Amateurs de sports bonsoir: Subban et Sport Illustrated

Montreal's Mighty Mouth... C'est le titre de l'article consacré à P.K. Subban dans l'édition du 20 décembre de Sports Illustrated.

Un extrait:

"Subban is a one-man on-ice filibuster. Nothing salacious—"We wouldn't allow that, because it's disrespectful," says veteran Montreal winger Mathieu Darche. No, mostly Subban harangues opponents with a playground you-can't-beat-me braggadocio, which has prompted one NHL assistant to observe, "It's almost like he's an athlete in a different sport."

"Some people take it one way," says Islanders center John Tavares, a friend of Subban's since youth hockey, "and some people take it the other." Which means poorly. Subban's critics think he leveraged a strong playoff month—he was recalled from the minors last spring and quickly became a 20-minute-plus, all-situations defenseman for a team that reached the Eastern Conference final—without genuflecting to the traditions of the game. They think he yaps too much, too soon. At least other players who personify the sound of fingernails on a blackboard—among them Rangers left wing Sean Avery and Stars center Steve Ott (box, page 72)—have had time to amass a body of work. Subban has alienated many NHL players two months into his first regular season."


LA réputation de P.K. semble faire le tour de la ligue rapidement et si certains pensent qu'ils devraient mieux canaliser son énergie, personne ne nie son immense talent et sa détermination:

"If you look at the Subbans's albums, P.K. is always in the middle of the photos, center ring in a family circus. Karl, who emigrated from Jamaica to Ontario at age 11, nudged his eldest son toward hockey even though he had played basketball at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont. Karl would finish work as vice principal of a Toronto adult-education program and drive P.K. downtown to the outdoor rink at Nathan Phillips Square. They would do the family skate, then stay to play pond hockey. This was the snow-globe ambience the NHL tries to re-create in its outdoor games: Sticks were dropped at mid-ice, and the younger Subban often was given the honor of choosing sides. Free-form hockey would last until one, sometimes two in the morning. Then Karl and P.K. would stop for a slice of pizza on the way home.

P.K. didn't have to get up until 11:30 a.m. His half-day of kindergarten was in the afternoon.

Those frosty nights are encoded in Subban's hockey DNA. For now, though, he's an artist of the expressionist school who plays for a paint-by-numbers coach. The conservative Jacques Martin did not hesitate to banish Subban to the press box after a 15-game stretch in which he had one goal and two assists—glum numbers for a defenseman with generous power-play time—though he doesn't want to suppress Subban's passion so much as channel it. "There's no [other Canadien] who can take the puck from behind the net and carry it to the other blue line," says Shutt. "Subban'll make mistakes, but the guy who made the most mistakes was Bobby Orr, because he always had the puck. Subban'll have the puck."