Significantly Insignificant said:
Yeah, I was just trying to tie it in to the Phil discussion, as I didn't know where else to post that link. I wasn't really trying to indict Kessel, but show something that I think points to character.
On the Leafs, I know of Lupul who does Lup's Troops, which is pretty cool. Other than that, you don't really hear of much that the Leafs do in the community.
That's not to say that they don't do much, just that you don't hear about it much, at least not here in Ottawa, or on this board, which is where I get my Toronto centric information.
Again this is the sort of thing that can be double edged. If it doesn't get reported people think you don't do it. If it does get reported, people say it's a media grab.
I think it's the kind of thing that maybe more accurately speaks to this idea of how this Leafs team is maybe a particularly unlikable group more so than "character" in how it relates to hockey. If you look at the King Clancy award, for instance, you'll see that just about as often as not it goes to a fairly mediocre hockey player.
Being a good, generous person is an admirable quality, sure, and one to be applauded but I don't think that's really what we mean when we talk about character and how it relates to actually winning hockey games. I use this example a lot but Michael Jordan basically seems like a deeply unpleasant, unlikable person but his deeply unlikable qualities sort of manifested themselves as being uniquely suited to sports. Hyper-competitiveness, a tendency to hold grudges for the tiniest of slights, an interest in embarrassing anyone who challenged him...bad qualities in a human being, ok ones in a Shooting Guard. There have been a lot of hockey players like that and I think an all-time team of players who've been described as jerks would hold their own against a team of sweethearts.
So "character" as it applies to sports, I think it's important to remember, really just means whatever someone wants it to mean in a given moment.
