(Photo: Andre Ringuette/NHLI via Getty Images)Like you, I've had just over twenty-four hours to digest Ray-Ray's little tête-à-tête with Michael Landsberg on TSN's longest running soap,
And so, with logic to make Socrates weep and wisdom to drive Solomon to such envious heights of madness, he would have just kept the baby himself, I have reached two inescapable conclusions based entirely on what we saw yesterday. 1) Michael Landsberg is constructed primarily of polyurethane and 2) Ray Emery is an irretrievable idiot whose ego has yet to learn the lesson the remnants of whatever common sense he once possessed have been trying so desperately to teach him.
In other words, Ray you still...Don't...Get it.
For every one of these:
"It started off tough and I just didn't uphold my end of the deal," said the former Senators' goalie. "I thought I deserved certain chances and instead of working for them, I pouted a bit."There was one of these:
"I wasn't trying to make a statement, (January 28th) was after the All-Star break and I went to the game rink and they were at the practice rink," explained Emery. "I apologized for it then, it was my fault but like I said, I'm not the guy who's really nervous about being late."For every this:
"I just kind of got away from things. I got myself in shape. I just kind of started to rethink some of the ways I went about things. I'm not going to go into detail. I want to say I made myself a better person and better athlete, whatever, family member. It was a thing I felt I needed to do and I'm really glad I've done it."There was that:
Emery also denied he partied too much. "No. I like to go out and I like to have fun. I wouldn't be out before a game. I wouldn't jeopardize things like that, I don't think. In my eyes, no, but it's been brought to my attention before."And that:
"It kind of compounded and I did a lot of stupid things to just amplify it and here we are ... Would I change anything about my life right now? No. I did some things, I showed up late, which you shouldn't, and I apologized for that. I'm not losing sleep over it right now."You see what I'm getting at here, right Ray? For every agent-penned statement of contrition, just enough of the petulance that marks those with an exaggerated sense of entitlement managed to poke through to render the entire episode another meaningless exercise in public relations. (And as an aside while on the subject of meaningless PR exercises, can we please stop lauding Landsberg's "balls" for asking THE DRUG QUESTION? Seriously. What the fuck did you expect Ray to say? "Why yes, Michael. Now that you ask, I am a raging smack head. Want to see my Ewan McGregor tattoo?" Come on. The real balls would have been in the next logical question: "Well then, in that case, would you mind peeing in this commemorative OTR coffee mug?" That would take balls.)
No, what we saw last night wasn't so much a more mature and pensive Ray Emery seeing the error of his ways and vowing to earn back the trust and respect of the NHL, than it was an hour long job interview for the benefit of the other 29 GMs in the League to whom you will be coming cap-in-hand next season.
Look Ray. I'm not even mad at you anymore. Well, not much. But as one man to another, as one human being to another, you gotta get your head out of your ass dude. If you don't, you'll just become another huge talent that disappears in a cloud of self-inflicted hubris, destined to appear only in the odd "Where are they now?" story (in your case? "Prison" if you don't get your shit together).
You said all of the right things, Ray. Hopefully, after your year of wandering the Siberian wilderness with your borscht and vodka loving Kommrades, you'll actually grow to believe them. Only then, will we.
