A Carolina Hurricanes blog with occasional news about the rest of the NHL.

Monday, May 01, 2006

my two cents on Jack Todd

I first caught wind of this from Casonblog, who first got it from the talented Jeff J over at Sisu Hockey.

Jack Todd, who is a native Nebraskan, and an army deserter-turned Canadian citizen is a little bent out of shape about the Hurricanes having the audacity to take the lead in their series with the Habs. Before launching into a tirade that has nothing to do with hockey, he said the following about the Canes and Caniacs:
We were wrong. Hockey doesn't belong in Carolina because the fans and the people who run the Hurricanes organization are a bunch of lobotomized basketball-loving cretins who wouldn't know an icing call from a spear to the ribs.

They don't deserve Eric Staal, they don't deserve Erik Cole, they don't deserve Rod Brind'Amour, they don't deserve Cam Ward - but they do deserve a shot of tobacco juice right in the eye.

Why? Because last night, the RBC Centre (may an earthquake swallow it up) became Carolina's version of hell on Earth. Why? Because the powers that be in their infinite stupidity decided to pass out IdiotStix to the crowd.


I agree that "bang sticks" or "thunder sticks" are pretty evil. I'm not sure, though, how a bad promotional giveaway means that anybody who has anything to do with the Canes is a "cretin". What's up with the hostility? A shot of tobacco juice in the eye? Yeah. That's award winning journalism right there.

Todd deserted the US Army to avoid going to Viet Nam, and penned the book Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam. In Canada, this book is titled The Taste of Metal : A Deserter's Story. I have no idea why the different title, but he won a 2001 book award from the Quebec Writer's Federation for it. Two actually. Best first book and best non-fiction. Among English-language books published in Quebec. I'm not making this up.

Somewhere along the line, he was given a national award for his sportswriting, and he has that "award winning" book. So why is he so hateful? He made a very bad life decision that he's lived to regret and he probably spends every waking moment lashing out at the nearest American. In this case, the Canes happen to be the nearest American. The decision I'm talking about wasn't the actual desertion. Lots of folks did that, but were later pardoned by Jimmy Carter. The decision he made was to renounce his citizenship. That act made him ineligible for amnesty, and although he has made a decent life for himself in Quebec, he deeply regrets putting himself in that situation.

After all of that, I deserve to take a shot of tobacco juice in the eye? And the other 18,800 of us in the RBC Center deserve to be "swallowed up" by an earthquake? Dude's got serious issues. There's a lot of misguided hate there.

I'll let the Acid Queen do the honors on that one.

2 comments:

The Acid Queen said...

Ain't that the troof, Jes.

Ain't that the frickin' troof.

Jeff J said...

In either '02 or '04 (can't remember which now), Todd reprinted some choice letters he received from angry Bruins fans. He might just be trolling for material.

He spills a lot of ink trying to avenge the loss of the Expos, too. Just about everything he writes is intended to piss off someone or other. Jack Todd is the Matt Barnaby of Montreal journalists.

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