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The Beezer Sticks His Foot in His Mouth

John “Beezer” Vanbiesbrouck has never been one to shy away from speaking his mind. If you remember his use of racial slurs back in the mid 90’s got him in trouble. I think I failed to mention this earlier in the week but Beezer was in town for the 96 reunion game and was on with Sid Rosenberg. You can check out that interview here. He made some questionable comments about the state of the Panthers and current Captain, Olli Jokinen. Taken from his interview…

I think Olli kind of falls into a category of he should be a quiet leader, but when he says something it demeans what he does on the ice. In other words, they look at him and say, ‘you know, he makes foolish comments.’ Because he’s Finnish. He doesn’t have a great grasp of the language. He doesn’t know how to bring people together. Because that’s the dividing rod on teams – is making sure that everybody knows their role. I think he’s taking on his role a little bit too seriously. I look at Detroit and they hand the torch from Yzerman to Lidstrom. Lidstrom’s not a talkative guy, he’s a quiet guy, but what is he? He’s plus-45 every year. That’s the leadership that teams really need more than the vocal leaders because they have enough assistants, they have enough coaching to do the coaching job.

Hah. Beezer cracks me up. Check out Olli’s response…

“I don’t even know the guy (Beezer) personally. I have played seven years for the Florida Panthers and have never even been in the same room with him.”

Villie follows up with….

“There is no point in commenting on his leadership if one hasn’t been sitting in the same dressing room with Olli Jokinen. The whole team looks up to Olli and listens when he has something to say.”

So bottom line, new team, new time mind your business Beezer.

BTW guys sorry for the lack of posts. If your a SporTech regular you know this will happen once in a while due to my work. I hope you understand. Things should be back to normal.