Alexandre the Athlete... and Actor.
By Buddy Oakes
Occasionally in sport, you find athletes who present such an enigma that they defy a clear understanding of who they truly are. Alexandre Burrows is one of those athletes.
His fans will relate the long road he travelled to make the NHL, and celebrate every move he makes. His detractors will call him a cheap shot artist, a diver, and any other negative term from the hockey vernacular that you can imagine.
With Burrows, both camps are correct. Burrows is a tremendous talent who took an unusual route to make it to the Vancouver Canucks. His breakout 28-goal season last year has been followed by an even more productive 19-goal campaign this year - including last week's back to back hat trick performance.
The issue is, in spite of his talent, Burrows often resorts to questionable tactics to get an additional edge on the opposition.
To be be clear - this is not a "hammer" article, since Burrows is indeed my son Jackson's favorite non-Predator player, and I do respect his talent.
There are two incidents I witnessed in person that really bother me about Burrow's character and style, which prevent me from being objective in any questionable situation involving the Canuck. The first can be seen here.
The second was last season, at a game in Nashville. Burrows delivered an open ice hit on J.P. Dumont in an early December game that left Dumont struggling to produce for the remainder of the season. He clearly left his feet and had his elbows high as was shown in replays and still photos.
Despite clear evidence on the hit, no action was taken by the NHL.
This season, in another December game between the Predators and the Canucks, one of the worst calls I have witnessed was made when Jerred Smithson made a routine hit on Burrows near the Predator bench. When the reality was that he was barely grazed, Alexandre the actor, did his best imitation of an epileptic seizure on ice that you could imagine.
Jerred Smithson was astounded that he received a game misconduct and related after the game that he really missed more of Burrows than he hit. After Burrow's dive, he looked up eagerly awaiting the referee's whistle, and clearly performed for the audience of Stephane Auger.
Unfortunately, there is no video evidence of the hit and resulting dive easily available for reference as this game was not televised by either the Predators or Canucks. The only clip in existence is the in-house feed, (not readily available for the public).
If Stephane Auger did indeed threaten Burrows before the game this week, there are no excuses for his action. However, if the video of the Burrows dive and resulting embellishment after the Smithson hit were available, I think there would be a few more folks in Auger's corner who would understand how Burrows showed him up with his antics in Nashville.
It's doubtful that we will ever get a legitimate explanation from the League as to what really transpired in Monday's game in Vancouver, but we can imagine that Burrows actions in December pushed Auger to point where he was willing to jeopardize his somewhat shaky reputation, in order to even the slate with Alexandre Burrows.
