the 4th star

You may have seen this story. Some are upset at the Toronto Maple Leafs, saying this is a clear case of the rich getting to buy their way to the front of line-ups. When the story first broke, the players — who are generally at or near the top of the healthy-living spectrum and aren’t considered high-risk candidates — wouldn’t talk about it. It was an organization thing, they deflected. When the organization was pressed on why the team possibly jumped the queue — which hasn’t completely been verified as the Leafs won’t say where the players got the shots (they may have received them in the United States) — Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment offers this explanation:

While all professional athletes are considered high risk to exposure and transmission of the flu due to excessive contact with other players, heavy travel requirements and public exposure, only certain players and staff have received the H1N1 vaccine.

That wasn’t really cooling the public outcry, though. It still looks like rich athletes were allowed to muscle their way to the front of lines — while children are dying. On Thursday, the always informative Darren Dreger had a column on the TSN website, detailing why some of the Maple Leafs got the shots. He starts with the idea that the organization felt Jiri Tlusty could have H1N1 — though he wasn’t officially diagnosed:

Multiple reports suspect Leafs prospect Jiri Tlusty, called up from the Marlies a week ago, to be the reason Maple Leafs doctors insisted the flu shot be made immediately available. Although neither was officially diagnosed, Marlies forwards Tyler Bozak and Andre Deveaux were both bedridden and quarantined last week, with what the AHL club believed to be swine flu. However, sources say neither player was tested to confirm a diagnosis.

Emphasis mine.

So the Maple Leafs got the shots on the suspicion of H1N1. The foundation for possibly cutting ahead in line — even at Ontario private clinics, who have had to follow the same high-risk priority list the last two weeks — is based on something that could just be the regular seasonal flu. At the end of his story, Dreger makes a point of suggesting the Leafs made the “vaccination a priority to help protect the flu from spreading to families, opposing teams, and ultimately, those attending Toronto Maple Leafs games.”

A day before his TSN report, Dreger appeared on the Hustler and Lawless show, and he gave a similar account. Bozak and Deveaux were sick, Tlusty gets called up, and the Maple Leafs get the shots as a safeguard to protect the fans. Simple enough, right? Thankfully, reporter Lawless, and not radio Lawless, was in studio that night and pushed Dreger on his apparent towing position with regards to that weak company line.

Dreger: …if the player is unhealthy, he will be quarantined, but you still have to consider the 19,000-plus who come into Air Canada Centre and maybe subjected to the germs that might fly about.

Lawless: You know what, Darren, normally I agree with almost everything you say but I gotta say that’s complete, unadulterated hogwash. People are walking around — they’re in shopping malls, they’re in airports, they’re everywhere. There are priority lists for a reason with this vaccination —

Dreger: That’s good for you to say, Gary, but I assure you if it involved anyone close to you, you would do whatever you could to get the vaccination. We got to be careful when we step up on our pulpit here and say that, ‘Look it should be available to Joe Public and all that.’ I understand that, I appreciate and support that, but I assure you one thing: If someone came up to me, a doctor or someone in the medical industry, and said ‘Would you like to vaccinate your two children” I’d say absolutely, where do I get it done?

Lawless: That’s completely two different things. You just talked about your two children and an entire professional hockey team. I don’t see where the correlation is there.

Dreger (volume raised): Well, the correlation is the 19,000-20,000 people who are in the building!

Lawless: Quarantine the player, like you said —

Dreger: Do you honestly think that Brian Burke or…and we’re not comparing Calgary to Toronto here. I’m giving you an explanation ’cause you asked the question, based on what happened in Toronto. Brian Burke ‘s medical people were advised that the player should get the vaccination based on the fact that there are 19,000 people coming into the building. That’s the explanation.

Lawless backed off, but Dreger looked bad for not only refusing to question or speculate on the absurdity of the MSLE directive, but for defending it. I like Dreger. He’s the only reason to watch TSN. He doesn’t subscribe to the star-pumping of most TV guys and I respect that. But to argue that in this time of global health concern that a professional hockey team get vaccinated on the POSSIBILITY of one of the players having H1N1, and spin it as protecting the fans — the same people that they may have just cut in front of in the vaccination lines and who have no chance of coming within 20 feet of the players they pay hundreds of dollars to watch, well…that’s a little sickening.

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Once again, when the shirtless Cliff Poncier begins singing…you know what you’re in for. More pompous, dick-swinging swill from a man who has haunted the local scene for much too long. You wish that Cliff would move to another town, like Minneapolis or Los Angeles, or New York. A town where he could disappear into the masses and not stand out like the relentlessly mediocre talent that he is.