Oilers insiders fire back at Toronto sportswriter over McDavid comments

This in from announcer Bob Stauffer of the Edmonton Oilers radio network, his clap back on Justin Bourne, Toronto sports columnist for The Athletic, who said he thought Oilers ace Connor McDavid would ask for a trade this summer and also hoped that would be the case.

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Stauffer, who works for the Oilers and has huge audience for his Oilers Now show on CHED radio, has ripped Bourne two days running, saying there’s not a chance that McDavid is the kind of fickle player who would push his agent to get out and that Bourne is the equivalent of a bad comedian.

Earlier this week, Bourne speculated on Toronto radio on the topic of McDavid leaving: “You know he wants to… I’m sure he wants to get the hell out of there but there’s not really a way to do it without creating some LeBron James-esque fire storm with the decision. I would love to see it. That would be great theatre, wouldn’t it?… All I know is I really want this to happen.”

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On Thursday, both Stauffer and Sportsnet columnist Mark Spector fired back on Bourne.

“The easiest thing to do in the business is to criticize and make fun of, use other people’s teams for your humour,” Spector said. “That’s an easy way to go.”

And Stauffer: “Writers that do that and broadcasters that do that are akin to comedians that have to rely on gross fart jokes. That’s all they got.”

Said Spector: “The Oilers are in the crosshairs of all of those Justin Bournes who want to say something — and it’s been successful because we’re talking about him today, right?, we’re taking about Justin Bourne and he wants people to talk about Justin Bourne because he’s trying to make his way in the business, and I want people talking about my column too — so the Oilers are a target for that guy. Because it’s pretty easy to sling mud at the organization. It’s just a fact of life.”

On Friday, Stauffer repeated and added to his critique of Bourne: “Then there’s the guys that troll markets and belittle markets. And when you’re working in sports or sports media in general and your whole shtick is slagging other markets, you are akin to a comedian who has to rely on fart jokes and it’s because you have no juice.

“So just relax. Do the Oilers, the organization, have to get things going in the right direction? Yes. Is Connor McDavid fickle enough that he’s going to blow out of here? No. He wants to be part of the solution. Was he angry and disappointed that the team missed the playoffs? Absolutely.

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“We sit there and we ask Connor McDavid to say something, because he’s been very guarded, his team has just been eliminated from the playoffs, from which he has had a career year, like what’s he going to say, ‘Ah, I’m completely comfortable with this?’ I’m so tired of specifically Toronto-based guys, ‘Well, you know what he really means!’ And the irony is when I go there, these guys aren’t there. They’re not down at the rink. Some of these guys I never see. So my response to that would be, ‘Yes, the Oilers have got to get things headed in the right direction, but, no, McDavid is not sitting there pushing (his agent) Jeff Jackson to get him out-of-town. Not a chance.”

Oilers radio play-by-play announcer Jack Michaels also weighed in on Twitter: “ All the hand-wringing over McDavid’s comments amuses me; people want him to expand on answers, and as soon as he does, there’s all this analysis about what he ‘really meant.’ He’s pissed his team isn’t in the playoffs. That’s it.”

My take

Well said, Bob Stauffer. Of course Stauffer will get some pushback because he works for the Oilers, but Stauffer is also the ultimate team insider. Indeed, he’s so hard-working and connected he’s become one of the ultimate league insiders. There’s often some pro-Oilers spin on his comments. But not on this one. If Stauffer says that McDavid is the kind who gets tougher when the going gets tough, instead of running off, I believe Stauffer. Certainly everything I’ve ever heard or seen of McDavid aligns with Stauffer’s take of his character. McDavid signed long-term here and he intends to turn the Oilers into a winning team, no matter what Toronto sports types think or believe or hope. As for Bourne, to give him credit, his whole shtick isn’t to savage other teams or make fun of them, even as that is what he did here. He’s said a lot of smart things about hockey. He had a bad day when he made those glib and foolish comments, but he said them on a Toronto radio station for the Toronto market. I doubt he intended to insult Oilers fans or thought more than a handful of Oilers fans would ever hear his remark. I lived in Toronto for a year and I can assure you they don’t give a moment of thought to anything but Toronto. And that’s normal, that’s OK, so long as they stay out of our hair. But they’re about as likely to think about Edmonton as someone in Edmonton is to think about Peace River. We’re not on their radar, which is partly why so many of them have their collective noses out of joint that McDavid is an Oiler. For them, it’s like he’s on the far side of the moon. It makes no sense to them. It doesn’t compute. It makes their heads hurt. So we’re going to constantly have this kind of bozo eruption about McDavid and the Oilers out of Toronto.

At the Journal

Staples on politics

At the Cult of Hockey