Paul Bissonnette Was Right About Babcock, And We Should Thank Him

Now that the dust has begun to settle on the Mike Babcock explosion in Columbus, it’s time to move ahead and focus on the season. But we have one final piece of business to take care of.

We owe an apology to Paul Bissonnette and the Spittin Chiclets podcast. When they broke the news of the Mike Babcock practice of viewing his players’ cell phones, a lot of us (yours truly included) doubted the level of seriousness of the accusation. To be fair, it came across in their podcast as something to be downplayed, but in the end, part of that was just the personality they bring to their podcast. It was very serious.

The reality was, it was way more serious than any of us expected it to be, them included. It led down a path that saw Babcock forced to resign on Sunday, which is something that I don’t think any of the guys on the podcast expected to happen when they originally broke the news. But as time wore on, it became increasingly obvious that it needed to happen.

The guys cleared the air quite a bit with this week’s episode (WARNING: adult language – pertinent segments start at 11:30 and 103:20). It seems that the accusations started out innocently enough, but progressed throughout the week to where it became concerning both to the members of the podcast, and the NHLPA. Our tone all along was that of “we’ll believe it when we see it”. At first, I’ll admit that I was more than skeptical. How is it possible that Babcock, a guy who has won 700 games behind an NHL bench, who knows he’s on his last chance; could be so naïve? I was wrong.

Biz was right…

I wanted to clear the air from my perspective, which I think speaks for at least some of the 5th Line. We came to the defense of our team because we’re tired of being overlooked and dumped on by a lot of people around the league. It happens to us all the time. In fact, the guys even talked about it on their podcast this week (coincidentally enough, podcast interviewee Chris Chelios was enemy #1 for us for a bit over the summer). We have a great fanbase, that does not reflect the embarrassing history of our team. We fiercely defend our team, and we deserve more respect than we get. So when news broke that cast our franchise in a negative light yet again, of course we were upset.

In the end, this Babcock fiasco may be the lowest point in the history of a franchise that has had its share of low points. We’re embarrassed by it, but we should not be upset with Paul Bissonnette, Ryan Whitney, or any of the Spittin Chiclets cast. It’s not their fault that Babcock was hired – and then subsequently decided to turn to his old bag of tricks. Whether we agree with their delivery or not, they were 100% correct in bringing this to light. Our tone changed as soon as the allegations became more serious. My only regret is that I was skeptical in the first place.

Cheers, Biz. We’re sorry. We owe you a debt of gratitude, and we should consider ourselves lucky that he quit before training camp started. Now we can move on and hopefully enjoy the season.