The Tampa Bay Times showed good initiative by sending sports columnist Tom Jones to New York to check out games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The reason: Marty St. Louis, after burning bridges behind in Tampa Bay, now played for the Rangers. St. Louis knows he’s seen as a traitor here for having orchestrated and pressured Lightning management into trading him in March. He had a forum–and two and a half months of reflection–to further explain.
The Times gave the Jones “exclusive” a big tease and prominent layout. It need not have bothered.
According to Jones, the 10-minute interview was rife with quotes that were off the record. What was recorded boiled down to this: Tampa is a place that St. Louis “really, really loves.” He’s upset that fans are upset with him. He wasn’t the disloyal one. Etc. We’ve heard it before.
And, yes, St. Louis still puts the onus on Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman, because he was initially left off the Canadian Olympic team. In fact, he was devastated. He was crushed. His own boss, who doubled as Team Canada executive director, had disrespected him. “That’s pretty much what it was all about,” summarized Jones.
So now we still know what we knew 10 weeks ago. Including this: It wasn’t just Yzerman who passed over St. Louis for an Olympic spot. Canadian head coach Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings, whose job it was to find the best combination of complementary skills, also passed on St. Louis. And he did so back in 2010 as well. Yzerman, arguably, had an obligation to back his coach–not accommodate the dreams of one of his players, no matter how talented.
It was the responsibility of the player, no matter how personally disappointed, to see the context–and the impossible spot that Yzerman was in. He only saw disloyalty and disrespect.
This changes nothing. Personally piqued, the captain bolted on his teammates, franchise and fan base with only 20 games left and the Lightning struggling to stay in the playoff hunt. It was–and remains–a classless exit. After 14 seasons, six All Star games, a Stanley Cup, MVP awards, scoring titles and countless choruses of “Louie, Louie,” we all deserved a better–not bitter–end to a career in Tampa Bay.