Corey Crawford said Fuck
There was a shocking moment at the Chicago Blackhawk championship celebration yesterday. Their Goalie Corey Crawford dropped a couple of 'F-bombs'. I know it was totally surprising that a professional athlete would ever say something like that in public. Didn't he realize that there were children around that are now scarred for the rest of their lives? If they were in school, a tattler would run up to the teacher and tell on him... "Ms. Jones, Corey Crawford said a bad word". Corey, Corey, Corey!!!
Let's take a look at what led up to Corey's potty mouth.....
Crow (that's what we insiders call him) was the Hawk Goalie in the 2011-12 season. He had a mediocre regular season followed by an awful 1st round of the playoffs. He let in two bad overtime goals that were directly responsible for the Hawk elimination. He had to hear that "The Hawks will never win with Crawford in Goal".
The 2013 season starts and every team is playing 48 games in less than three months. It's brutal scheduling. Crow is sharing goal tending duties with Ray Emery. It's a brilliant plan. It helps that Emery wins his first twelve games. It keeps both players fresh. It also leads to talk about who will be the number one Goalie when the playoffs start.
The playoffs start against Minnesota. Emery is hurt so Crow gets the starts. In the one game the Hawks lost, he let in the winning goal in overtime. Should have had that one. What's going to happen when the competition gets tougher? Didn't matter that he was brilliant in the other games.
Here come the Red Wings. Uh oh...Detroit leads the series 3-1. Told you he couldn't do when the games matter. Let up a bad goal in Game 6. C'mon Crawford. Brilliant after that. Big reason the Hawks survive.
Western conference final time. Defending champions Los Angeles Kings. Best Goalie in the world Jonathan Quick. In game 2, a Goalie was pulled after a bad performance. You'd think it was Crawford, right. Nope. It was the best Goalie in the world, Johnny Quick. Crow outperforms Quick. Hawks win in 5.
Time for the Final. Boston has the hottest Goalie in the playoffs, Tuukka Rask. He was brilliant against Pittsburgh. How are the Hawks going to get anything past him. How can Crawford possibly match him?
Game 1. Triple Overtime. For the final 60 minutes or so, Crawford is peppered by shots from everywhere. He stopped them all...well a couple did hit the posts. Hawks score and win on a double deflected goal past the unbeatable Rask.
Game 4. It's a shootout. Hawks win in overtime on a Seabrook blast. Afterwards, the talk is about Crawford and his glove hand. There is also talk about Ray Emery getting back in the nets. Hey, Ray hasn't played for two months but he's the man who can lead us to the Cup.
Game 6. All the focus is on the remarkable comeback in the last two minutes. I thought Tuuka Rask was unbeatable...guess not. It's time for the awards. Here's the Conn Smythe trophy for MVP in the playoffs. Patrick Kane. Now you can make the case that not only was Crow the best player in the playoffs but that he was the best player in all four individual series. Even Kane said he was snubbed.
Which leads us to yesterday. The celebration moves fast. Not all the players are speaking, which is good. I didn't need to hear from Victor Stallberg. Crow is introduced but no speech. Snubbed again. I mean do you really need to hear from the Cup winning Goalie?
So when Kane gives him the belt and he finally gets a chance to talk, he goes from being a soft spoken kid to being the reincarnation of Dennis Rodman. Corey got a lot of frustration of his chest. Good for him!!
Here's what I want to see. Next season the Hawks win it all again!! There's another parade and another rally. And I'm really hoping we can hear Corey Crawford say fuck one more time!!!