The Mats Sundin Circus Continues

According to the venerable Ottawa Sun, Sens owner Eugene Melnyk recently sat down with Mats Sundin and his agent J.P. Barry to convince the reluctant Swede to come to Ottawa.

While I appreciate Melnky's enthusiasm, and at one point I did favour trying to bring Sundin in to Ottawa, now I think Mats should stop wasting everyone's time and go away.

I have a hard time believing that a guy who is this uncertain about even playing can actually contribute anything positive to the Sens. It's like saying, "I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning—but sure, I'll take the job!"  Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

But most of all, I just want to stop talking about Sundin, something the Toronto media seems reluctant to do.

The Sundin circus is reaching such baffling proportions that last week Sundin made front-page news on Sportsnet.ca for his ceremonial puck-dropping.

Yes that's right, Sportsnet's Ian Mendes felt that the big Swede was so impressive he saw the need to file a completely separate story on the event, even before filing his game story.

I'm going to give Ian the benefit of the doubt and assume he was forced to file such an inane story by his Toronto editors—but nonetheless, it was a bizarre situation.

So here's the deal, Mats—go away. We already have an aging but still dynamic Swedish powerhouse around here, and his name is Daniel Alfredsson.

If the day comes when Sundin decides he wants to play for the Sens, I'll accept him.  But please—can we all stop grovelling, and leave the guy to wallow in peace.