The Dave Bolland Backlash

Well someone’s going to get a lump of coal for Christmas.

In case you’ve missed it, Chicago Blackhawks third-line centre Dave Bolland didn’t mince words in a WGN interview on Monday, chastising the Vancouver Canucks and calling out the Sedin twins:

“I hate all of them [the Canucks]… I don’t think we’d let [the Sedins] on our team. And yeah, they probably would still be sisters. I think they might sleep in bunk beds. The older one has the bottom one, the younger one got the top.”

Slow clap, Dave Bolland. Slow clap.

Maybe Dave Bolland played up to the laughter of the crowd during the interview. Maybe he himself embraces being public enemy number one in Vancouver, or maybe he wanted to see if he could get a rise out of some of the Canucks. Either way, Bolland succeeded in ruffling at least a few feathers.

For every fan who has come to appreciate the Sedins, there’s the troll who have followed the “Sedin sister” label, and Bolland’s latest comments allowed those trolls to come out of the woodwork in droves today. Some Canuck “fans” even suggested on the TEAM1040 that they’d rather have Bolland in their lineup than the twins. Bolland’s comments forced both Alain Vigneault and Mike Gillis to jump to the defense of their top players:

“Dave Bolland has an IQ the size of a bird seed and a face only a mother can love.”  – Vigneault

“If someone wants to take a shot at them after all they’ve accomplished, especially over the last three years, it rings hollow in my ears.” – Gillis

Dave Bolland can jab at the Sedins with his Stanley Cup ring all day, but it absolutely astounds me that anyone can actually hate the Sedins.

They’re twin brothers who were drafted into the NHL with the highest of expectations. They were burned at the stake in Vancouver when they didn’t produce in the early days of their careers, to the point where they were this close to going back to Sweden. Not only did they manage to train hard and prove those naysayers wrong, they exceeded our wildest expectations, becoming the first two Canucks to ever win Art Ross trophies (Henrik also won the Hart trophy). Their charitable work in the Vancouver area is also unrivaled; they donated $1.5-million of their own money to the B.C. Children’s Hospital.

If Dave Bolland or any of the Canucks chief rivals can’t (or don’t want to) see just how good the Sedins are on the ice or how genuine they are off of it, it’s probably best to turn the other cheek and ignore it.

The Sedins and the Canucks have never cared about what the media or other teams say about them, and they’re not about to start. They’ve got other, more important things to worry about, like winning the Stanley Cup. That’s the only thing that will shut up every last one of those critics.