The Heat is On

Dany Heatley has ended his silent standoff with the hockey media, and attempted to cut the tension with a machete.

He basically just made it bleed instead.

Phoning it in is an understatement, (I believe it was a conference call from his vacation home in Kelowna, BC). He should have had answers he had been working on since his trade demand became public, instead they sounded more like something he worked on just before he went to bed the night before, attempting to convince himself that they were good answers as he was jotting them down.

Taken from TSN's article about the interview, Dany had classy, well-crafted sentences like this to baffle us with...

"When I signed in Ottawa two years ago, I felt it was to be an integral part of the team, over the last two years and more recently over the past year, I feel my role was diminished. This past season, it diminished a lot more.

I'm sorry Dany, are you not the star of the team? Are you not the lynchpin of the whole offensive system? Who is? Chris Neil?

But he won't shy away from his responsibility, oh no, his sphincter won't shrink in the face of that ridiculous 6year, $45million contract...

"I have a contract, and if I'm still a Senator at training camp time, I'll be ready to go. I'm a hockey player, and I'm going to play to the best of my ability wherever I am.

Honest. But as Sir Sean Connery stated in (yet another movie ruined by Nick Cage) 'The Rock,' "Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Only to follow it up with this gem...

"But at the same time, I think we know that there are other teams out there that are interested, and hopefully something can get done.

Dany, I think everyone would love to have you on their team (including Atlanta, and obviously Edmonton) but with that cap hit, no one is going to eat that except for bottom feeder teams. And you've already clearly stated that you only want to go where a winner is imminent. But now your character and your heart are called into question by asking for a trade, and that's going to back a lot of GM's off.

The Heat was then hit with the 'why not Edmonton?' question.

He wanted options, he'd rather choose than be won by default.

Logical? No. Purely bullshit.

Dany did say that he did not make his trade request public, and he's a gloomy Gus about the way it went down...

"I regret the way it has been this summer, and it hasn't been fair, especially to Edmonton and Ottawa. But that's the way it went.

Don't you worry about Dany-boy, he'll pull through it.

"It's unfortunate that it became public, because that is not what I wanted.

No what you wanted was to whine in private, demand a trade to a winner, like San Jose, or Detroit, (you'll even slum it up), get swapped out for like 9 guys and some cash, and then tell the media that you didn't see the trade coming as you pull on your new jersey at training camp, far, far away from Ottawa. That's really what you wanted.

But I think Dany's most honest (that's not saying much from this interview) answer was about his silence over the summer since the story broke and the Oil Country courting process began...

"I didn't speak until now because there's a process that has to take place, and in all fairness to Ottawa and the other teams involved, I didn't feel it was necessary or purposeful to come out publicly and create more of a circus than it already was.

Not much you could do about it by then. And then we as frenzied idiots in need of instant gratification salivated over every activity or inactivity that occured, and speculated like junkies meddling.

Word is that Stevie Yzerman called Dany up and told him to clear the air before he gets to Team Canada Orientation Camp next week. Something tells me 'the Y' will not be happy with his heartfelt performance.

If Heater just came out and spoke with some honesty in this conference call I think he'd earn back a little of the respect he lost when this hit the wire.

If he had said he thought that Ottawa was going nowhere, and their best opportunity at the hardware was behind them. If he thought Edmonton was in the same boat, with their big shot in 2006, and that they had a long way to climb back to that height.

If he admitted that he's not a fan of Cory Clouston's system, or the fact that he thinks Bryan Murray is not doing anything to change the team's fate for the better.

If he admitted that he doesn't want to do they heavy lifting to get to the Cup, just help an already talented group get there, we still would have thought less of him, but at the very least respected him for his honesty.