Emotionally in 2018
Joined: Nov. 2016
Posts: 9,290
Likes: 3,387
By no means were his actions just. It's very easy to see how the female felt scared and violated, which is never okay. If he can't control himself when he drinks, he shouldn't be drinking at all. A player of his stature in particular is representing the biggest hockey market in the world, as well as the face of American hockey players. He's supposed to be the captain of this team, but it makes it very difficult to anoint him as captain after this incident. It's also mind boggling to me that nobody thought it would be a good idea to let the team know of this incident before the media found out. Utterly ridiculous.
That being said, there are a lot worse ways that could've ended up. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't going to be a huge deal, even though his actions were very inappropriate. The media in Toronto is going to over analyze everything that their stars do. I don't think there's a single player in the NHL that would get this much attention for it, simply due to the market Matthews is in. Not Crosby, not McDavid, not Kucherov, not Mackinnon, not anyone. The Toronto media always has and always will talk about their players at noisome, no matter what it is.
I do think he should still be named captain. It's his team, even with this one drunk incident. There'll be a lot of people who won't take that news very well, so it wouldn't surprise me if they go with Tavares instead.