Every year, there is always a huge story in the NHL. Last year it was “the Hamburglar,” Amdrew Hammond, who led the Ottawa Senators to the playoffs; Carey Price’s otherworldly goaltending skills; the “generational players,” Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, coming up in the NHL draft; and the closing of Nassau Coliseum, among other stories. Last season may have been one of the most unforgettable seasons in hockey, for many reasons. However, this year, the main story in the All-Star game is the disrespectful treatment of John Scott by the NHL and the fans.
For several years in the All-Star game, there have been online Reddit campaigns to get unlikely players into the All-Star game. Unlike MLB and NFL All-Star games, which are strictly regulated, the NHL allows fans to vote for whomever they want to see in the All-Star game. Last year, a group of Latvians started a Reddit campaign to get Buffalo Sabres’ rookie Zemgus Girgensons into the All-Star game. While he is not an All-Star, he certainly deserved it for his hard work to get into the ASG. This year, however, fans began a Reddit campaign to get Arizona Coyote John Scott, one of the last enforcers left in the game, into the All-Star game. This was partly because they wanted to make fun of him when he couldn’t skate in the 3-on-3 tournament.
Because this campaign would make a joke of the league, the Coyotes asked John Scott to publicly state that he does not want to go to the All-Star game in order to help keep him out. Scott obliged to their orders and issued a public statement pleading with the public not to vote him into the All-Star Game.
About a month later, the news was out. John Scott had been voted the captain of the Pacific Division. Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, and the Coyotes organization asked Scott to opt out of the All-Star game voluntarily, but he refused. He asserted that he had been fairly voted into the ASG, and therefore, he should be allowed to go. That is when things got nasty. In an extremely dirty move by the NHL, they traded him from the Coyotes to the Montreal Canadiens in an attempt to block him from playing in the ASG. The Canadiens sent him down to their minor team, the St. John’s IceCaps, to make it clear that Scott did not deserve to play in the All-Star Game.
The fans were furious. It was quite obvious to them that Gary Bettman was behind this trade, and that he had done it to prevent Scott from playing in the ASG. The reason it was so obvious is that the NHL announced that since Scott had been sent down to the minors, he would not be able to play, which was Bettman’s motive from the beginning. When the NHL saw the discontent from the fans, they then attempted to cover up what they did by announcing that John Scott would still be the Pacific Division captain, but that he would wear an All-Star jersey instead of representing an organisation in the Skills Challenge.
Even later, Scott wrote an article for the Player’s Tribune, venting his frustrations over how the NHL has treated him in this saga. You can read it here: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/a-guy-like-me/. As soon as Gary Bettman heard about the article, he issued a statement telling Scott that he is welcome in the tournament, and that no one meant any harm by the story that was made of this.
In conclusion, John Scott did everything that he was asked to do, but the NHL treated him terribly anyway. They sabotaged his appearance and treated him in a way he didn’t deserve, all because of his subpar playing level as opposed to other All-Stars. The NHL needs to stop looking for their benefit and turning the league into a joke.
