WELL COVERED
P.K. Subban, who’s on the front of Sports Illustrated and featured in The New Yorker, may be hockey’s most marketable man
Is P.K. Subban hockey’s most marketable man?
It sure seems like it. A big feature story about the Montreal Canadiens defenceman appears in the current issue of The New Yorker — a famous magazine, though one not famous for its hockey writing. And the Nov. 24 issue of Sports Illustrated, which dabbles in hockey, put Subban on its cover. CBS’s 60 Minutes is also planning a feature on Subban.
Here are some things to know about Subban, from the two articles already published, as he and the Habs prepare to host the Canucks Tuesday:
Subban’s game in a nutshell
“Unlike most elite defencemen, Subban is not a calming blue-line presence,” writes Michael Farber in SI. “He colours outside the lines. At his worst, when his enthusiasm trumps his judgment, he might give both teams a good chance to win. At his best, he is unconventional and fearless.”
If you have to liken him to someone
Writes Ben McGrath in The New Yorker: “Subban is one of the world’s most thrilling athletes, someone who, like Roger Federer, or Kevin Durant, or Yasiel Puig, awes less because of the results he achieves than because of the way he achieves them — kinetic charisma, approaching genius.”
Where Subban stands in Canadiens folklore, despite no Stanley Cup
“If you accept the Canadiens’ poetic inclinations, the time line of the franchise can be charted as a torch relay of hockey exceptionalism,” writes Farber. “Starting in 1942 the metaphoric flame has passed from Maurice Richard to Jean Béliveau (in ’53), to Guy Lafleur (in ’71) and finally to Patrick Roy (in ’85). Now after two mostly unexceptional decades (the Canadiens last won a Stanley Cup in ’93), Subban has stooped, retrieved the flickering light and illuminated the city.”
On Subban’s place among hockey’s black players
“There are thirty teams in the N.H.L., and eighteen black players. Yet only Subban, among them, is regularly booed by opposing fans when he touches the puck — a shaming honour reserved for a handful of villains in any given hockey season,” writes McGrath. “He is not the sport’s first black star. Grant Fuhr, who is biracial and was raised by adoptive white parents in Alberta, played goalie for the Edmonton Oilers dynasty in the 1980s. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003. Jarome Iginla, whose father was born in Nigeria, is now playing in his 18th N.H.L. season, and has scored 564 goals, the second-most among active players. A rugged forward, Iginla has the straight-ahead determination of a slot-hockey player, and is typically praised for his classy strain of truculence. Unlike Subban, he has never affected the pose of an archer while on the ice (shooting the lights out), nor given himself a nickname like the Subbanator.”
What Subban’s mom, Maria, says about his friend Sidney Crosby
“P.K. is a fun person, and he smiles, and all the guys, they hate it when he smiles on the ice, because hockey players are not supposed to smile on the ice,” she tells McGrath. “This is a fun game. You can have fun and still win. And this is the difference between him and Sidney Crosby. Sidney Crosby is a serious guy. He has to put on his hockey face. He has to carry that around with him all the time. But P.K. doesn’t carry anything. ‘This is me. This is the way I am. Put me on the ice!’ ”
That unique, sometimes maddening Subban attitude — and sense of humour
“Subban certainly knows how to make an entrance,” writes Farber. “When the Canadiens took him in the second round in 2007 — he was the 17th defenceman selected — Subban approached the draft table, shook hands all around and said, ‘You guys made the right choice.’ In his first NHL game, a 3-2 loss in Philadelphia in February ’10, Subban challenged towering Flyers defenceman Chris Pronger, perhaps the nastiest player of his generation, during a scrum at the end of the third period. ‘He’s got one guy in one hand and one guy in another,’ Subban says. ‘I come right in the middle, grab him and say, “Let him go, let him go.” And he didn’t say anything. I say, “I’m not scared of you.” He says, “God, your breath stinks. Can you get out of here?” ’ ”