I don't know much about Edmonton outside of what I hear from Colby Cosh. Consequently, I don't shoot my mouth off about what life there must be like, other than the fact that there seem to be a number of swell folks who hail from there.
Which is why reading the following quotes from the Canadian press raised my ire just a tad. First, here's John Short from SLAM:
Finally, I insisted that not every Swede could possibly be an on-ice wizard and the coach agreed, to a point.He mentioned one non-thinker from his country: Michael Nylander.
The same Nylander who chose to live in Washington, probably the most violent city in North America, and insisted it was his right to take millions less for the privilege.
Next, here's Eric Francis from the Edmonton Sun:
Despite having plenty of cash, draft picks and holes to fill, Lowe was turned away by all of the big name free agents he approached over the last week including Paul Kariya, Slava Kozlov and, most embarrassing of all, former Flames castoff Michael Nylander.The sordid Nylander case illustrates perfectly just how undesirable Edmonton has become in some people's eyes as his wife rejected his agreed upon deal with the team "like she was being sent to Siberia."
Instead, she insisted he sacrifice several million dollars so they could raise their five kids amidst the gunfire and politics of hockey hotbed Washington - one of America's most violent cities.
I'm not here to debate the obvious, namely that the crime figures in Washington, D.C. proper are a national disgrace. However, I will assure folks that after living here for 22 years, I know something more about the lay of the land than your typical Edmonton-based journalist.
Like any American city, the sort of violence you see in the crime stats isn't exactly spread in even shares around town. Furthermore, that same crime rate isn't reflected elsewhere in the region, especially in the near suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia, where I live.
The Caps arena, the Verizon Center, is barely ten years old, and still one of the best in the league. Better yet, the arena, built primarily with private funds, triggered something of a rebirth in its section of town -- just another boomlet in a series of them that have revitalized the city center since I got here in the mid-1980s. Truth be told, it's one of the safest neighborhoods in the city.
Better yet, the team also has a brand new practice facility in Arlington, Virginia, about 15 minutes away by Metro. That's the same Arlington, Virginia that Money rated as the most educated in the U.S.
And right next to Arlington is Fairfax County, until recently the county with the highest per capita income in the U.S. until it was recently surpassed by Loudoun County just to its West.
Areas of both those counties could make a lovely home for a family like the Nylanders, and still provide the newly signed center a reasonable commute to the practice facility and downtown D.C., especially when you factor in the flexibility that many professional athletes enjoy when it comes to their schedules.
And as others have already noted, thanks to Dulles International Airport, Washington is about four hours closer to Stockholm than Edmonton is.
For the most part, these facts aren't too tough to dig up. Unless of course you were just too lazy to bother.
Thanks to Off Wing reader In-Sung Yoo for the tip.
UPDATE: More thoughts from J.P.
And now you see how we feel down here whenever some dumbass from north of the border trucks out the same tired regionalist garbage about Raleigh.