markets are as fragile as crystal, the United Nations is warning of droughts of biblical proportions, it may cost us $100 to fill up our cars this summer and all we're talking about this week are goaltenders.
In Vancouver, Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo has had to face questions about his wife's pregnancy. Gina Luongo is due the first week of April, when her husband's NHL team could well be fighting for its playoff life. So what will the all-star goalie do, people want to know. Fly to Florida to be by his wife's side for the birth of their first child, or stick with his team, whose chances of winning without him are slim?
Mr. Luongo's teammates are being asked what they think he should do. It's being debated on the radio. There are actually those who think that because the Canucks are paying him $7-million a year he has an obligation to miss the birth of his child. Someone can take a video of it.
It's rare that I ever feel sorry for a professional athlete, but the fact that Mr. Luongo is even being questioned about this is so unfair. Not to mention nuts.
And then there is l'affaire Roy.
You no doubt have seen it on television or on YouTube - the on-ice brawl between the Patrick Roy-coached Quebec Remparts and the Chicoutimi Saguenéens. While the brawl was pretty disgusting in itself, the show-stealer was Mr. Roy's son, Jonathan, skating the length of the ice to attack the other team's goalie, who didn't want to fight.
The younger Roy ripped off the other goalie's mask and then started pummelling him, even when his foe was on his knees and trying to protect his head. After he finished, Mr. Roy left the ice while flipping fans the finger - an act for which he has since apologized.
As they have so many times before, Canadians spent the week shaking their heads and listening to politicians and others talk about how there shouldn't be a place in hockey for this kind of behaviour. And as a country, we dust off the same, stale old conversation every time something equally atrocious happens on the ice.
Why get upset about something that we ultimately tolerate and encourage?
Of course, we should be embarrassed that Canada is associated around the world with these types of incidents. We should also be troubled that we give some people a free pass when it comes to their behaviour because once upon a time they were famous hockey players.
What Patrick Roy, the legendary NHL goaltender, did in that game was despicable. And if he had any guts he'd own up to the role he appeared to have played in it. It's clear that he whistled to his son and motioned him back down the ice in the direction of the opposing goalie. In hockey, you don't need or get written instructions about such things. His son, Jonathan, knew instantly what his father's wordless directions meant.
Maybe Patrick Roy will forever maintain that he never told his son to go down, pull Bobby Nadeau's mask off his face, and begin smashing him about the head even after he was down, ducking for cover. True, Patrick Roy never told his son to do that. But I believe, and will always believe, his unspoken orders led to what happened and for that he should have been severely punished.
For his critical role in the boorish drama that unfolded in Chicoutimi last week Mr. Roy will not be able to coach for a whole five games. And his son, the one who, while maybe trying to please a demanding father, nonetheless took part in a beating that wouldn't have been out of place in a back alley somewhere, well, he will not be able to be his dad's backup goalie for seven whole games.
Boy, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League really knows how to send a message doesn't it?
Meantime, we shake our heads at how inadequate and weak-kneed the league's response is and how it's time to ban fighting, while knowing in our hearts that it will soon be forgotten and Patrick Roy will once again be patted on the back everywhere he goes and deferred to in the most obsequious of ways and nothing will have changed and nothing will have been learned from what happened in Chicoutimi.
And in a couple of weeks, Canadians may well be at their dinner tables debating whether Roberto Luongo cost his team a playoff spot by attending the birth of his child.
Maybe we are all going crazy.
