The wider hockey world, however, has never warmed to larger-than-life personalities the way, say, basketball and baseball have. When Subban made a Mark Messier-type guarantee of a playoff win last spring and pulled it off, they cheered all the harder. Nashville, well used to flamboyant celebrities, loved it. He established a "Blueline Buddies" program aimed at bringing police and under-privileged youth together for meals, a hockey game and autographs and photographs with the Nashville star. At Christmas, he disguised himself as a senior citizen he called "Eddie" and went about handing out candy canes and other gifts to strangers in the street.
While Montreal holds hockey sacred, Nashville sees it as entertainment.Īlmost immediately on arrival, Subban, wearing a cowboy hat, took to the stage at Tootsie's and sang a passable rendition of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues. That's not the way hockey is considered in the land that created the game. He was, it turns out, congratulating Karlsson and his wife on the coming birth of their first child. During Thursday's match against the Senators, he was seen on ice having words with Senators captain Erik Karlsson. Not at all as hockey once was or is, at times falsely, remembered. He has been called multiple names for his emotional displays, both fun-loving and angry, on the ice. Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby noted how Subban loves the "attention" as the two sparred during last year's Stanley Cup final. The common theory is that despite his fine play and astonishing generosity in Montreal – only months before he was traded he committed to donate $10-million to the Montreal Children's Hospital through his foundation, a commitment he intends to keep – his over-the-top personality had become a distraction for the other players. "I didn't ask to be traded," Subban told reporters earlier this year. fans to cheer on the hero who had, in their opinion, been unfairly treated, perhaps even run out of town. During last spring's playoffs, when the Predators were still playing and the Canadiens out after the first round, a popular Montreal bar, Chez Serge, temporarily changed its name to "Chez Subban" and packed in P.K. When the Montreal Canadiens shocked the hockey world by trading him to Nashville two years ago for sturdy, dependable Shea Weber, some Montreal fans were delighted, others were appalled with the swap of a young star (Subban is 28) for an aging veteran (Weber is 32). He takes chances, which can drive restrictive coaches – think of Mike Babcock in Sochi four years ago – to the point where they'd rather see him on the bench. Those adult fans not booing love to see the pure joy he exudes in playing. There is talk of Subban being on his way to winning a second Norris Trophy as the league's top defender.Īway from the scoresheet, however, he is a controversial figure. His 43 points lead the Predators, a team that reached the Stanley Cup final a year ago and seems destined once again for a lengthy postseason. It matches his career high and is more than any other defenceman in the league. That dramatic slapper that tied Thursday's game in Ottawa was his 15th goal of the season. In pure hockey measures, his stardom is undeniable. Rarely has the phrase "love him or hate him" applied so aptly. In the hockey world, traditionalist to the point of absurdity at times, Subban's over-the-top personality is fodder for endless discussion. To them, the big, smiling star of ice and Scotiabank commercials is a superstar to rank with Paw Patrol and Justice League. The boos aimed down at Subban drowned out the cheers, which came mostly from youngsters, some very young, decked out in yellow No. In Thursday night's case, Subban had opened the scoring almost instantly with a harmless shot from the right boards that clipped into the Ottawa net off Senators' defenceman Cody Ceci.Įvery time Subban rushed the puck up the ice they booed, and booed even louder when late in the third period, he scored on a signature rafters-high wind-up slap shot, forcing an overtime, which his team went on to lose 4-3 when Ottawa's speedy Mike Hoffman scored on a breakaway. Not the irritating, conversation-killing pounding of an NHL rink during warmup and breaks, but the rain of boos that fall from the stands if the Nashville Predators' defenceman so much as touches the puck. It took all of 34 seconds for the music to begin for P.K.