Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Don't Vote

That's right.

Don't vote for the all-star game.  Don't vote for Ward, don't vote for Thomas, don't vote for anyone.  Avoid the site like the plague.

The NHL has officially said that the fraudulent votes are correct, puck daddy reports.  They removed about 20,000 from Kovalev, but they're still ahead by hundreds of thousands.

So the league gets to sit happily atop a mountain of press about how they've "fixed" everything, and they like it.  Well, I'm sick of it.  First they leave Thomas off the ballot, to get people like me and Chris over at HubHockey.com into a frenzy to drive people to their site.  This is called good advertising, and the league finally did some.  Then again, it's the league's only good advertising move in the past.....well, I don't know how long, and it was a dirty manipulative trick to get core fans riled up.  I guess they learned that that was a good tactic after they locked out the players and canceled the season on the fans.

NHL, this is stupid.  Eventually, the tactic of "you can't have it...ok now you can" will stop working.  Plenty of folks stopped caring about hockey - sometimes aggressively - after the lockout, and I don't blame them.   They're slowly returning, but how long will it be before Bettman makes another boneheaded move and all of a sudden, the NHL is the laughingstock of the sports world again (if it's even mentioned).

Yes, Tim Thomas deserves to be an all-star.  We all know that.  He knows that.  The NHL marketing team knows that, and that's why he wasn't on the ballot.  I wouldn't be surprised if Peter Chiarelli specifically asked to keep him off so he'd play better.  It turned out to be a great coaching move.  He's been playing out of his mind all year long.

If you must continue to support this malarky, then go ahead and vote for Thomas.  He deserves it.  But don't think you're sending the NHL a message other than "I fell for it."

2 Comments:

Evan50 said...

A few things:

1. Leaving Thomas off the ballot wasn't advertising. Advertising is promoting something through a paid medium. If the NHL bought time on TV stations for ads saying "Tim Thomas isn't on the ballot write him in", then it would be advertising.

2. When the league had to submit the names for the all star ballot Tim Thomas was splitting time with Fernandez equally and giving up 3 or 4 goals a game.

3. If Thomas keeps playing like he has, he will be named to the all-star game anyways.

4. Habs fans are a bunch of filthy cheaters.

Unknown said...

1. There is such a thing as word-of-mouth advertising, and it's the most valuable kind. I've gotta say, it reeks of that.

2. Do you know when those names are submitted?

3. Truth.

4. Truth.