Midnight Special

After hearing Paul Maurice describing Darcy Tucker as a "special player" 38 times in one interview, it started to get on my nerves. Maybe it's just me, but the use of the word "special" in hockey journalism is ridiculous. There are adjectives upon adjectives for describing people, and I would assume that writers / journalists would be able to crack open a thesaurus now and then to come up with ingenious expressions now and again rather than relying on a worn out word that has been stripped of all real meaning. As the saying goes though, many writers get unlimited mileage out of a limited vocabulary.

Here is a brief list of examples describing everyone from Gretzky to Nolan to some no name hack that played 3 games for the Devils back in 97.

• Bowman said. "You were a special player, and a special player in my heart."
• Ken Hitchcock, coach of the rival Philadelphia Flyers, hailed Lemieux as a "special player, special player, special talent."
• Orr did everything by himself with tremendous injuries and I believe he was the most special player to ever play…
• On Crosby “He’s truly a special player.”
• Gretzky truly is in his own category. Love him or hate him , you have to admit he was a special player
• "But we feel Owen Nolan is a special player."
• "I spent six years here that were very special, so I'm sure I had a little extra tonight,"
• "It's a special feeling when you come back to your former team.”
• "It is a pretty special feeling to know you have the community behind you,"
• Boucher has special night in Stars' 5-3 win

Come on now...I know that most players have the equivalent of a 6th grade Jethro Bodean education and coaches maybe a 9th grade education, but writers have supposedly gone to school to get what Mr. Valiaho called "The Dictionary Habit" back in grade 4.
Regardless of all this jive, it makes about as much sense listening to professional athletes talking as watching Leno and Letterman face off in a game of canasta against Larry King and Oprah while they all eat sunflower seeds.
Is there a sports cliche getting on your nerves? Post it up in the comments section and I will pass it along to Dave Hodge. He will throw pencils until something gets done about it.