A Goalie's Blown Up Statement

Recent gossip has it that the goalie from the Boston Bruins hockey team, the one that refused to join his teammates at the White House because of his issues with the federal government, may be on his way out of a job. There have been several examples of players/staff of championship teams not visiting the White House, some state their reasons. The goalie’s was simply put and he stated that his stance wasn’t political, by which he seemingly meant that his specific objections were not aligned with a specific political party, because his reasons for not attending could be considered aligned with his own political beliefs. Opinions on his statement were all over the place, some in support and others not so much. One commentator made the point that the goalie stating his right as a free citizen to not attend was dipping into scary libertarian ideals aligned with Ron Paul. That’s a lot to read into two words. This person is a free citizen and doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. Some opined that the event at the White House is apolitical and because it’s tradition the player was somehow betraying his teammates by not going. This is silly, EVERYTHING involving the White House is political in every way and hanging out with teammates may be nice but in the end the only time in which it really matters is within real, actual team activities like you know games, practices and meetings. It seems that one’s opinion on the issue depends on their level of personal interest in the statement and reflects more on the commenter’s beliefs than this goalie’s. It’s too bad if this incident, which really doesn’t matter, leads to the player losing his current job but as the most valuable player from last season’s Stanley cup series he’s likely to find another soon enough.