As a former member of the Florida Panthers, David Booth isn’t experienced at dealing with playoff defeat - particularly in a passionate environment like Vancouver. It might be interesting to follow him in future situations, however, as the American-born winger reached back to a Theodore Roosevelt* speech as his Twitter response.
Here is the full quote from the beloved former president, via Theodore Roosevelt.org. (Booth paraphrased most of it over six Tweets a couple hours ago.)
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
One would assume that Booth wishes that Teddy was alive today, so he could add extra lines like “No credit goes to the blogger, who criticizes from his mother’s basement.” Although, to be honest, I’d like to think the Bull Moose candidate would come up with something a little more creative.
Obviously, the quote is directed at armchair critics who looked down upon the Canucks’ first round defeat. There might be another interesting reason why Booth used that quote, though; according to Theodore Roosevelt.org, that quote was uttered on April 23, 1910. If Booth was giving an ode to the quote’s 102nd anniversary, then he deserves a ton of extra style points.
Or at least a bear rug.
* - Pictured second from the left in this post’s bizarre main photo.