Milbury and Roenick

And Mad Mike's the one who's making sense?

• There's likely going to be another post on how much I hate NBC. I'm not going to call it a post. It's going to be a rant, and it's going to be long. Or maybe it's just going to be a string of ALL CAPS LOCK screaming. You know, the basic equivalent of NBC's coverage of the most wonderful sport in the world, ice hockey, when Pierre and Mike "fight" during intermission of "Game of the Week" broadcasts..but I'm really digressing.

• OK, after that NBC-related digression....back to Milbury and Roenick. Roenick claims, "If I want a player to watch, I want to watch Ovechkin." Obviously, I'm a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins; as such, it follows I'm a fan of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. But, you see, I've been a fan of the Penguins for a long time, and my two all-time favorite hockey players met the exact same Roenick requirement of "exciting". Paul Coffey, the smoothest skating defenseman I've ever seen live, got me hooked on hockey when I was five, and three years later, Jaromir Jagr's flowing hair and silky smooth skating and stickhandling pretty much ensured I would remain hooked on hockey for life. So, you see, I get this "exciting" thing. And I agree with Roenick. When Ovechkin's on, there's no hockey player more dynamic.
  

Yet, for however much it pains me--and oh, it does--I have to agree with Mad Mike. Mad Mike who challenges Jeremy Roenick. "If you want to watch, yes. But if you want to--"
Say what, Mike? If you want to win, what do you want?

You want the center who circles back to help support his defensemen when they're pinned? You want the player who's as conscious of how important defensive zone faceoffs are as he is of the importance of scoring goals? You want a player who plays a complete game? You want a player who's already won a Cup?

Alexander Ovechkin is a great player, and in the span of the next few months, all the rhetorical questions could become true of Ovechkin. But, the thing is, those things haven't yet been proven true of Ovechkin. Ovechkin hasn't yet shown an understanding of defensive zone play, of complete play. Not even, not completely, in the postseason. He's phenomenal enough that it could come, and come so shortly, so soon, but until it does--

Jeremy Roenick, you never won a Cup. And as much as I want to say (for other players, including some I loved watching, like Markus Naslund and Pavel Bure, who never captured Cups, either) that a championship isn't the sole be-all and end-all of a career, talk to anyone in hockey and I think you know what take you'll get. And while you could say you had the misfortune to be on teams that were never completely built to win it all, and while that may be true, let me be blunt: you were never a component of a team, even a small piece, of a team that won it all. You weren't able to elevate your own play, or the play of your teammates, enough to capture that Cup. And, yes, there could be a myriad of reasons for that, not all of for which you're culpable. Yeah, I get that.

But your words, Jeremy, show how much you still don't get. Because if all you're worried about is the player you can't your eyes off, well, I want another player. Not the one I can't take my eyes off. But the player I can't win without.

All other things being equal, you take the player who's won over the player who has yet to win. It's just how it is.

For however harsh it is, JR, because I so remember my '92 Pens beating you when you were just a kid and that '92 Pittsburgh team was composed of HOF giants, you just don't get it. Winning is the bottom line, and winning is the only bottom line when it comes to the greatest players of all time.

Please, please, it's painfully painful (redundant, I know, but redundancy is needed here) to agree, in principle, with Mike Milbury. So, please, at these Olympics, I dare you to use your "journalism" role to inquire of those in charge of the Olympic hockey teams. Ask them why they picked a few players when others would have been equal.

I have a sneaking suspicion you'll hear an answer you still gotta learn: We want to go to the games with winners cause, when we go with players who know and get that winning's the only bottom line that matters, they tend to end up doing, by default, what winners just do: win.