"You cant win with Jason Spezza as your captain. Derek Newton Jersey ."I have heard that phrase uttered countless times over the past few months, as the Ottawa Senators season has slipped away. In his first season as captain, Spezzas club has been a major disappointment. The Senators fell well short of expectations and predictably, Spezza is taking the lions share of the blame from his harshest critics. I have always said that the Spezza debate in this town is like Coke versus Pepsi. If you are a Coke drinker, its very hard to convince you that Pepsi is superior. The same goes for Spezza - those people who hate him cant be convinced otherwise. Its a black-and-white argument and its virtually impossible to sway someone from one side to the other.Anybody who has read or listened to me over the years knows that I fall into the camp of people who believe the Senators are a better team with Spezza down the middle. But in todays blog, I am not trying to convince anybody about Jasons ability as a player. You can judge that for yourself. What I do want to bring up is the idea that a captain is the person who sets the tone for how his team plays.The critics of Spezza will argue that because he has a penchant for turning over the puck and does not play as well defensively as some other players, he causes his entire team to play with a loosey-goosey mentality. If the guy wearing the "C" is taking risks with the puck, that is setting the tone for the 17 other skaters.Those people say that if Spezza was a real leader, he would play the game the right way in all three zones. He would be a rugged leader, who was more physical. He would be someone like Andrew Ladd of the Winnipeg Jets.If you were to write down all the characteristics you would want in a captain for a Canadian team, Ladd would meet all the criteria.• He is from Maple Ridge, B.C.• He plays the game the right way• He has Stanley Cup rings with two different teamsAnd yet, the Winnipeg Jets are a team that is a mess defensively. They have given up 234 goals – second-worst in the Western Conference.Their captain is there every night supposedly playing the game "the right way". His teammates see how he conducts himself on and off the ice. So why are they so bad defensively?Its because the captain can only do so much. And many times, we overrate the role of a captain on a hockey team. We assign certain characteristics to people and we have a hard time deviating from our original stance. In our minds, Ladd is a great captain – so the problem is with his Winnipeg teammates.But if Ladd escapes the criticism in Winnipeg for failing to get the Jets to play a more structured game, why does Spezza take the heat in Ottawa for the exact same thing?The tricky thing for Spezza is that he is also trying to fill the skates of the previous captain Daniel Alfredsson, who had a mythical status in this town.But before Alfredsson had his breakthrough moment as captain in 2007 in leading the Senators to the Stanley Cup Final, he had just as many detractors in Ottawa as Spezza does now. There was a prevailing sentiment that "you will never win with Daniel Alfredsson as your captain." Those echoes reached a crescendo when Jason Pominville walked around him for the series-ending goal against the Buffalo Sabres in the 2006 playoffs.However, after Alfredsson won over his critics in 2007, he was good for life in Ottawa and was never blamed for any of the problems.When it comes to the team that fell off a cliff in 2007-08 with one of the great collapses in NHL history?"Dont blame Alfredsson, that was all Ray Emerys fault."How about the team that missed the playoffs in two of the next three years?"Lets blame Hartsburg and Cory Clouston. Alfie is a great leader."When the Senators made the playoffs in 2011-12, they did so with the worst goals-against average of any of the 16 teams to qualify for the playoffs. They were kind of a mess defensively that year, but did anybody blame Alfredsson?Of course not.Because they had made up their minds that he was not the problem. Being the captain is all about perception. Alfredsson was always a good leader in Ottawa. He didnt radically change his approach in 2007 when they went to the Stanley Cup Final. Things just finally worked out in his favour and as a result, all of the questions surrounding his leadership vanished overnight.Spezza probably needs time to grow into the captaincy in this town, so he can experience his own defining moment as the leader of this hockey team.Whether he gets that opportunity or not is an entirely different question. Jeremy Lane Jersey .Sinclair, from Burnaby, B.C., led the Canadian team with three goals at the four-nation competition. She also earned tournament most valuable player honours.The Canadian captain scored on a penalty kick in the 63rd minute and added the winning goal a minute later. D.J. Reader Jersey . Fielder ended 4-for-5 with a solo homer, while Avila was 4-for-4 with two runs scored for the Tigers, who put the brakes on a three-game skid and rebounded from a loss in Mondays opener. Victor Martinez and Austin Jackson both contributed two hits, an RBI and a run scored as Detroit maintained its healthy lead atop the AL Central. http://www.footballtexansgearsshop.com/Black-Will-Fuller-V-Texans-Jersey.html?cat=942 . LOUIS -- The Tampa Bay Rays have placed right-handed pitcher Joel Peralta on the 15-day disabled list with an undisclosed illness.LONDON -- The head of the English Premier League will face no disciplinary action for making disparaging comments about women in a private email exchange with a friend. A Premier League committee met to consider the matter involving its chief executive Richard Scudamore in London on Monday, with British Prime Minister David Cameron among the high-profile critics of his conduct. However, Peter McCormick, acting chairman of the Premier League, said in a statement that the leagues 17 clubs -- not including the three relegated teams -- "resolved unanimously that no further disciplinary action is required or justified." An investigation looked at a large quantity of emails and other documents sent by Scudamore and found there was "no evidence of wider discriminatory attitudes or inappropriate language or a general attitude of disrespect to women." Praising Scudamores "previously unblemished record over 15 years of service to the Premier League," McCormick added in the statement that women working ffor the Premier League said there was "no climate of disrespect of women in the workplace. Kaimi Fairbairn Jersey. quot; Scudamore, who has brokered the deals that have turned the Premier League into the most lucrative and popular division in world football, issued an apology immediately after a British newspaper published parts of the leaked emails. In a statement released on Monday, he accepted that "entering into email exchanges of this nature was wrong" and "is something that will never be repeated." "I appreciate that I have a tremendous amount of hard work to do to convince those in the game who do not know me that my leadership and work in the areas of equality and discrimination to date reflect who I am and what I believe," he said. Scudamore pledged he will continue to do his utmost "personally, and through all the Premier Leagues means, to help promote diversity and inclusion, develop the womens game and support women who want be involved in football at any level." Cheap Jerseys Online Wholesale Authentic Jerseys Cheap Jerseys Online Cheap Jerseys 2020 Stitched Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping Cheap Jerseys Wholesale ' ' '