Critics of Ovechkin's 50th Goal Celebration

This is Ovechkin's 50th goal celebration, thanks to On Frozen Blog:





This is Nick Kypreos.

Nobody complains when Georges Laraque jumps into the boards - why do they complain about Ovie's unique take on goal celebrations? These are not the exact quotes, but they are pretty much what Kypreos said about it on the Hockey Discussion panel this morning:

"The problem is premeditation."

Firstly, what a load of crap. Nick Kypreos is full of it, to be quite honest.

Nick Kypreos wouldn't know his own tail if he was chasing it and all he is doing trying to say "let's celebrate 50 goals like a boring nana would - yea, like Sidney Crosby." Sidney Crosby didn't hide his reaction even though he didn't say it out loud to the cameras. They're both trying to play the "we're obedient to the league" card and doing what they deem to be the right P.R. move, by giving us what we expect.

Well holy smokes boys, isn't there something wrong with being a clichéd pussy like Sidney Crosby, especially in an entertainment sport? Sure, we all need professionals and role models in the game - but celebrating a goal has never been unprofessional. If the rest of the league were boring like Crosby it would be a sad day for hockey.

He spent his career taking part in fighting and nothing in hockey is more premeditated than fighting. When your star player gets hit - you fight. Two big guys line up at the face-off dot, you know what to expect.

The problem is premeditation my ass. It probably took Ovechkin all of 5 seconds to come up with that goal celebration. If Kypreos needs to do a pre-game strategization session in order to come up with that - he shouldn't be considered a hockey expert.

More crap from Kypreos:

"Look at Mike Green. He wants nothing to do with his celebration. That just goes to show you what he thinks of that."

Just because Mike Green doesn't celebrate goals doesn't mean he doesn't condone it. Whether or not he condones it doesn't matter, either, because most of the league loves it. So if Nick Kypreos or Don Cherry doesn't like it they can go tell someone who gives a rats ass because the league obviously doesn't care, either.

When Dave Semenko was dressing up to protect Gretzky, was Gretzky's non-involvement in fighting an indication of "what he thinks" about fighting? Let us remind Nick Kypreos what Gretzky "taking out the trash" actually looks like:



Yeah, like Gretzky would fight his own battles, right? Just because Gretzky doesn't take part in fighting doesn't mean he doesn't condone it, either. Mike Green makes a personal choice not to be a "goal-celebrating" kind of player, and Kypreos shouldn't twist that towards his own interpretation. When Green said he wanted nothing to do with it, it meant leave him neutral, not "skew his perspective in your favour."

They should allow goal celebrations because, let's face it, guys like Ovechkin who give it as good as they get it in every single facet of the game don't come along often. He loves the sport and that much is obvious from the passion of his celebration. People like Crosby and Kypreos are recapitulating the hockey model of their parents and forerunners - hockey before fun. Is that what fans want to see? No.

Let's be honest here, the NHL is trying to take out staged fighting. Let's remind Kypreos that his career was fighting and his career was ended by a fight. If he wants to pick his battles with premeditation I would ask him to please pay attention to something he actually knows something about and stop polluting Sportsnet with this "sucking-up to the league" crap, because premeditated fights are a way bigger issue that premeditated celebrations.



Honestly, hockey is an entertainment sport. Worse celebrations have been seen in hockey and in sports besides hockey and the only reason this is "newsworthy" is because it's Ovechkin's 5oth goal. Leave it be, and let the fans have some fun.

Some hockey panelists make me sick - their built-up importance reeks like a movie critic's inflated self-worth.

Forget the celebration - we should only care about the 5oth goal.