With regards to the title, he's also a Toronto Star writer.
Not surprisingly, the good guys over at the Puppets have already taken Damien Cox to task for a blog post he put on the Star's website Tuesday morning, before the Star took down a paragraph and he yanked the whole thing. Being the Internet, the thing exists in perpetuity along with every naked picture you've ever taken of yourself in a mirror.
A line PPP didn't get to, though, is this one:
The teams and the league love to daydream of a day when the independent media has been drowned out by their propaganda and fans don't see the difference.
For how much the blogosphere rips apart Cox, and for how badly Cox chose his words, he is right.
Earlier this week there were Internet reports that surfaced that suggested that Toronto-area sportswriter, the renowned steroid sports media expert and totally impartial observer Damien Cox was going to join TSN full-time.
But now that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Instead, Sportsnet "wrestled" Cox away from TSN meaning that Cox will join the lineup and become the lone voice of reason in the chaotic, chaotic mess that is Sportsnet.
A lot has happened this week. Tyler Dellow kicked it off Sunday night with his post about the public Colin Campbell e-mails and connected the dots. There were three major points to take away from this:
A) Colin Campbell has a foul mouth.
B) Colin Campbell gets pissed off when calls go against his son.
C) Colin Campbell has harsh words for players who complain about calls.
thus they continue to direct attention to the Wisniewski gesture
It's not a throat slash. It's not anything violent. It didn't put anybody in physical harm. It didn't involve anybody except for James Wisniewski and Sean Avery, and shouldn't really offend anybody.
Sunday's hockey games offered a lot for the hockey media to pontificate on. New Jersey dressed 15 players due to salary cap contraints (there's a legal issue here), there was a big brawl in the St. Louis/Anaheim game that was out of reach (there's an unnecessary violence issue here), there have been nine head injuries so far this season (there's a player safety issue here).
So James Wisniewski told Sean Avery to blow him. I'm sure that nobody has ever done that. I'm sure no fan has ever done that. I'm sure that Sean Avery has a squeaky-clean track record and sensitive personality that would make him feel totally uncomfortable by a gesture like that.
"But I'm sure nothing is going to happen to him because nothing ever happens.
"It's interesting you get a warning [from the officials] for something like that. Imagine if I did that. I'd be sent to rehab."
I thought what happened on the ice stayed on the ice, or something. (Somebody needs to re-write the unwritten code) Sean Avery displayed his inability to let go of Elisha Cuthbert to the media the way a crying failed contestant on American Idol yells to the judges that "ya'll haven't heard the last of me! Ya'll missed your chance!" James Wiesniewski didn't. He told Sean Avery to blow him. The only way this is a controversy is if Graham James is involved.
Ugly hit, yes. Suspension-worthy, yes. Malicious, no. Hjalmarsson is a guy who had 20 PIMs last year, all minors. Like Pominville, he got caught out of position and had a momentary lapse of judgment. This is the type of hit that puts somebody into the 'repeat offender' category and nothing more.
Does the NHL value class or safety more? Does is despise vulgarity more, or actions which put other players in unnecessary physical danger?
Class or safety? The only player who isn't safe when Hjalmarsson is on the ice is Marty Turco (Hjalmarsson is a -4 already this year)
After 20 years of seeing various nefarious misdeeds on the rink, I can't tell you with any honesty what will transpire in either case.
Nefarious misdeed? Is that a synonym for "isolated incident" which is what both of these cases are?
If Damien Cox is so concerned about class and protecting the children, maybe him and the rest of the hockey media who are so concerned should stop talking about it. TSN ran the video in their highlight package, except they blurred the gesture. Again, if TSN is concerned about the children, then don't show it.
It reminds of when Paul McCartney was asked by an interviewer whether he did drugs. McCartney said yes. The interviewer asked whether he was going to be seen as a bad influence, to which McCartney replied "I'm not the one publishing it."
Will one action deserve only a slap on the wrist, or both? Will Colin Campbell decide enough is enough and hammer both Wisnewski and Hjalmarsson?
Only Campbell knows, and as he awakes this morning, he probably doesn't know, either.
Well that makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks for clarifying it for me.
For what it's worth, Hjalmarsson deserves two or three games and a target on his back for the next time he does something like this, which may be never. Wisniewski deserves nothing until he starts slandering ex-girlfriends in the press or acting like a pest for being a pest on the ice reccurently and actually becomes a threat to the 'class' of the game.
Damien Cox... Damien Cox seems to have mastered the art of making bold statements without actually making bold statements. His latest 'Star' column is accusing Jose Bautista, who hit 2 home runs in a 3-2 Blue Jay win over the Yankees Monday night, of taking drugs.
The great news for Bautista is that these numbers will surely net him an enormous increase on his current $2.4 million salary when his contract expires. That would motivate any player to find a way to improve his stats.
The Blue Jays, we know, have quietly become known as a bit of a nest for alleged steroid abusers over the years. Clemens played here. Gregg Zaun has been implicated. Ditto for Troy Glaus.
And now comes Bautista. Blue Jay fans will, of course, angrily respond to the suggestion that everything isn't on the up-and-up, just as I remember getting bushels of bitter emails from baseball fans when questioning Mark McGwire's open use of androstenedione back when he was smashing Roger Maris' record.
This seems to be an implication that not just Bautista, but ever single Toronto Blue Jay in the team's history has been juicing. "Joe Carter? He played for the same organization as Troy Glaus. Think about it, guys: Pat Hentgen played in Skydome, LIKE ROGER CLEMENS DID!!!!"
The beauty with Cox is that he can get away with making his stupid, baseless arguments because he's not alleging that Jose Bautista's cap size has grown by 1000% over the last three months. He's alleging Jose Bautista to have played for an organization that has had some players with steroid problems, like every single Major League Baseball team for the last twenty years.
I don't get this guy. He's trying to circle the media wagons around Bautista, like they did for McGwire. But now the media are cheering McGwire on and, because we're in the cyber era we're... wait... what?
"Most don't expect that [arbitrator Richard Bloch to uphold the NHL's decision] to happen," Cox writes, "and instead it's likely Ilya Kovalchuk will officially become a New Jersey Devil, with his controversial 17-year, $102 million deal approved."
I fail to comprehend who "most" is referring to. If Cox has an extensive list of labour lawyers and union experts to quote and draw his conclusions from, well, all the best to him. The thing is that he doesn't, and his source list is likely made up of ex-players and former agents--former agents for a reason--who have read the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement as extensively as we have, and have no more insight into the matter as that braindead co-worker.
Using an all-encompassing term like "most" without quoting sufficient sources is what seperates real journalists from schmos who, already having made a career, just mail in every column and offer no differing opinion than the majority of 7pm-10pm sports fans.
That being said, in the unlikely event that Bloch does not overturn the NHL's decision, we're told by Cox, in the same column, that "it's believed the Los Angeles Kings would be first in line to try and sign him," even though Dean Lomardi, General Manager of the Kings says that his team "weren't in the the ballpark" with the deal that the Devils initially signed Kovalchuk to.
Toss in a couple of Tomas Kaberle rumours, also with no substantial evidence to back up his claims, as click-bait, and you have your typical Damien Cox column, including a close-to-but-not-exceeding-400 word count.
So, an hour or so after Bloch decided to prove Damien Cox wrong, Cox came out with an apologetic response piece, explaining the ramifications of this whole thing. Reading is not reccomended.
I think the article itself is about how Serena Williams is the only favourite left in the field, but the obvious just creeps into the back of our minds so hard it makes us chuckle.
Meet your 2010 Wimbledone women's singles semifinalists:
