Earlier today, Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson wrote a blog post on the Blue Jackets website expressing his frustration over Columbus’ controversial 3-2 loss to Los Angeles on Wednesday night at the Staples Center, when a clock malfunction allowed the Kings to score the game-winning goal with 0.4 seconds left in regulation.
Now, that blog post appears to have been taken down:
That’s a recent screengrab of the Scott Howson Blog, with his most recent post being the Jan. 21 entry titled “New Additions, Injury Updates and Trade Deadline Looming.”
So, what happened to today’s rant? Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch explains:
That said, the internet has not been completely scrubbed clean -- Howson appeared on XM Home Ice radio today to discuss the incident and the blog post. The transcript:
Host: Scott, you wrote a blog about [the incident] earlier this morning and I appreciate the blog, I thought it was well-written but it was relatively aggressive in my mind. Do you feel like as a general manager in the NHL you have the freedom to write something like that? Or would you be concerned that the NHL would be critical of a piece you wrote in that regard?
Howson: I’m not sure. I can tell you I could’ve been a lot more aggressive. [Laughs] I had to pull some things back because I didn’t feel they were appropriate. Our team’s depleted, it’s been a tough year, we’re playing without a lot of people, we got embarrassed the night before in San Jose and for our guys to come out on back-to-back nights and play a very good Los Angeles team and battle like that...to have it taken away on something like this, which I have never seen in my life, I just felt we had to get out there and speak to our fans.
We’re on this, the NHL is on this. It’s easy to say it doesn’t matter but it does matter -- what if this was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final? And someone was in the dressing room with the Stanley Cup pouring champagne and beer? We’ve gotta get to the bottom of exactly what happened, how it happened, so it doesn’t happen again.
FYI, the answer to “What if this was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final?” is, “Your team would not be in it.”