The Ballad of Dan Ellis

Good thing I had writer’s block and procrastinated a little bit (okay, a lot), because there has been a new twist to what I was originally going to write about.

If you have not heard about the Dan Ellis Twitter saga by now, you must have been busy re-entering the atmosphere from your space mission.

In brief, Dan Ellis made some statements that really angered a lot of people on Twitter. He had a hard time backtracking, lashed out at some people who either criticized him for it or reported said criticisms, and then he… quit Twitter.

People were understandably upset by Ellis’ initial comments on Monday night, namely:

"“If you lost 18% of your income would you be happy? I can honestly say that I am more stressed about money now then when I was in college.”"

Followed by:

"“I can’t explain it and I never thought it would be the case but it is true. $ in no way makes u more happy or makes life much easier.”"

And then:

"“If you don’t make a lot of money I don’t expect u to understand in the same way I could never understand what it is like to risk my life” “Daily as a fire fighter or police officer…especially not a soldier. There r pros and cons to every profession. U r kidding yourself..” “If u think money makes things any easier.”"

Naturally, this set off a Twitter firestorm, and I’m not going to lie, I threw myself firmly behind those pouring the haterade all over Ellis. The problem is not that he has a problem with the escrow rule in the CBA. It’s one of the first things I would take out of it. The problem is that the way he went about expressing his opinion was harshly insensitive to pretty much 100 per cent of his fans, also known as those of us who make real-world salaries.

So naturally the fans called Ellis out on it. He got pummelled from all directions; some credentialed members of the media even criticized him. A much smaller, far less vocal minority defended what he said because they understood it to mean he was dissatisfied with the rule and not the amount of money he ended up with at the end of the day.

And then there was the debate about whether he was free to say what he wanted to say. The only issue? Those who were defending Ellis’ right to say what he wanted to say failed to see the flip side: that we were free to have a problem with it.

Things took a pathetically comical turn when Allan Walsh, most well-known for being Client Jaroslav Halak’s agent, decided to school those of us who turned on Dan Ellis. Allan Walsh wants us to know that “After taxes and escrow, amortize career earnings over a lifetime and it’s not as much as you think” and that “ The athlete’s sharing of personal opinIon+insight with fans on Twitter is what social media is all about. You can disagree but with respect”

(Sidebar: That’s all fine and dandy, Allan, but when I disagreed with you with respect, you… blocked me.)

In any case. Ellis subsequently lashed out at those who lashed out at him, in addition to some people who reported what he said (okay, with editorial comments), and then failed to explain himself or take responsibility for what he said, first by posting “didn’t really mean it that way” tweets and some “Geez, you’re sensitive” type tweets, but then posting an apology “to those he might have offended.”

If I were Dan I would have tried harder is all I’m going to say.

In any case, I was working on this very post this evening, when Ellis suddenly posted the following:

"“Twitter was a great way to see inside the life of athletes outside of public media. But this is even too much for me.”“I feel bad for the sincere followers/fans who just wanted a glimpse of things from the inside. But with the recent explosion…”“I am shutting down my twitter because in no way shape or form do I want this to disrupt my team.”“I deeply care for my teammates and faithful followers. This has all been misconstrued to no end and ppl’s feelings are getting hurt.”“There was never any intention in my tweets to undermine ppl who are in different income brackets. I donate 10% of my salary each year to..”“Help under privileged kids across the world. as long as I play in the NHL my peldge will remain the same to The Garth Brooks Foundation”“I deeply care for the less fortunate and make many efforts to be of even marginal help. I wish you all a happy twitter experience and…”“Hope you do not allow this misunderstanding to form the basis of your opinion of me. I welcome any of you to meet me in person to chat.”“But no longer will I xpress things through this medium. Thx again to all the good ppl I have met on twitter. I wish you all the very best.”“Peace out twitter!”"

He left. Of course people jumped all over him for it, while others tried to point out that even this controversy would have blown over and the value of being on Twitter far outweighed the backlash from the last few days. As angry as I was about his insensitive tweets, I felt he should have stuck around.

While most people felt his actions were cowardly, quite a few (myself among them) suspected that either his team or the league quietly persuaded him to leave Twitter so as not to be a distraction to his teammates or further damage his image. Many pointed out that his farewell message appeared carefully prepared and edited.

No matter who made the decision, it’s unfortunate, for two reasons:

1. Ellis never really stood up and took responsibility for what he said and apologized properly before he decided to quit Twitter, which is a shame. I’m sure a lot of fans would have liked to see that.

2. Despite the fact that this may never have been forgotten, it would eventually have blown over and fans would have had one more hockey players perspective from inside the locker room, the team plane, the team bus, the bench… yeah, I went there.