Has Carey Price Ruined His Reputation?

12/11/2022 at 2:56pm EST

from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

It was all so very unnecessary. All Carey Price had to do was nothing.
He could have remained on the Left Coast, taciturn as ever, collecting the balance of an $84-million contract that runs through the 2025-26 season while unable to play hockey.
He could have basked in the adulation of the millions of fans who have backed him from the moment he was drafted in 2005 through the dark time when he entered rehab for substance use 16 years and many triumphs later.
A tall, laconic westerner who did not speak French, Price was always an odd choice as the sporting face of this city — but he could stop a hockey puck and that was enough. Had he chosen, he could have indulged his love of firearms and hunting without troubling anyone.
It wasn’t to be. In a misguided attempt to aid a gun lobby that does not need his help, Price posted on Instagram a photograph of himself in camo gear, holding a large shotgun and expressing his support for the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a group so morally bereft that it used the promo code “POLY” for merchandise.
The timing of the post itself, appearing three days before the anniversary of the massacre at École Polytechnique, was bad enough. Price’s fumbling attempts at damage control only made things worse.

continued

For what it’s worth, I’m vegan and almost entirely due to not wanting to contribute to so much gratuitous extreme cruelty to animals really no different than those like dogs and cats whom we consider family. And I also think hunting for anything other than subsistence/survival is in unjustified. Yeah I think those things in general. But they’re first and foremost about me trying to walk the walk and live my own values. In other words about me taking personal responsibility. Not trying to force someone else to do what I do. Doesn’t work anyway!

And I am sick to death of this extreme policing of what everyone is supposed to think and say and do. Seemingly all according to this very very narrow range of opinions coming from smug coastal elites who often just receive opinions from within their social milieu without actually understanding all of the issues involved.

I didn’t know this but sounds like Price was raised by his indigenous grandmother to hunt and it’s a big part of culture and family for him. Also sounds like team clumsily made up excuse that he didn’t know about Poly massacre. When he did. I’d guess he didn’t know about this groups distasteful promo or maybe about some of the fringe politics of the group in general. In other words he was probably mostly just saying he was opposed to banning long guns used in hunting.
Yeah that destroys his entire reputation as a hockey player and human being. Give me a break. So tired of opinion police trying appoint themselves to decide who and what is permissible.

Wingding

I suspect Carey won't miss Montreal in the least.