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Berwyn, IL • United States •
Let me make sure I've got this straight:

Adam Proteau accuses Ed Snider and the NHL of exploiting a high-profile event for political platforms and partisan politics...

And then exploits his position as an NHL columnist to excoriate Sarah Palin and the Republican party?

Let me state this again, because I need to see this in front of me, in print, twice, just to make sure I'm not in some alternate journalistic reality.

Ed Snider invited Sarah Palin, hockey enthusiast and vice-presidential candidate, to SILENTLY walk out to centre ice and drop a puck. Without a speech, without a word, without a hint of party platform. She smiled, she waved, she kissed, she shook hands, she dropped a puck, and she left. Several of the players looked absoluely thrilled at the experience.

Adam Proteau then barfs up a blog entitled "Hockey Shouldn't be Used as a Political Backdrop" - sorry, I have to type that again - "Hockey Shouldn't be Used as a Political Backdrop" - and then proceeds to hurl hateful, spiteful, incendiary political invective at Sarah Palin and everything she stands for.

You know what, I'm shaking with rage right now. I'm truly having trouble typing this. Has this election truly turned the sanity of North America inside out, sideways and upside down? This madness should not, must not be allowed to invade an environment that is, for me, a sheltered haven from the increasingly polarizing insanity that has been blazing across America for the past year or so.

I have spent the past six months counting down the days to the return of hockey. And while I do that every year, this year was particularly filled with angst and anticipation because of this bloody presidential election. I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm weary of the hate, the lies, the deceit, the madness, and I'm talking about both parties.

And now we're subjected to this worthless, unwelcome, unwanted tripe? It was so incredibly painfully obvious that Proteau was just waiting for something, anything to justify climbing on top of his wee soap box and blathering out his entire political platform. Readers of the Hockey News are not interested in your political views, Mr. Proteau, and the Hockey News owes an apology to readers both in Canada and the United States.

Again, you used your editorial position to bring partisan politics into the hockey environment by writing a scathing blog insisting that politics have no place in hockey. How hypocritical. How disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Yes, there is a proper place, a welcome forum for your political viewpoint. Like the rest of us, then, may I suggest you, Mr. Proteau, point your browser to Politico or the Huffington Post where it belongs.
Filed Under:   Hockey News   Adam Proteau   Philadelpha   Flyers  
October 12, 2008 3:10 PM ET | Delete
hypocrites like proteau aren't called out enuf. good for you.
October 12, 2008 3:31 PM ET | Delete
It was nothing more than a blatant republican commercial. That is partisan politics front and centre (no pun).
October 12, 2008 3:43 PM ET | Delete
Ed Snider embarrased Philadelphia and the Flyers fans that made him rich. He started it. What a joke.
October 12, 2008 4:31 PM ET | Delete
Snider should be embarrassed over his blatent partisan actions. Good for the fans to boo the most unqualified person ever to run for VP. The American People will speak when Obama wins 35 states to 15. What does Palin stand for? Raising her kids to be Oxy-addicts and unwed teenage mothers? Like we don't have enough of those types of parents now.
October 12, 2008 5:15 PM ET | Delete
Good for Proteau. He's absolutely, 100%, spot on.
October 12, 2008 5:45 PM ET | Delete
the issue was that proteau said that politics should not be injected into the hockey world. he then proceeded to inject his own. a portrait of hypocrisy that transcends any party affiliation.
October 12, 2008 5:47 PM ET | Delete
Good grief. The US is about to elect a candidate who has formal alliances with Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan and William Ayers, whose brilliant financial advisers include former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, and who personally has supported ACORN as a lawyer and an activist himself, and there are are upset because a woman who none of them had heard of two months ago drops a puck to open the hockey season.
October 12, 2008 7:21 PM ET | Delete
As oppsosed to the guy centrally involved in the Keating 5, a wife who stole from her non-profit to score drugs, is friends with Dick Cheney and whose campaign manager took millions in lobbying money from Freddie Mac.
October 12, 2008 7:31 PM ET | Delete
Sharkie,You can continue to live in ignorance if you want it is a free country. If you want to discuss live feel free to meet me at section 115, row 21, seats 19 and 20 any time
October 12, 2008 7:39 PM ET | Delete
Please point out anything in my post that is not correct.
October 12, 2008 7:41 PM ET | Delete
...on the other hand, Obama has no "formal alliance" with Farrakhan or Ayers.
October 12, 2008 11:34 PM ET | Delete
I applauded Sarah Palin and I applaud Ed Snider. Vote Republican.
October 13, 2008 12:55 AM ET | Delete
So I guess it's OK with you Sharkie that Obama is number 2 in donations recieved from Fannie and Freddie behind Chris Dodd who is also a Democrat. By the way, McCain was cleared of any wrong-doing in the Keating fiasco while Obama advisor John Glenn was found to be implicitly involved and was censured by the congress.
October 13, 2008 8:11 AM ET | Delete
AIG donated over 6 figures to McCain's "think tank" called The Reform Institute. Rick Davis, the President of The Reform Institute is also the campaign manager for McCain. Davis recevied over $130,000 a year as the president of this "Non-profit" group. Pay for play. The top 5 donors to McCain's presidential campaign are all banks and you expect reform from him? Naive if you do.
October 13, 2008 10:23 AM ET | Delete
Yes, Flyers fans were SO embarrassed that Palin was there, that the large majority of the fans stood up to applaud her when she came out! The whole event was about nothing more than saluting hockey mom's and the extreme liberals (not all liberals) had to ruin it.
October 13, 2008 11:57 AM ET | Delete
This is a hockey site, right?
October 13, 2008 12:49 PM ET | Delete
Good call. Proteau is a hockey journalist, not a political pundit. His readers don't need him to point out that Palin dropping a puck in a MAJOR SWING STATE is a political move, we already know adn it's not his place. (She only insulted the intelligence of hockey fans anyway... no, we will not vote for you because you like the same sport as we do).
October 13, 2008 7:17 PM ET | Delete
Proteau is Canadian so it's none of his %
October 13, 2008 10:57 PM ET | Delete
Larry Brooks wrote it a couple of days before Proteau did in the NY Post and did a better job of it. At least Brooks managed to make the point that Snider is leasing his team and the trademarks associated with it from the league, and his right to use it to advance any kind of political agenda is dubious at best, a little underhanded at worst in a fairly reasonable, calm fashion, without using the article as a soapbox for his own politics and being so blatantly partisan, condescending and superior about it as Proteau is there.
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