Disclaimer!!!
All content on this blog is my personal thoughts and feelings and nothing here should be taken as the opinion of my employers or the teams I am a part of. I am here just to ramble about random thoughts, not to start any controversy, usually. So chill, just read, or don't, I don't care. If I say something you don't like or agree with, tough.
Still here? Good, I have something I need to get off my chest.
Something I have been holding inside for a few years actually. The way the teams in the VIJHL view each other. Its brutal, and dare I say it quite sad. The fans and team personnel from each of the 9 teams are like warring nations that have no love or respect for each other. But instead of fighting it out like men on the battlefield, or the ice, they bitch and moan like children on Twitter.
Perfect example has been the past week. For the second week in a row a Cougars player was selected as the VIJHL Player of the Week. After this was released all Hell broke loose on Twitter. Fans, coaches, owners, and players alike starting calling the whole situation rigged and even going so far as to fake trade requests in order to get POW honors. The coach of the Panthers even said in response to the announcement of the POW, "good job! But other players are playing in the league other than Cougar players #justsoyouknow". This was said over Twitter and he has since deleted the Tweet, but I have a screen shot if anyone wants to see it. Now I can understand fans and even players being upset because they probably don't know how the selection process works, it's even possible that Brian Passmore doesn't know either. But the owner of a team who will remain nameless, but I'm sure you can guess who, ReTweeted this message, endorsing what was said. Want to know which owner? I'll give you a hint, he owns the Panthers. This man KNOWS how the POW player is selected. He has absolutely zero right to complain about a Cougars player being selected.
So now I'll tell you how its done. Every week each team is required to nominate their player of the week, then all the nominations are reviewed by a third party and he selects who he deems to be the best from the previous week. If any team fails to send in their nomination, then that team cannot win POW for that week. Remarkably simple right? Care to venture a guess at who failed to nominate a player last week? Everyone failed, except Victoria. That's right folks, not a single team apart from the Cougars even bothered to enter a name to be considered. Hard to win if you don't play isn't it?
Now with that in mind, doesn't all the bitching and complaining seem a bit stupid? From the outside some people might see favoritism on the leagues part towards the Cougars for selecting their players multiple times in a row. But when every single team in this league knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they need to submit one single email, with a one paragraph write up on their player, once a week, no one who has any part of any team can complain when they didn't bother to do it.
I have been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty Tweets over the years, everyone from fans of other teams, to coaches, to players, and even owners (again, want to guess who?). This whole situation needs to stop. Fans will continue to do what they do because they are safe behind their silly Twitter wall where no one can hurt them. They also don't need to worry about repercussions because they don't represent the league or a team. Freedom of speech right? But when coaches and owners start belittling people and insulting others it makes the league as a whole look bad.
There are many people in this league need to give their head a shake, all they're doing is making themselves look foolish.
