Kovacevic: Sorry, Scott wasn't the story

Brief and to the Point ...

John Scott's rise from aging enforcer to NHL All-Star to the All-Star MVP is so Hollywood that Hollywood itself has approached Scott and his agent to secure movie rights.

No, really, that happened Monday.

And that's fine. It's a terrific tale of human interest, and I'm as much a sap as anyone for a hero is being carried off on his teammates' shoulders. Good for him. Good for his family. Better yet, potentially, for his bank account.

But please, let's not rewrite this script before the movie people can pen the first draft.

This story was never about Scott. Not in the beginning. Not in the end.



Rather, it was about the disconnect between a sport's fans and the league that governs that sport. It was about disgust for Gary Bettman, his lieutenants and their prehistoric vision that keeps hockey from its rightful place on the North American stage.

Retrace the three pivotal points in the story:

1. The fan vote that made Scott an All-Star captain came from, if I might use the perfect Pittsburgh term to describe it, a jagoff attitude. Anyone who paid close attention to the social media movement at its inception can attest that the general sentiment was to just stick it to the league, to embarrass the league. They wanted, again, to be jagoffs.


2. Whether anyone wants to believe that the NHL orchestrated the Scott trade from Phoenix to Montreal -- and, in turn, his demotion to the Canadiens' AHL affiliate in Newfoundland -- the rot from this scenario went all the way to the top. And the public smelled it, too, especially when the Canadiens openly stated they weren't at liberty to discuss the trade itself. Fingers everywhere pointed to Bettman.


3. Even after that, Scott's situation didn't really gain mainstream attention until at least one of Bettman's lieutenants tried to intimidate Scott to keep him from participating in the All-Star Game. That lieutenant sunk so low as to ask Scott what his children would think of "a guy like you" being there. It was upon that sickening slice of information being reported by TSN's Bob McKenzie that the story rocketed into something extraordinary.