Scoring variety is important for Kane as the season continues
Michael Bunting missed the Carolina game on Saturday for personal reasons, but good for him! Earlier this week, Bunting posted on Instagram that his grandfather had passed away. It is believed that he missed last night’s game due to his funeral.
We hope this is another sign that the days of players missing out on important life events due to gaming are over for good. No matter how big the game is, there’s no excuse to miss something else if you think something else is more important. Births, deaths, graduations, and weddings happen only once in a while. There may be other games as well. Certainly the same goes for the other game against the New York Islanders.
While we praise them, let’s not forget the culture the Carolina Hurricanes have created. It’s clear that if a player needs a night to focus on his family, he may take that night out of fear of losing his spot in the lineup for the next game. As head coach Rod Brind’Amour has seen, family plays a kingly role in life and is more important than anything else on the ice.
We saw this last year in Teuvo Teravainen as well. Only the most hardline critics and a few of the “funny” critics haggled with Teravainen while he dealt with the loss of his grandfather in Finland. Even Jordan Martinook’s family issues a few seasons ago were recognized and understood.
While we as fans view these players as superhuman athletes, close to mythical gods, they are actually people whose lives are far removed from hockey. Just like us, their lives have ups and downs. The only difference is that our professional lives don’t unfold in front of tens of thousands of people two or three times a week. A little grace and empathy will never hurt us.
Ultimately it’s up to the players and we as fans need to support the decisions they make as to whether or not to play. If Bunting had decided to play, it would have been as good a choice for him as not to play Saturday night.