ColbyCosh.com

I can go along with taking a jab at Toronto (being a Maritimer and a Bruins fan), but jeez, Cosh, the guy was sick, and he apparently lost weight during his treatment, etc. If he can deal with that and play for a crap team, well...

Wow, you say he lost weight? Studied the credentials of the other finalists carefully, have you?

Sorry, I should have been more direct: he was sick and continued to play for the Leafs?

Ack, hit the "post" button too soon. In other words I was joking around...

I wish the voters would've had a look at the criteria to which the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy was to be awarded.

"The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is awarded annually to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey"

All three obviously meet two of the criteria, but there is no way Blake and Chelios meet the thrid, and I don't think I need to point out which one that is.

The fact that you are wrong only 0.2% of the time is a pretty good record, Colby. But you are wrong about this.

You describe Blake as "Having a Disease That Is Entirely Treatable With a Daily Dose of Oral Medication and Doesn't Interfere With the Patient's Training Regimen or Playing Ability."

According to Hoffman: Hematology: Basic Principles and Practice 4th Ed., Blake's illness (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia) is curable only through bone marrow transplant.

Yes, you did say "treatable", not "curable", but Hoffman has this to say about your "one pill" idea:
"the major cytogenetic response rate in the imatinib mesylate-treated patients was 83% at 1 year compared with 20% in the interferon/cytarabine arm (see Table 69-1 ). In addition, time to progression, although low for both groups, was significantly lower in the imatinib mesylate-treated patients. "

Translation: patients on your "one pill" regimen usually go into remission. Usually. They don't go into remission about 1 out of 6 times. I don't think any of us would be thrilled to hear "you've got CANCER but it's USUALLY gonna be fine."

I would add that the fatigue and splenomegaly experienced by most patients with this condition would certainly limit one's ability to play in the NHL.

I think it's a little much to imply "hey, Blake's got this bullshit leukemia that is usually ok with one pill. Give me a break. It's not like he had, oh, I don't know, ulcerative colitis or something. Now THAT's a disease." This is turning into that Not The 9 O'clock News sketch about Britain's NHS reserving hospital beds only for patients who win a disease auction. Blake's CML vs Pisani's IBD: which would YOU rather have?

Feel free to condemn the Hockey Writers Who Live East Of Detroit all you want. Maybe with a little more subtlety, you could make the point that what Some Random Edmonton Oiler lived through in 07-08 is more challenging than what Blake has had to deal with. But for me, this "one pill" meme is a little crass.

I humbly apologize for referring to Blake as "having a disease that is entirely treatable with a daily dose of oral medication and doesn't interfere with the patient's training regimen or playing ability."

Now can we have a matching apology from Blake and his doctor, a pair of incorrigible exaggerators who held a press conference when he received the diagnosis to explain that the disease was entirely treatable with a daily dose of oral medication and wouldn't interfere with his training regimen or playing ability?

Yeah, but they're just doctors, they'll say anything. It's not like anybody regularly goes to their website expecting to get the straight poop. Noblesse oblige, Mr. Cosh.

Why can't anyone look past the whole disease, sickness thing and answer me whether they think Chris Chelios or Jason Blake exemplify qualities of sportsmanship?

Canuckfan?

Anyone?

Colby, clearly unlike the fine men and women of the PHWA, you have not read the NHL.com description of the trophy carefully:

The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is an annual award under the trusteeship of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association and is given to the Toronto Maple Leafs player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. The winner is selected in a poll of all chapters of the PHWA at the end of the regular season.

Godtropolis is frowning on you this eve, CC. Beware of lightning bolts and trolls.

C'mon Colby, you're old enough to know the purpose of a press conference like Blake's: to give a positive spin and warm reassurance to Blake's fans and friends.

You don't honestly believe that those press conferences are a God's Honest Truth seminar, do you? I suppose you believe Gary Bettman when he says they made up a bunch of IGINLA MVP shirts just in case he beat Ovechkin? Sounds reasonable to me. I mean, it must be true: he said it in a press conference!

Feel free to stick up for Some Sick Oiler over Some Sick Leaf if you like: you'll hear no defense of the PHWA from me, and I don't think there's more than about 2 dozen people in the whole country who care about this trophy. But the (usually) honourable Oilogosphere ought to take it easy on Blake's disease. Just because the man puts on a brave face in front of the cameras and in front of his children doesn't mean it's all peaches & cream in leukemia land.

Yeah, look, I'm sure there were some sequelae to Blake's disease and the point that he has to live with the diagnosis going forward isn't a bad one (shame that under the rules he can't win Masterton Trophies in all the remaining years of his career for having that Damoclean sword pointed at him, I guess).

So what were the actual effects? Were the voters acting on the basis of secret MRI cross-sections? We know what Pisani (a Random Oiler who made the NHL from a #195 draft slot only to lead the league in goal-scoring in the '06 playoffs, ho hum) went through, for the reason that his total physical debilitation was horrifyingly impossible to conceal eight weeks before he returned to action. And incidentally, while I'm willing to believe that Gary Bettman would lie about a serious disease to the public, I do have a little more faith in physicians than that.

This is exactly why awarding this trophy to the most diseased player is so ridiculous, not to mention a bit sad.

X has cancer! But Y lost a lot of weight!

Maybe it is somehow worse or more challenging to have very severe inflammatory bowel disease rather than a chronic and generally treatable form of leukemia. Clearly Pisani's partisans know which they would rather have. My own opinion is that it lacks class and good taste (not to mention good sense) to prefer Pisani not just because he seemed thinner but because That Other Guy's So-Called Cancer Is Pretty Treatable Most Of The Time.

As a Canuck fan I'm quite used to the knowledge that my guys suck more than your guys. I'm glad I haven't yet had to argue that my guys are sicker, as well.

This is exactly why awarding this trophy to the most diseased player is so ridiculous, not to mention a bit sad.

(1) You keep falling back on this point like a trapeze artist hitting a safety net and then evading the question which player fits the written criteria for the award. (2) The debate isn't over which disease one would rather have (I suppose I'd take Pisani's); the argument is over which player had to overcome more to continue his hockey career, and that's a completely reasonable part of the criteria for a "perseverance" award. (3) Complaining that the discussion lacks class and then using a phrase like "seemed thinner" about Pisani is tantamount to shooting your argument in head and burying it.

Wow. And I thought that the Canon/Nikon arguments that we camera buffs are prone to were obsessive.

The Masterton is one trophy/award that should never have been created. The debate above proves it - debating the severity of someone's sickness/suffering as part of the qualification is something out of 'the baby down a well' or ol'Yeller.

1) You say I am "evading the question which player fits the written criteria for the award." This is because I am not trying to make the case that Blake deserves it more than Pisani, or less. I am interested in your (and Mike W's) implication that Blake isn't that badly off, 'cuz he's got one o'those one pill leukemias. Your implication about Blake's disease is incorrect and unseemly. Your conclusion about Blake's award is not particularly relevant to me, as I believe I have indicated more than once. However, you can keep returning to this point as much as you want, like a ... um ... like a dog trapeze artist, trapezing back to its vomit! (insert poor attempt at wry smile here)

2) The debate isn't over which disease one would rather have. Fair enough, although I think this argument can be made without pretending that Blake's disease is candy-ass.

3) Complaining that the discussion lacks class and then using a phrase like "seemed thinner" about Pisani is tantamount to shooting your argument in head and burying it. Okay, (a) I love the word "tantamount", so kudos to you for using it. (b) Yeah, I was being a bit of a hypocrite. Bad me.

4) Tulk is 100% right.

5) I'm done. Thanks for letting me rant repeatedly about this on your site. Hey, maybe next year one of the Canucks can get leprosy or tertiary syphilis, and then we Vancouverites can really get in on this debate.

Sorry, I'm still going to have to insist that my "conclusion" about Blake's disease is an exact paraphrase of the only statement Blake and his oncologist ever gave us about it. Their statement went unchallenged at the time, and no one has suggested that the prognosis proved wrong. Blake, and I'm not suggesting it is in any way his fault, won this award because he's a Leaf and because sportswriters are now effectively voting for the Cancerton Trophy.

I do, however, share your hopes for the 2008-09 Canuck roster.