King amongst men, but villain on the ice

were they booing me?

“I’m just kidding. That’s just a part of pro sports. I’m sure there’s a lot of athletes that see it in sports. You know what? I’ll take it as a compliment and continue to play.”

It’s true that fans don’t usually boo players who have little or no impact on a game. Subban is both an offensive force and a defensive shot suppressor, who can mix it up physically with the best of them. He’s nominated for his second Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenceman this season.

He’s not about to let a lit- usual in this series — he took the penalty that led to the Jets’ winning goal in Game 3 — but he has averaged over 30 minutes per game of ice time and the Jets always have to be aware when he’s on the ice.

“If he was on your team, you’d love him. And if you’re playing against him, he’s pretty tough to play against,” Jets centre Paul Stastny said. “When you’re playing against him, you keep your emotions in check because he wants to get under your skin.”

As much as he irritates his opponents, Subban does

He pledged to donate $10 million to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation and is still working to that goal and he’s the founder of Blue-line Buddies, a program that uses hockey to bring down barriers between police and local youth in Nashville. Subban brings together a member of the Nashville police and a guest with an underprivileged youth and a mentor from a local organization at Predators’ games by supplying tickets, dinner and a pre-game meeting.

“It means a lot,” Subban said. “Generally, with hockey players, we don’t usually talk about individual awards and nominations a lot but this one is a little different and very special. I’m very, very honoured and I was very happy to hear the news Thursday.”

Just before Blake Wheeler scored the winning goal in Game 3, Predators goalie Pekka Rinne alerted one of the referees that a strap had come loose on his helmet and was hoping to get a stoppage in play.

He was denied and before he got get a chance to fix the strap, the puck was in the back of his net.

“When you look at the rule book, it’s the referee’s call,” Rinne said. “I let him know about the situation and it’s his call to make the decision, whatever he feels like is safest for the goalie or good for the game. At that moment, he thought that I could play through and I didn’t get the call.

“That’s part of the game.” nationalpost.com