Uber reminder: Retreating still safe play for NHL players

If there’s a single takeaway message from the uncomfortable learning experience that an UberXL-load of Ottawa Senators players had to endure after a sleazeball driver captured a mostly harmless, mildly incriminating conversation on his in-dash recording system — and couldn’t resist the potential combination of a financial windfall and limited fame associated with dangling the tape at a local newspaper — it’s the harrowing reminder that it remains far safer for NHL players to retreat into their shells while present in the public eye.

When asked if the incident will motivate players to re-position the guard they appeared to be lowering as a collective and revert closer to reclusiveness, Max Pacioretty of the Vegas Golden Knights admitted Tuesday morning that “naturally, it will” have an impact.

And yet, Matt Duchene, Chris Wideman, Thomas Chabot and four others being burned by such a blatant invasion of privacy shouldn’t prevent the likes of Tyler Seguin from joking about Connor McDavid needing to land a superstar actress girlfriend to boost the league’s status, or for Drew Doughty to openly admit to injecting the Toronto Maple Leafs into the discussion surrounding his future as a manipulation tool to drive up the price in negotiations with the Los Angeles Kings.

Still, it doesn’t help players see the benefit of showing the personalities they often hide beneath hockeyspeak.

“I don’t know how genuine you’re able to be,” Pacioretty said, explaining that when the camera is on it’s the players’ responsibility to represent the values of the team first.

Taught to act and prioritize things in a certain way, what happened to the seven Senators is a cautionary tale that only reinforces the message that players have so often heard.

“We are all totally aware,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “Any time someone says to you, ‘this if off the record,’ nothing is off the record in your life. Let’s get that straight. And the second thing, everywhere you go there’s someone taking your picture, and the camera is on. You can call it an invasion of privacy, sure, but is that not what we all live with every day?”

While Babcock wasn’t quick to offer his condolences to his division rivals, there are few, if at all, across league circles not willing to sympathize with the group of Senators exploited in the video.

Vegas Golden Knights head coach Gerard Gallant may as well have spoken for everyone with his comments on the incident: “they talk about us all the time, believe me. … And vice versa, we talk about them, too.”

The fact of the matter is, these types of conversations — employees venting about their jobs, coworkers, bosses and workplace — are held in private moments in every walk of life. Anyone who believes that hockey players are any different and will blindly toe the line by collectively taking their coaches’ wisdom as gospel and never questioning their process (let alone a failing one), is kidding themselves.

And let’s be honest, what was said could have been much, much worse. What is said is much worse.

It just so happens that on the return trip to the hotel on their own time on the road in Arizona, it was the Senators (of all franchises) caught with their pants down.

“You always have to be aware,” Travis Dermott said, speaking to the higher degree of danger in a market like Toronto. “There are always eyes on you. If you’re going to talk like that, you should probably make sure you’re pretty safe about it.

“Tough bounce for them,” Dermott added, eliciting smiles with a momentary diversion from his serious tone — and with that youthful charm providing a glimmer of hope.

Perhaps one brazen act from a likely now-unemployed Uber driver won’t ruin it for all of us, after all.

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