Tire Fire Of A Writer

Ladies and gentlemen, the man to the left is National Post and Toronto Sun scribe Steve Simmons. At this point in his career, Steve Simmons is a national embarrassment as a journalist. I'm not sure what he's paid, but he has written absolutely garbage articles in the last few weeks with his "Mixed doubles curling is a sham" article in the National Post and today with his "Olympics men's hockey in 2022 will be a challenge" article in the Toronto Sun. I'll break down why he's firmly entrenched in the "hack" category below, but giving Steve Simmons any inches in a newspaper right now makes those newspapers nothing more than birdcage liner at best.

His entire premise off the top is that those Canadian men who won the gold medal in 2014 in Sochi will be long past their primes when Beijing 2022 rolls around. While that is true, he continues on to state,

The Canadian team will likely have first-time Olympians like Connor McDavid and Mark Scheifele, maybe Tyler Seguin and Mathew Barzal, maybe Sean Couturier. And to find a defenceman who will be under the age of 30 in 2022 will be a challenge for whoever winds up in charge of the Team Canada management group.

I find this idea of not being able to find a defenceman hilarious when there are a number of outstanding young men who are currently working through the NHL ranks right now. Players like Josh Morrissey, Ryan Ellis, PK Subban, Tyson Barrie, Matt Dumba, Aaron Ekblad, Josh Manson, and Morgan Rielly will most likely make a lot of early Team Canada lineup configurations, so either Mr. Simmons has no access to the internet or hasn't been watching hockey for the last four years. Both options happening at the same time is also entirely possible.

He goes on to write,

And who might play goal for Canada? Possibly Price, if he remains elite. Or possibly Matt Murray or Braden Holtby. The golden age of Canadian hockey is moving and changing. The future will be a challenge.

Now that sounds like an entirely reasonable assessment of the goaltending until you find out that he changed the article and didn't bother noting the change within the article or at the bottom of the article. For you see, Steve Simmons was under the impression that perhaps one other man could play net for Team Canada in 2022 which would require said man to do a ton of citizenship work.

Remember how I said that I was pretty sure that Steve Simmons could possibly have no internet access AND just stopped watching hockey for the last four years? Well, apparently American-born netminder Connor Hellebuyck is in the running in Simmons' mind to tend the nets for Canada in 2022. For Simmons to write that and for the editors of the Toronto Sun to allow that to be published is simply baffling.

A simple Google search would return the information that Connor Hellebuyck is American. He suited up for Team USA at the 2015 IIHF World Championships and helped Team USA win a bronze medal in a tournament in which he went 7-1 with a .948 save percentage and a 1.37 goals-against average. He was born in Commerce, Michigan to American parents Chuck and Erin Hellebuyck. Connor Hellebuyck will not and cannot start for Canada in any capacity at any point of his hockey career. Again, a SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH would tell Steve Simmons this, but why do any fact-checking or verification when you're a journalist?

Steve Simmons is a glorified blogger. His assault on Phil Kessel about hot dogs was proven to have a number of false accusations in it - kudos to the Pension Plan Puppets blog for doing the legwork on that one. Other writers have gone after Simmons for his character attacks on various people within hockey. Journalists are allowed to have opinions, but they're required to present said opinions in logical arguments based in fact. If they consistently attack people within the industry which they cover with hearsay and false allegations, they're going to be found out very quickly as they were in the two linked pieces above.

As I write this, I'm still shaking my head that Steve Simmons wrote that Connor Hellebuyck is Canadian and that an editor at the Toronto Sun allowed that to be published. It takes all of a few seconds to verify the information, and yet Steve Simmons was either too engrossed in his own thoughts to fact-check or simply too lazy. Maybe he went for a walk in downtown Toronto near Front and John Streets where he could grab a hot dog and be labeled as the laziest man in Toronto. Apparently, that's journalism in the eyes of Steve Simmons despite it being wholly untrue, but why let facts get in the way of a good story, right?

Pure garbage from a garbage writer who has proven he doesn't give a damn about the truth or about facts.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!