When it was announced earlier this week that the Rory Fitzpatrick campaign had failed to get the journeyman defenseman onto the NHL Western Conference All-Star team, I kind of shrugged. After all, it wouldn't be the first write-in campaign that failed in its noble attempt to buck the system. Besides, who in the world would possibly have the time to parse the vote totals?
Well, some noble soul has taken the time, and something really isn't adding up. Over at canspice.org, Brad Cavannagh is looking at the numbers line by line, and I think the NHL has some explaining to do.
Here's the crux of the argument:
Perhaps the most telling statistic is this, the number of votes gained for each position from one reporting period to the next. You
i think the NHL will fess up about the missing votes and then blame “evil hackers” for submitting them.
1) We at FAUXRUMORS mentioned this exact thing BEFORE the voting was completed. The fix was definitly in!
2) http://fauxrumors.blogspot.com/2006/12/rory-fitzpatrick-will-be-denied.html#links
While the campaign (which I supported) was noble and a great show of grass-roots determination, I’m almost relieved it didn’t end up successful.
After all, Fitzpatrick, the prototypical humble hockey player mode, was giving hints he might not even go to Dallas and participate. I think it would have made him more than a little uncomfortable to be an undeserving all-star, compared to a league star.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the role of hard-working journeymen like Rory Fitzpatrick, but to a lot of people this was just a joke. And he doesn’t deserve that. The real message of the VoteForRory campaign, IMO, was to show the NHL how foolish it’s unlimited voting system was. Rory, playing the part of the veteran hard-working everyman could have been a number of different players.