In Calgary, Canada NHL hockey is now a major part of Calgarians
lives. It was not always so and Dion Phaneuf was a big reason for that
transition.
Calgarians can remember the days of rebuilding their team in
the 1990’s and 2000’s in which the players were ostensibly referred to as the
“Young Guns”. While that sentiment was good for the newspapers, the seats at
the Saddledome remained mostly empty. There
was future-Hall-of-Famer Jarome Iginla and then there was the rest of the team.
Slowly the building blocks of a great team started to come together and one of
those blocks was a young Red Deer Rebel’s defenseman named Dion Phaneuf.
Dion Phaneuf was exactly what the city of Calgary needed to
re-energized its love for hockey. He had a hard hitting style (and I mean HARD
HITTING) that would shake the plexiglass in the Saddledome for years to come.
He had a career high 60 points in the 2007-2008 season. He finished his rookie
season by being named a Calder Trophy finalist behind two fairly mediocre and
non-talented players named Sidney Crosby and eventual winner Alex Ovechkin.
He was beloved in Calgary for his scoring, his defence and
putting opponents into the glass, but not so much for his off-ice attitude.
It was rumoured that his demeanour in the locker room left
something to be desired from his teammates, yet his prolific scoring and bone
crunching hits made him a fan favourite. His off-ice demeanour got him traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs
when he was arguably at the peak of his career in Calgary and now the same
reasons have been got him traded to the Ottawa Senators. That, and the fact
that his huge salary cap hit is now off the books it looks like the Maple Leafs
will now use that gap to try to get Steven Stamkos.
Dion Phaneuf is a great defenseman who has an amazing workout
regimen and can be a leader in the locker room but he should not have been made
the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs; arguably the toughest job in the NHL.
The media and the pressure of being the face of the most watched and most
scrutinized hockey market in the world makes it infinitely harder to be the
player you need him to be. When he was in Calgary and not in the white-hot Toronto
spotlight, he played the best hockey of his career. He was fun to watch. He
body-checked everyone. He blasted shots on the power play. Players couldn’t get around him. Now that he
doesn’t have the enormous burden of being Toronto’s captain, he should revert
back to the great player he is, the player that should push the Ottawa Senators
into the playoffs and form one of the best defences in the league alongside
Erik Karlsson.
The best thing about this trade is that Dion Phaneuf has the
pressure of the Toronto hockey world off his shoulders. To all the other
players in the NHL, watch out. It should be fun to watch, just like in the good
old days in Calgary.
Labels: Graham Thurgood