St. Louis Blues Fans: Don’t Cry For Me Benny Bishop

The St. Louis Blues were able to finish off the Dallas Stars by solving a difficult puzzle in Ben Bishop. However, that goaltender’s esteem in his former home town went down in the eyes of many.

The St. Louis Blues knocked off the Dallas Stars in seven games for those of you who were sleeping the last two weeks. In case you also missed it, they beat one of the most talented goaltenders in the league and a current Vezina finalist in Ben Bishop.

However, despite his ties to this city and despite his accolades as far as talent goes, he took a big knock in the eyes of many fans with his ridiculous antics. I’m sure I’ll get in trouble with Stars fans, since I don’t know what it is about me and the Stars but I seem to touch a nerve there, but whatever. I can only speak to my own perception of what I see.

What I saw of Bishop made me dislike him a great deal and lower my opinion of him as a player. As far as goaltenders get, he ranked himself up there with Ed Belfour as an agitator and dirty player.

Bishop clearly took a page from Jamie Benn‘s book in how to use his stick. The Stars goaltender chopped legs like they were trees and speared at opponents like he was in the Roman Legion.

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His own personal nemisis, David Perron took the brunt of much of it. Bishop hit Perron so much that the Blues forward might have pieces of stick tape still on his legs. I won’t pretend Perron did not earn a little of it with his own unnecessary antics, but Bishop would chop just to chop whether something happened in that game or not.

His frustration boiled over in Game 6. After getting knocked down like a scene from The Mighty Ducks, Bishop allowed a breakaway goal shortly after. When Ryan O’Reilly skated by the net to congratulate his teammate, Bishop jabbed out his stick for no other reason than an opponent was within reach. O’Reilly had done nothing, but Bishop saw red.

The stick work was bad enough from Bishop, but his fish antics were another. Bishop flopped around so much during the series, you’d think he had gills.

Part of the Perron issue was a stick to the back of the Stars goaltender. Perron had no business putting his stick anywhere near Bishop, but you’d think he had been sliced open the way he reacted. I am sure it did not feel good, but I have seen double-jointed people not able to contort their shoulders the way Bishop did.

On top of that was the whining. He would literally turn and complain to the officials when a Blues player skated by the crease. It happened late in Game 7 and a few other times in the series too.

His antics might have cost him in Game 6. The Blues were already ahead, so who knows how it would have turned out. However, the officials might have been more keen to blow the whistle when he took the Parayko shot to the clavicle if he had not cried wolf so much prior.

Jordan Binnington is several inches shorter and almost 100 lbs lighter. He got up and did his job with hardly a word to the officials after being blown up in Game 7. Time after time, Bishop went down like he was auditioning to play in La Liga or the Premier League at the slightest contact.

Due to all that, I feel no sympathy toward him. There are plenty of Blues fans that marveled at his Game 7 performance and how he carried the Stars. That is a fact that cannot be denied, but I do not feel any need to congratulate him for anything since he was basically a huge jerk for almost the entire series.

Kudos to those that can put personal differences aside once the series is done, but I am not those. Maybe I’ll forget next year and go back to supporting a guy from the St. Louis area. I still doubt it.

He changed my opinion of him by quite a bit. The stick stuff is what it is. I do not like it, but goaltenders do it a lot to guys in front of their crease. I played the position enough to know that. However, the extent to which he took it was extensive.

The flopping was an entirely different matter. As a soccer fan, I hate what diving has done to the game and how much of a joke it has become to people outside the sport. The fact someone from this area would bring that garbage into the NHL is aggravating.

Some in St. Louis will still like him.  This town has a thing where anyone from here is always gold.  Not for me though.

I’m glad Oakville got the better of Chaminade in this series.  Go public schools!

So, I won’t cry for Argentina…I mean Benny Bishop (sing that for the title now that it’s in your head). I simply dust my hands of him and hope the Blues will carry their momentum into the next series.