Free Tootoo!!

Alright I want to make it clear what I am not. I am not a Dallas Stars fan. I am not a Nashville Predators fan. I am not a Jordin Tootoo fan by any stretch of the imagination. And, I am not a Mike Modano fan. Now, that that’s out of the way, Mike Modano is now the American with the most goals in the NHL. He accomplished this at the Nashville Arena where they lost to the Predators 3-2. (He had both of the goals) For those of you who have never been to a game in Nashville let me fill you in on some things. Their fans are absolutely brutal. I have gone in there in Red Wings attire and have been brought to tears. At the Red Wings game they called Chris Chelios a sissy, they told me it’d be a good idea to take off my Red Wings attire, and they screamed MacDonald (the goalie at the time) you suck. Now, that’s just the tip of the ice burg with these fans. There is so much more going on there than that…but you get an idea of what their fans are like. And, like any NHL team they have their fan favorites. They love their goalies, and they adore Jordin Tootoo.

Now, let me tell you what happened that night. Jordin Tootoo like he always does had big hits. Hits on everybody. He doesn’t play favorites. Tootoo hit Modano rather hard and quickly turned around because he knows you don’t hit Modano and not have a guy going after you. So Stephane Robidas charged Jordin Tootoo and he looked in the video like he was about to rip Tootoo’s head off, when bam Jordin Tootoo hit Robidas and knocked him out. Now after this Jordin Tootoo looks down and then gets a slash to the back courtesy of Mike Modano. Now, hockey is a violent sport. Everyone knows that but in lieu of recent events with Chris Simon using his hockey stick like a baseball bat…everyone knows you don’t use your stick as a weapon. What Modano did with his stick was wrong. He could have seriously injured Jordin Tootoo…and he got nothing. I am sick of the NHL punishing the NHL “bad boys” and the “golden boys” get nothing. Now, do I agree with the Tootoo suspension? No. I think he was defending himself and doing what Jordin Tootoo does. But, if he got suspended for protecting himself, then Mike Modano should have gotten something for hitting him with his stick.

Ok so let me tell you what happened after this incident. Mike Modano became the American with the most goals….and he got booed. Everyone in the arena saw what he did to Tootoo and they didn’t appreciate it. Then you have the President of the Dallas Stars complaining to the media that it wasn’t announced that Modano broke the record. Well let me be honest here, the fans in Nashville don’t care about Modano. They care about their team and they care about their team winning. Had it been announced about Modano he would have received more boo’s than he had already heard. I am not trying to take away anything from Modano because it was quite the accomplishment. However, after what he did to Tootoo I don’t think that the fans cared about anything that was going on with him.