The Free Press’s Carlos Monarrez wrote a column suggesting that Chris Chelios’s decision to return to the employ of the Chicago Blackhawks feels a little “too soon”:
Just four days after announcing he was leaving the Wings and planned on visiting Detroit whenever he could, Chelios took a job Monday as a Blackhawks ambassador.
Really, Cheli? Four days? Couldn’t wait just a little longer for the tears in Detroit to dry? I assumed he would take a job with the Blackhawks eventually. But four days?
This feels like it was orchestrated from the start. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the timing was just an incredible coincidence.
But if Chelios’ job with the Hawks was already in the works last week, he should have waited to announce his move and his new job at the same time. I could understand a beloved player saying he’s leaving Detroit to be closer to family and also taking a job with his hometown team, even if it is a hated rival. It would make sense. The dude’s moving and he needs a job.
Instead, the delayed announcement feels like a calculated manipulation. And Chelios never acted that way when I covered him over the years. He was always a go-to guy and a straight shooter in the Wings’ dressing room. He was honest – probably too honest if you ask NHL commissioner Gary Bettman – and he didn’t pander.
“I could understand a beloved player saying he’s leaving Detroit to be closer to family and also taking a job with his hometown team”
Well, if the writer could understand the above, which from Cheli’s comments in the past is probably exactly why this all happened, I don’t see why he wasted his time writing the rest of the article as if to make an issue of it.
click bait?
Who gives these people a forum to write “articles”? What a joke.
We do.
Monarrez is bombastic to get attention. Who cares? It’s his life.
Copy and Paste:
I spoke with him at Cheli’s downtown. He is a good guy. He was always out on the ground level patio yacking it up with all kinds of people. Whatever reason he left is his own. I think we all should be grateful for the time he was here.
Also, if this move was just to go to the Blackhawks to work (which I doubt) what is wrong with that? How many of you all have left long time jobs and moved on? And please, it is not different. He has a life like we all do.
Monarrez needs to get a life, which is exactly what Chelios has done in his home town.
Congrats & thank you to Chelios!
To be fair, for all we know the Wings started the process of separating with him and let him save face with the family stuff.