A Dear John Letter to Darryl Sutter

Written by Arik Knapp | 03 January 2011

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Jay Feaster, mostly because I’m doing that here and here. Instead, I have a Dear John letter for Darryl Sutter.

Dear Darryl,

It’s not working out. Don’t worry though! It’s not you- it’s me. Well, and a little bit you. Maybe even a lot. But you know, these things happen.

Sure, it started great, with lots of regular season sex and wonderful post-season cuddling, even if it didn’t end perfectly. But things went downhill. We tried to live in a world that wasn’t right for us. We were a pre-lockout couple living in a post-lockout world. Deep inside, no matter how passionately I whispered “In Darryl we trust”, I knew that to be a façade waiting to fade like a waning sunset.

I promise, it’s not because of how you treated Craig Conroy when trading him away, or how you bitch-slapped Andrew Ference after he sacrificed so much to be with us when he signed at a hometown discount. I mean, yes, that was domestic abuse and you hurt both us and Andrew, but I still loved you Darryl.

It’s also not because of the long term deals you signed to players at the expense of developing youth. Sure, you acted like prospects are like buses, but another will come along in 15 minutes, but we know the truth.

It wasn’t even the lying Daz. You may have looked me in the eyes and told me you weren’t trading players and then turned right around and traded them, but even that I could live with. No Darryl, it was the inability to change. I didn’t want to change you at first. I liked the big defensemen who took lots of penalties to “get under the skin”. But after a while, you just want someone who can score and score hard. You want someone who can put the biscuit in the basket. And every time someone came along who could do that, you pushed them out of our lives.

Worse, you never saw the problem with that. When the playoffs were missed like so many anniversaries, you acted as though it wasn’t your fault and was somehow mine and every other fan’s for expecting you to do the bare minimum. Oh, and you did it while managing to be incredibly rude and condescending. ]

Darryl, if we were meant to be together, we’d be together, but it’s not meant to be. Goodbye, and believe me when I tell you I will be filing a restraining order.
Arik Knapp
Managing Editor, the 4th Line Blog