It’s Time to Address the Elephant in the Room

I’ve done a disservice to you, dear reader.

There’s been a large proverbial elephant in the room for about a week now, and I have yet to address it. Some of you couldn’t give a crap about said elephant, and that’s fine. But I know some of you expect me to explain said elephant and to those of you, I apologize.

Not sure what I’m talking about? As Dilligent Reader WufPirate noticed last week, I have yet to address the Islanders’ newest coach, Scott Gordon.

Not filed in the “news we’re obligated to report” — the Islanders hiring a new coach?

And Wuf is right. My pro-Islander bias (Being in the MSM 101, Lesson #1 — Bloggers are worthless because they acknowledge their biases instead of hiding them.) has not kicked in as you might have expected. For many of you, hopefully most of you, that’s a relief. For the rest of you who actually want to hear my inane ramblings that won’t matter because the team will tank it in December anyway, listen up. I’ve got a few thought on the hire, and here they are in no particular order.

First and foremost is that I need to acknowledge the PR staff for handling this admirably. Take this headline from the Islanders’ website after the hiring:

Packed press conference, eh? Let’s see about that…

(C) Bruce Bennett /Getty Images

There were more reporters eating from the breakfast buffet of the Holiday Inn in Westbury this morning. So kudos to the PR folks for doing their job well. And hey, he’s not a big name coach, it’s the middle of August and some guy in China is the biggest story in America. A turnout like this isn’t a surprise.

Now let’s move on and get into the hiring itself.

My only problem is that it took so long for all of this to come about. I don’t mind the length of the selection process. Hell, taking a good amount of time to choose a coach, who will hopefully be here a while, is a great thing. It’s just that shit should have hit the proverbial fan a lot sooner for Ted Nolan. He should have been done as soon as the season was over. Basically the point boils down to this — we’re a couple weeks away from camp, already IN rookie camp and have only now named our coach. He’s starting behind the eight ball. Not good.

As for Gordon himself, I have nothing to gripe about. He sounds like the kind of coach we need. No ego, good with kids (we’ll see how he handles the vets) and someone who is in this for the long haul. The only issue, which is more coincidence than anything else, is that he has ties to Boston. That’s something that was prevalent during the Milbury era, and you never really want to be associated with that. But that’s something I can give him a pass on.

So there you have it. I hope everyone is happy now. I feel better having let that all out. I’ll be at Going Five Hole in the morning, subbing for Sean Leahy, so check that out if you have a moment. Sean is out for the week and a whole list of Z-list celebrities will be filling in. Wyshynski is in on Friday and I have no idea how he’s going to be able to post 10 times at Yahoo! and a couple more at GFH. The man is not human.
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