Caught on camera
An apparently drunken Auston Matthews was caught with his pants down in Arizona and, in doing so, probably cost himself the captaincy of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The announcement was expected to come early next week, just before the NHL regular season is to begin.
But how do they do that now? How do they do that when Matthews is facing a disorderly conduct and disruptive behaviour charge stemming from an incident last May, according to the Scottsdale Police Department?
How do they do that in this changing world of MeToo and anti-harassment, with a hockey team run by the politically correct general manager Kyle Dubas? How do they look the other way?
And how do the Leafs, in the wake of the Matthews news breaking late on Tuesday afternoon, reward idiocy?
They can’t look away when a position that’s all about leadership and maturity — and, even more than that, that’s historically symbolic for a signature franchise — is trampled on by immature hijinks, and a lack of judgment … if the Scottsdale police report is to believed.
None of the allegations have been proven in court and none are of the major-crime variety. More than anything, the real crime here is both stupidity and entitlement. A court of law doesn’t have to prove that. He is already guilty of being an ass, likely a drunken ass at 2 in the morning.
“The Toronto Maple Leafs are aware of the complaint of disturbing the peace against forward Auston Matthews,” the Leafs began in a released statement on Tuesday that didn’t accurately portray the situation. The Leafs’ statement didn’t indicate Matthews was being charged with anything.
“Auston is co-operating fully with the relevant authorities but neither he nor the club will comment any further out of respect for the process involved.”
The incident apparently took place at 2 a.m. on May 26 outside of the condo in which Matthews lives in Scottdale.
The building’s security guard, a woman named Fayola Dothizee, was sitting in her locked vehicle when she was startled by the sound of someone trying to open her car door.
According to the police report “she jumped out of her vehicle to find out who was trying to get in her car … and noticed it was Auston and his friends.
“She confronted them and the response from Auston was they wanted to see what she would do and they believed it would be funny to see how she would respond.”
They thought it was funny. “Fayola found this very disturbing and (it) put her on edge. Fayola said she’d told Auston and his friends, ‘I am a female, I am a military vet with sever(e) PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).’
“She also told them it wasn’t funny and how could they think it would be funny to try and get in a female’s vehicle at 2 a.m. in the morning.”