Last night, P.K. Subban tweeted a photo from his personal account, along with a message congratulating Scott Gomez on his career and retirement. The photo was of the two of them during their time with the Canadiens, in practice gear. One glaring omission from the photo was the iconic Canadiens logo that should be on the helmet.
Congratulations to a mentor, influencer, and most importantly, close friend. Scott Gomez congrats on your retirement pic.twitter.com/O8jIj3CmQ2
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) September 3, 2016
A quick google search enables almost anyone to find the original photo with ease. Here it is.
Why exactly the logo was edited out is something we will probably never get a direct answer for, but it clearly was. Here are a few reasons why this might have happened. Keep in mind that I am merely speculating here.
- Subban does have a team of people who assist him with things like social media. It is entirely possible that he had nothing to do with the actual removal of the logo, and someone on his team made a unilateral decision.
- The Canadiens are notoriously protective of their brand. It is not out of the question that they asked him to refrain from using their logo on social media after the trade.
- It is also completely possible that Subban had someone edit the logo out before tweeting it, or did it himself. /
No matter how you slice it, this is petty. It would be petty of the Canadiens to ask him not to have any pictures of him wearing the logo on social media. It would be equally petty of Subban or anyone surrounding him to remove the logo out of spite. Either way, it’s like trying to pretend that he never played here.
This just doesn’t look good. After all the commentary from both sides following the trade, and now this, it feels like a bad breakup. It’s almost like both sides are taking veiled shots at each other in an effort to get over a relationship that ended quickly and tumultuously.
I’d ask that everyone join me in refraining from assigning blame for the time being, since we don’t, and probably never will have the whole story. That being said, there are but a few reasons why this could have happened, and none of them are awesome.
And in any case, no matter who made the call, it doesn’t sit well with me in the slightest.
