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COLOGNE, Germany — Team Canada responded on Wednesday to an attack by the International Ice Hockey Federation against North American and European players, including Canadian Olympic hero Sidney Crosby, who aren’t playing at the IIHF world hockey championship.
IIHF communications director Szymon Szemberg, in a commentary on the home page of the organization’s official website earlier Wednesday, ripped no-shows for turning their backs on their national teams, their fans and the hockey organizations that helped them develop.
He questioned excuses such as nagging injuries or, in Crosby’s case, a long stretch of hockey that includes the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, an 82-game regular season, the Vancouver Olympics, and two rounds of playoffs this year.
"Why is a 22-year-old Sidney Crosby tired when a 34-year-old Ryan Smyth is answering the bell for his country despite having represented Canada at the worlds already on eight occasions?” he wrote.
“Players who say no to representing their country at the world championship without a legitimate reason turn their backs not only on the team and its fans but also to the system which developed them and made them rich and famous.
“They should pay back, but they don’t.”
Szemberg praised high-profile participants like Russian superstar Alexander Ovechkin and Czech superstar Jaromir Jagr for attending this year’s tournament.
But he blasted the 25 other elite Czech players — as well as numerous top players from countries like Sweden and Switzerland — for rejecting invitations.
He noted that many players beg off due to injuries or fatigue even though it was known that they’d have played with pain had their teams remained in the playoffs.
“How can a player who is 22 or 25 or 27, and who was just eliminated from the playoffs, be tired? Tired is a miner who works in a damp pit in Miktivka, in the Donetz Plateau in Ukraine, who never sees daylight and who provides living for a family of five in a modest two-room apartment. That is tired.
“Tired is a divorced mother with two young kids who double shifts as a nurse assistant and cleaning lady to make ends meet.”
Crosby ripped for not playing for Canada
IIHF communications director Szymon Szemberg, in a commentary on the home page of the organization’s official website earlier Wednesday, ripped no-shows for turning their backs on their national teams, their fans and the hockey organizations that helped them develop.
He questioned excuses such as nagging injuries or, in Crosby’s case, a long stretch of hockey that includes the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, an 82-game regular season, the Vancouver Olympics, and two rounds of playoffs this year.
"Why is a 22-year-old Sidney Crosby tired when a 34-year-old Ryan Smyth is answering the bell for his country despite having represented Canada at the worlds already on eight occasions?” he wrote.
“Players who say no to representing their country at the world championship without a legitimate reason turn their backs not only on the team and its fans but also to the system which developed them and made them rich and famous.
“They should pay back, but they don’t.”
Szemberg praised high-profile participants like Russian superstar Alexander Ovechkin and Czech superstar Jaromir Jagr for attending this year’s tournament.
But he blasted the 25 other elite Czech players — as well as numerous top players from countries like Sweden and Switzerland — for rejecting invitations.
He noted that many players beg off due to injuries or fatigue even though it was known that they’d have played with pain had their teams remained in the playoffs.
“How can a player who is 22 or 25 or 27, and who was just eliminated from the playoffs, be tired? Tired is a miner who works in a damp pit in Miktivka, in the Donetz Plateau in Ukraine, who never sees daylight and who provides living for a family of five in a modest two-room apartment. That is tired.
“Tired is a divorced mother with two young kids who double shifts as a nurse assistant and cleaning lady to make ends meet.”
Crosby ripped for not playing for Canada
