The 2011 Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award

It's that time again: we award our blog's annual award for the most dishonest and hypocritical public statement made by a professional sportsperson. The selection is rather obviously biased toward the sports we follow most, and those tend to be ice hockey and F1.

**

We already mentioned McLaren's ridiculous hypocrisy about team orders last year, citing the 2008 German Grand Prix, where then-McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen was ordered to let Lewis Hamilton pass him. Hamilton won the title that year, and in 2010, told the BBC that there are no team orders at McLaren, and:

"I personally would not want to win the championship other than by winning it fairly."

Hamilton won the 2008 world championship by one point. Arguably, had Heikki not let him past at Hockenheim, he wouldn't have won that race, and that might have cost him the championship. There is, of course, the additional matter of the incident at Singapore; had the results been amended and Alonso disqualified, as he should have been, Massa would be world champion.

I don't generally like these kinds of what ifs, but I like hypocrisy even less. So given that Lewis's championship stands on the Singapore incident and the team order at Hockenheim, we're still waiting for him to relinquish his world championship.

**

Another excellent candidate would be Milan Lucic, whom I've previously maligned on this blog. Earlier this fall, he hit Sabres goaltender and reigning Olympic MVP Ryan Miller, who's been out since with a concussion.

Lucic still isn't much of a tough guy. While visiting NESN, Don Cherry called Milan Lucic "a disgrace to the Bruins" for hiding behind the linesmen in a fight:

It's priceless how uncomfortable Mike Milbury is. Last season, Lucic punched Atlanta's Freddy Meyer while he was being restrained by a linesman, keeping up the trend. In addition to being a dirty player in general and having been suspended by the league before, Lucic deliberately hit Miller and only got a two-minute penalty for charging. There's fairly wide consensus that he sohuld have got a five-minute major and a suspension, but NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan dropped the ball and, incredibly, said he believed Lucic's ridiculous lie that he didn't hit Miller on purpose.

As TSN's Dave Hodge said, "in the end, it was easier for Lucic to avoid a suspension than to avoid Miller because he tried to avoid a suspension." Because of his behavior in general and the incredible hypocrisy of claiming he tried to avoid Miller, it would be tempting to give this one to Lucic.

**

Neither of them, however, win the award this year. In fact, this year the Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award returns to its roots in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And we're going after the cigarette-smoking Next One himself.

Over the past year, no single instance of ridiculous hypocrisy has struck us as more over-the-top and sanctimonious than Mario Lemieux's diatribe against fighting. You can read the whole thing here. He was supposedly so disgusted that the New York Islanders got into fights with his Pittsburgh Penguins that he contemplated leaving hockey. This from the man whose organization employs one of the dirtiest players in the NHL, Matt Cooke, and the guy whose back-breaking antics brought about this very award. Also, his team was tied for second place for most fighting majors in the NHL regular season that year. So apparently, in Super Mario's books, his team gets to fight as much as they like and go headhunting for their opponents' stars, but when others do it, it makes Baby Mario cry. Disgusting.

So the runaway winner this year is Mario Lemieux, of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

**

The Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award is given by the writers of this blog to the athlete who makes the most preposterously hypocritical comment of the year.

Previous winners:

2010 - Lewis Hamilton, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, F1
2009 - Brooks Orpik, Pittsburgh Penguins, NHL

The annual Brooks Orpik hypocrisy award

And now, the moment literally no-one has been waiting for: the annual Brook Orpik Hypocrisy Award!

**

Although this award was instituted for the NHL, hence the name, we feel it would be wrong to restrict it to just hockey. After all, this blog also follows F1.

Now, we could simply nominate Lewis Hamilton and the entire McLaren team for the ridiculous fiasco that was their holier-than-thou commentary on Ferrari's team orders at this year's German GP. Martin Whitmarsh said that McLaren would "never give team orders like Ferrari", and Hamilton agreed. He told the BBC that McLaren would never give team orders, and adding:

"I personally would not want to win the championship other than by winning it fairly."

Although you would apparently have been fine with winning one in a stolen car. And obviously when Heikki Kovalainen was told to let Hamilton past him at the 2008 German GP, that wasn't a team order, even though Kovalainen did tell Finnish media that he was ordered to let Hamilton pass. Funny how McLaren didn't get a fine for that, by the way. So based on what he's said, we expect him to turn in his 2008 driver's championship. Ha.

**

For another example, here's what our "favorite" driver had to say after the Chinese GP this year:

The Guardian: Lewis Hamilton's feud with Fernando Alonso simmers ahead of Spanish GP

The rivalry that has long existed between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso has simmered again ahead of Sunday's Spanish grand prix.

Alonso last week made no secret of what he thought of Hamilton's moves in the Malaysian and Chinese grands prix that have resulted in him being labeled as "aggressive" by some of his fellow drivers.

Hamilton, though, has not missed the opportunity to respond. Assessing Alonso's passing manoeuvre on his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa in the pitlane in China, the 25-year-old was defiant.

"On the track you race and you overtake professionally and as cleanly as possible," said Hamilton. "I've never done that [Alonso's move], and it's definitely not in my nature to do what he did. That could have turned out really badly for Felipe. He could have been out of the race."

Sounds fair, doesn't it? In reality, what Alonso did was, as Hamilton said, dangerous and ill-advised, especially given that Massa is his team-mate. However, here's a reminder of what the Guardian didn't say.

USA Today: Hamilton, Vettel reprimanded in China

SHANGHAI — A chaotic Chinese Grand Prix prompted a post-race stewards' hearing and recriminations among several drivers following contentious incidents in the first half of the race.

The race featured two pitlane passing attempts -- one between teammates -- and a frightening first-lap crash that took out three drivers.

Stewards investigated the incident between McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel after the pair almost collided on the entry to pitlane. After their stops, they raced wheel-to-wheel along the pitlane.

Both drivers received an official post-race reprimand for driving "in a dangerous manner."

"At the stop I was ahead; I don't know why he pulled to the left and was keen to touch me. I hoped I didn't get a puncture from that -- I don't really understand why he did that as I was a bit ahead of him and had the advantage anyway," Vettel said.

It was the second straight race Hamilton had been cautioned by stewards, after weaving to block a following car in Malaysia.

**

Hamilton had pulled off nearly exactly the same move in the same race. Finland's MTV3 remembered, but apparently the Grauniad wasn't paying that much attention. Given that Hamilton is known, and the way we've heard it, positively loathed on the paddock for his over-aggressive driving and complete disregard for the rules, the mere notion of him coming out and saying something like this is breathtaking. On top of that, the comments he made after the German GP are beyond hypocritical.

After all this, he's the undisputed winner of this year's Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award. His notion that "he's not that kind of guy" is a ridiculous lie, given that he did precisely the same thing himself. He obviously won't be turning in his 2008 world title, which by his own alleged standards he won unfairly, because team orders that favor him aren't team orders. We don't know if he's just plain delusional or what's wrong with him, but we do know he's just won this award.

**

The Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award is given by the writers of this blog to the athlete who makes the most preposterously hypocritical comment of the year.

Previous winners:

2009 - Brooks Orpik, Pittsburgh Penguins, NHL

I hereby award this award

Today, I'm inaugurating my annual Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award. The award will be given to the player who, during the course of the NHL season, gives a public statement that at first glance seems like a reasonable thing to say, but when you consider who the player is and what their history is, is so appallingly hypocritical it makes you go nuts. The first ever winner is the man himself, Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman Brooks Orpik.

In yesterday's Caps-Pens game, Ovechkin tried to hit Sergei Gonchar. It's my opinion that Gonchar was trying to avoid the hit, and they collided knee-on-knee. I completely agree with TSN's Bob Mckenzie that there shouldn't be a suspension as Ovechkin wasn't trying to injure Gonchar.

However, this is what Brooks Orpik had to say about the hit, to the Canadian Press via TSN:

"I mean, you can run guys, guys are fair game, but the guy (Ovechkin) takes strides every time and leaves his feet a lot of times, too," defenceman Brooks Orpik said. "To us, we got the feeling he's really trying to hurt guys at times."

Cue violins immediately after "really trying to hurt guys at times". Why? Because this is coming from the guy who broke Erik Cole's neck. Watch.

To fully appreciate the context, note that the Pens are not only losing the game, but by that time in the season they were already out of the playoffs. Carolina, on the other hand, was set to win their division. This was the year they won the Cup. In that situation, Orpik breaks Erik Cole's neck by running him into the boards.

Orpik was suspended for three games. You may recall that earlier this year, Sean Avery got twenty games for saying something derogatory about a player's girlfriend on TV. Take a moment to reflect on the fact that for the NHL, a player's girlfriend's reputation is worth slightly more than six broken necks.

For having delivered the dirty hit that broke Erik Cole's neck, and generally being a dirty player, and then complaining about how Ovechkin hits people so hard, I award Brooks Orpik the inaugural Brooks Orpik Hypocrisy Award. Congratulations!