In 1990 the Miami, Florida based rap group 2 Live Crew became embroiled in a firestorm of controversy over the lyrics in some of their songs (most notably their song As Nasty As They Wanna Be) which some politicians claimed promoted sexual brutality against women. Broward County Sherriff Nick Navarro sent a memo to music stores that stated that selling 2 Live Crew’s albums may be prosecutable over what they believed were obscenity violations in their songs. Eventually, one local music retailer was even arrested as he sold one of 2 Live Crew’s albums to an undercover cop. A U.S. District Court Judge Jose Gonzalez even affirmed the initial ruling saying that the lyrics were obscene and should be illegal to sell. 2 Live Crew took the matter to court, and in 1992 a U.S. Appeals Court overturned Gonzalez’s ruling. The result of the controversy was that it vaulted 2 Live Crew to a brief moment of fame and served as the engine for the group to sell over 2 million albums of As Nasty As They Wanna to Be. Yet the legal fight wasn’t over, and 2 Live Crew was hammered with a few more lawsuits from heavy metal group Van Halen for not having permission to use one of his songs in a 2 Live Crew adaptation and even Star Wars creator George Lucas who sued the group over their attempt to create their new company Luke Skyywalker Records. Both lawsuits were successful, and 2 Live Crew decided to take their protest to their music in their next album Banned in the U.S.A. in which had permission to use the music from Bruce Springsteen‘s Born in the USA. “We’ve got white collar people trying to grab our style, saying we’re too nasty and we’re too live, corrupted politicians playing games, bringing us down to boost their fame, they must be joking when they think we will fall, but they’re like flies movin’ the wall, we will stand tall from beginning to end, with help from fans and all our friends, freedom of speech will never die, for us to help our ancestors died, don’t keep thinking that we will quit, we’ll always stand and never sit, we’re 2 live, 2 black, 2 strong, doing the right thing and not the wrong, so listen up, y’all, to what we say, we won’t be banned in the U.S.A.!” is just a small part of this signature song. I remember this rather vividly as a kid, and how it really brought up the issue of censorship and the 1st Amendment. For kids who felt they were being ‘censored’ 2 Live Crew’s Banned in the U.S.A. became their anthem.
The blogging universe is a diverse place where opinions are tossed about with little to no hesitation and the unfiltered nature of it is appealing for those people looking for a raw “not just the company line” point of view. I would be a complete hypocrite if I pushed for a strong censorship of blogs but I do wish to hold myself to at least some standard of general ethics. I would hope any of my blogging comrades out there would do so, but that is their personal choice to make. Much the same can be said for those in talk radio which in many cases is a prolonged audio version of an editorial. Some radio personalities shoot for being funny with satire and extreme sarcasm like AM 1130’s KFAN’s ‘the Common Man’ Dan Cole or others blast away with pure arrogance like a Rush Limbaugh as they promote themselves and their views. In the case of Limbaugh, he doesn’t care how bigoted or inappropriate his statements may be as he wants the publicity of shock and controversy. As is the case in the blogging universe, radio probably has a personality for virtually any type of potential listener out there. Sports radio has its share of homers and eternal pessimists (haters) and that’s just fine as in most cases the views tossed around give listeners a balance of opinions to consider. So what does this have to do with hockey? I was listening to XM radio after football practice and was tuned into NHL Home Ice where they had a recording of a show with their radio personality Jim “Boomer” Gordon. Gordon was explaining how the Minnesota Wild made a foolish move to trade away Brent Burns and Martin Havlat to San Jose for Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley. He felt the Wild were going to be highly disappointed in Heatley as he felt the 30-year old has lost a step to his game. So just who is Jim “Boomer” Gordon?
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This is a pre-Yahoo! (aka pre-Puck Daddy) Greg Wyshinski 2007 article on Jim ‘Boomer’ Gordon here. I have to admit, sort of like Wyshinski’s article states I was a bit surprised that Gordon was not an ex-NHL’er as I had assumed. I hadn’t heard of him so I figured he was some Mike Greenlay type of player who maybe had a small cup of coffee in the league but spent most of his professional career in the minors. Yet, Gordon didn’t even play major junior hockey. In fact, despite being Canadian he was more of a basketball guy by his own admission. So why should anyone put much stock into what Gordon says about the Wild’s off season moves? Well, I’d humbly say that Gordon’s professional hockey credentials are really no better than yours truly. I never played major junior either, let alone even a few games in the NHL so who is really to say he’s any more correct / incorrect than I am? But what else did Gordon say?
Gordon stated that he feels the Wild were absolutely foolish for trading away Brent Burns who looks to to be in his opinion one of the best young defenseman in the league. The only mild rationalization Gordon was able to offer for Minnesota General Manager Chuck Fletcher‘s move was that perhaps it was a cost savings measure by the Wild who wished to avoid being tied down with a long-term and expensive contract. Burns certainly had an outstanding season last year, scoring a career high 17 goals and 46 points in 80 games last season and earning a spot in the All Star Game. However, those numbers that Gordon leaned on quite heavily I might add ignored the fact that Burns production was mostly during the 1st half of the season. It also ignores the fact that Burns had strung together 2 miserable seasons prior to his bounce back year. Burns was not only not producing a lot of points during those two seasons of misery but also was extremely erratic and downright reckless in his own zone. ‘Boomer’ went onto say that he felt Burns was the type of player that could bring the San Jose Sharks a step closer to the Stanley Cup. While I’d like to agree that Burns makes the Sharks’ blueline better, he also doesn’t have a lot of playoff experience to his resume either. It really all comes down to what you think Burns’ trajectory will be. Will it be up and down or are they on a constant climb of improvement? My feeling is that Burns will be inconsistent, where he can show you flashes of pure brilliance but then also make undisciplined mistakes in the defensive zone that usually result in goals for the opposing team.
Gordon’s other big assertion is that the Wild got the worst of the Martin Havlat for Dany Heatley deal. The Burlington, Ontario-native’s premise is that Dany Heatley has lost a step based on his declining production over the last 3 seasons and feels his chances to score won’t be any better in Minnesota where he has less talented linemates to work with. I will not argue that Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are not as good as Mikko Koivu and (insert un-named Wild winger here) but I think there is a level of generalization at work here in Gordon’s assertion. Who has Mikko Koivu had to work with in his career with the Wild? He has played on a line with more of a playmaker and near the crease sniper Andrew Brunette and the very streaky and out of place Antti Miettinen as linemates and still manages to score at least 60 points per season while logging heavy minutes on the penalty kill as well. Koivu and Thornton’s goal statistics are quite similar, just the assists lean heavily in favor of the Sharks’ captain who had both Heatley and Patrick Marleau (a fairly consistent 30 goal scorer) to work with. Pierre-Marc Bouchard could very well be that other winger on the Wild’s top line and he has shown that he can be a reasonable set-up man when placed on a line with shooting winger as was the case with Brian Rolston.
If anyone has listened to NHL Home Ice for some time, you’ll notice a strong Eastern Conference bias. Most of the broadcasters are either from Toronto or Ottawa. In fact, a good portion of the ‘experts’ the league employs really should only be considered ‘experts’ of the one conference that finds itself entirely in a single timezone. The opinions shared by Gordon and other Eastern Conference based ‘experts’ seldom mention Western Conference teams apart from Detroit (which coincidentally is in the Eastern timezone) and perhaps Chicago. They often admit they do not stay up to watch games played out west simply because its ‘too late’ for them. While that’s a valid reason perhaps if you want to sleep it hardly makes for great perspective when you’re really only watching half of the league. It is patently obvious when you hear these experts opine on the Wild’s play as they almost always mention Jacques Lemaire and the trap. Lemaire hasn’t been the team’s coach in 2 years, so what bearing does that have on what the team is like now? Gordon’s main points were leaning heavily on statistics which is another hint that they hadn’t seen the players perform. He did admit to watching Heatley play in the playoffs, but had little or nothing to say about his performance during the regular season. Gordon also seems to see Martin Havlat in a generous light as he called him underrated. Where was this Havlat love during the regular season?
I would also say that there is a significant portion of Canadian hockey fans that just hate Dany Heatley. Whether it was the tragic accident involving himself and teammate Dan Snyder (and his subsequent death) when he was with the Thrashers, or his demand to be traded from the Ottawa Senators and his refusal to accept a deal that would’ve sent him to Edmonton Heatley has been a fairly popular whipping boy in Canadian media circles. Ottawa vigorously maligned Heatley as a selfish whiner and Gordon continues to promote this anti-Heatley view. Its easy to be a Canadian radio personality and jump on the hate Heatley bandwagon. I mean what does Gordon care if Heatley performs well in Minnesota, its not as though he is willing to stay up that late to watch any of the games in the first place. I am fairly certain Heatley realizes the circumstance is different yet any competitor loves the opportunity to prove someone wrong. Hopefully the Wild’s new winger makes Jim ‘Boomer’ Gordon eat his own words!
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