Tough love for an agitator
Daniel Wagner says: One team’s hero is another team’s villain
Alex Burrows is the scum of the earth: a dirty, headhunting, moustache-twirling villain, who only leaves his secret volcano-island lair to bite fingers, pull hair or, worse, embellish a penalty. He’s exactly the type of player the National Hockey League wants out of the game.
Alex Burrows is the salt of the earth: a hard-working, blue-collar player, who battled his way up from being an undrafted ECHLer all the way to the top line of a Presidents’ Trophy winner. He’s the buster of slumps and the slayer of dragons. The NHL could use more players like him.
How can one player inspire such opposing reactions? Certainly there’s some homerism involved: when Ryan Kesler was in Vancouver, Canucks fans were well aware he was a jerk, but he was “our jerk.” To a certain extent, that’s true of Burrows as well. It’s not like Canucks fans don’t know how much of a pain-in-the-neck Burrows can be; in fact, they revel in it.
But ask Canucks fans how they can cheer for Burrows when he’s dirty and attempts to injure opponents and they’ll respond, “He’s not that type of player.”
That may be difficult to believe for opposing fans or even some media members who have already passed judgment on Burrows, assuming he’s guilty in any questionable situation. After Burrows received a five-minute major and a game misconduct for interference on Paul Gaustad, many commentators were quick to append “and he has a reputation” to their analysis of the incident, so it was a surprise to them all when Burrows escaped without further discipline.
Burrows has a reputation, but it’s a reputation for being an agitator who sometimes crosses the line, not for dirty hits or attempts to injure. Those two very different reputations can get conflated. Just ask Adam Proteau, who wrote a hit piece on Burrows for The Hockey News after the hit on Gaustad.
Proteau took a trip down Burrows’ long, sordid history of dirty hits, which consisted of exactly two videos: his suspension for hitting Alexei Emelin earlier this season and his hit on Ryan McDonagh last season, for which Burrows received no suspension because, well, it was a clean hit. That would be the hit that had everyone analyzing the video like it was the Zapruder film looking for contact to the head, until it was revealed that McDonagh had suffered a shoulder injury from hitting the boards. Proteau even describes the hit as “late,” despite the puck being in McDonagh’s skates at the time.
Somehow, Burrows’ reputation for agitation has spontaneously evolved into a reputation for attempting to injure other players with dirty hits. Attempt to find hits to support this reputation and you run out of examples at one.
Attempt to find hits by watching Burrows play, as opposed to just what ends up on YouTube, and you’ll discover that even the silly incidents are few and far between. Burrows’ lowest moments are outweighed by his highest moments and the hundreds of thousands of middling moments. To Canucks fans, Burrows has a reputation for hard work and clutch goals, not for dirty play.
The next step, of course, is acknowledging that this is true of others. It took just one moment for Duncan Keith to be eternally hated by Canucks fans — his brutal headshot on Daniel Sedin — but Blackhawks fans will simply say, “He’s not that kind of player,” and explain how he’s otherwise one of the cleanest players in the game, rarely taking penalties despite averaging 25 minutes a night.
Brad Marchand is, to Bruins fans, a fearless agitator, who makes up for his lack of size with boatloads of skill and an ability to come through in the clutch. He’s not the scum of the earth for his dirty plays; he has to play that way to defend himself given his 5-9 stature.
One team’s scum is another team’s treasured teammate, a standup guy who regularly visits the children’s hospital and volunteers teaching hockey to underprivileged kids.
So, don’t be too quick to condemn someone like Proteau for judging Burrows so harshly; we do the same thing with so many other players.
But seriously, Duncan Keith is the scum of the earth.