Many fans go to hockey games and casually point out to their row-mates when players make stupid decisions like passing the puck across his own crease.  These fans speak from the know, you see, as they could have clearly done it better than say, Bryan McCabe, if under the same pressured circumstances.  That’s the nice thing about being a fan.  You’re better than them, and you never have to prove it.  Awesome.

I do the same thing, only with hockey beat writers.

In a throwaway column about NHL Hall of Famer Paul Coffey’s small acting role on some Canadian show called “Rent-A-Goalie,” writer David Winer opens with some magical prose to tie Hollywood and Hockey World together:

One of the best defencemen to ever lace up skates in the National Hockey League, Paul Coffey is no stranger to playing a supporting role.  In fact, if hockey had its own Oscars, Coffey would have been a perennial winner for best male actor in a supporting role.

Winer goes on to wax pathetic about how Coffey was “Wayne Gretzky’s sidekick during the Edmonton Oilers’ glory years” and how he “starred alongside Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins.”  Cute, Winer.  But you’re overlooking one thing.

HOW HARD IT IS TO WIN AN OSCAR.

Sure, Paul Coffey was a great defenseman, one worthy of wearing a vaunted double 7 sweater.  But Oscars are a little harder to earn than you think, Winer.  Let’s take that Edmonton team you referenced.  In the eighties, they were a tour du force, outscoring and outplaying everyone who had to lace up against them.  They had so many great players.  Grant Fuhr was stellar in net, Jari Kurri and Mark Messier helped lead the offensive explosion behind The Great One, and yes, Paul Coffey played solid blueline.  A complete roster of high-quality talent.  It kind of reminds you of The Departed.  A strong cast of many good performances, but because there were so many, no one gets recognized.  Gretzky and Messier are the Nicholson/DiCaprio, Kurri supports as Matt Damon.  Fuhr is the fun character – the Wahlberg.  That makes Coffey Alec Baldwin.  Hilarious, but not Oscar worthy.

Did any of these guys win?  No.

Onto the Penguin years.  Coffey does indeed play a bigger role, but with Jagr, Ron Francis, Joe Mullen, and Larry Murphy, you could hardly call this a two-man show.  Two-man shows win Oscars.  One guy leads, the other supports, they’re both excellent, and they win shiny awards.  That’s Ben-Hur.  That’s Mystic River.  That’s not Paul Coffey.

You know who’s awesome?  Ed Harris.  Ed Harris is awesome.  I’d say he would be a perennial winner for best male actor in a supporting role.  Wait, no I wouldn’t.  Because that’s impossible.  IN FACT, DESPITE BEING EXCELLENT, HE HASN’T EVEN WON ONCE.  So why should Paul Coffey be anointed as such?

(By the way, Paul Coffey went the Walter Mathau route by doing nothing but crap in his later years.  Anyone remember him in as a Bruin?  Flyer?  Hurricane?  Blackhawk?  Whaler?)