Patrick Kane case takes strange, ugly turn:

patrick-kane_jpg_size_xxlarge_letterboxFans are fans, and some cheer for their heroes no matter what, until they absolutely can’t. In Baltimore, fans wore Ray Rice jerseys after the video of him striking his fiancée surfaced. In Chicago, Kane is being cheered when he steps on the ice. Fans are allowed to do that. But it says something about sports and its fans that so many will support a hero in a case like this in the same way they they do when they see a blindside hit, and judge it based on which colour jersey delivered it.

This is what sports does. It breeds loyalty, and that loyalty can survive so much. If this was a specious claim, then this woman would have asked to go through a special kind of hell for a highly uncertain payoff even before her name appeared to have been revealed during the press conference today, on the bag. You accuse a famous athlete, a celebrity, and they come with public defenders.

Awful, all of it, awful. This case is being debated in public, aired in press conferences, appears to be a legal fiasco one way or the other, and the Blackhawks pre-season continues. Both sides denied there were any settlement talks, which had earlier been reported by the Buffalo News.

I wrote last week that the Blackhawks should have kept Kane away from camp, with pay, until they know for sure what his legal situation is. It’s not presuming guilt, any more than anybody should presume innocence; it’s accepting that the optics are awful, and bowing to them would not hurt anybody. Kane was pulled off the cover of EA Sports’ NHL 16, which had nothing to do with innocence until proven guilty. He doesn’t have to be in camp.

Wednesday didn’t change that position. It probably changed something, though.

Article Appeared @http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/2015/09/23/patrick-kane-case-takes-strange-ugly-turn-arthur.html

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *