Should Patrice Bergeron’s name be grouped with those of Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds? Is Patrice Bergeron a cheater? Well, logically, no. But nevertheless, a fan or opposing athlete playing the role of devil’s advocate could easily build a case to argue the contrary
You see from the first versions of evolved human beings, to the advanced beings we are today, the spirit of competition and sports itself has always been a part of human nature. Even hunters in the early days of nomadic habits, would compete with one another. Thousands of years later, it was the Greeks and Romans conceiving the Olympics and Gladiator wars respectively all while the Native Americans practiced solving their disputes via lacrosse games instead of violent conflict (all be it, their version of lacrosse often involved death mutilation and brutal feats of contact)
Competition: “to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective” is a part of the human experience and as much as we hate to admit it, when feats of competition are hyped up to levels of super stardom another much darker fact of the fabric of our kind emerges: cheating.
Cheating, cheating, a word spun throughout pro sports and nearly any persist in which a person feels driven to succeed in something that simply means: “to violate rules dishonestly”.
Competition and cheating, two words with drastically different meanings yet 2 words that when they come together form a sickening blend of disgrace and heartless anger.
Yet there is a 3rd and ever crucial word that contributes to the dark subject of this article: professionalism.
Professionalism: “the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well” an aspect of Pro sports that has recently fallen into a sea of controversy questioning not just the meaning of that one word but each of the other 2 listed earlier.
What cheating? A question that after thousands of years of sports, has been answered time and time again yet the craziest thing is that none of those countless answers has been anything like the ones before or after it.
MANNY RAMIREZ: a name once acclaimed as the distinction of one of the greatest hitters in baseball, yet now a tag pathetically synonymous with cheating itself.
Born in May of 1972, Ramirez was long expected to join the hall of fame that is until the end of 2003 when he was reported to have tested positive for using an unnamed form of performance enhancing drugs. Now at the time, many believed that to be a scare enough for Ramirez to clean up his act. Many were wrong.
Even with everything in the world: millions of dollars in yearly salaries, unthinkable levels of skill and 11 consecutive All-Star nominations, Ramirez continued to dope meaning that after being caught for the second time in his career, Ramirez was in some real trouble.
"It's a dark day for baseball and certainly for this organization," Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said following the Ramirez suspension.
Regardless of that, as the then 37 year old Ramirez struggled to pick up the pieces of his shattered career it became evident that at least at that point in time, Ramirez was done, he was “retiring.”
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Once a winner of 7 consecutive Tour De France’s and a hero of countless children across the globe, quickly went from trusted figure in the world of cycling and a symbol of presence and will to continue pressing on to a disgraceful mess crying in his interview with Oprah and finally admitting to the already widely known truth. He had cheated.
After being diagnosed with stage 2 cancer back in 1996, Armstrong fought fearsomely to survive even tough, according to doctors he had a meager 40% chance at doing just that.
Nevertheless, after undergoing months of chemotherapy and several intense surgeries, Lance was back and poised for greatness.
Armstrong would go on to win 7 consecutive tours from 1999 to 2005 all before well, the reason for Armstrong’s wins backfired on him. For really, the entire duration of Armstrong’s career his mind a sport were constantly lived with allegations of doping. (Cycling is still considered one of the most steroid infused sports)
Nevertheless through thick and thin, Armstrong stuck by one quote: “If you consider my situation: a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence [i.e., Armstrong's 1996 cancer diagnosis and treatment], why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.”
Well, it does seem crazy which is why when he confessed, about 3 years after retiring, to have been doping throughout his entire career he took the world by storm when he answered “candidly” on all of talk show host Oprah Winery’s questions.
Oprah: Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?
Armstrong: Yes.
Oprah: Was one of those banned substances EPO?
Armstrong: Yes.
Oprah: Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?
Armstrong: Yes.
Oprah: Did you ever use any other banned substances like testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone.
Armstrong: Yes.
Oprah: In all seven of your Tour de France victories did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?
Armstrong: Yes
Yes, yes, yes, yes. 4 of the most career ending adverbs ever spoken yet 4 distinctions that proved that like Ramirez and countless other athletes before him: Armstrong was a cheater too.
Now without a doubt, what Armstrong and Ramirez did: infusing yourself with chemicals that beef up your calf muscles and jack up you lung capacity, truly was dishonest.
Nevertheless, while USADA did finally catch Armstrong and ban him from cycling, it was too little too late.
Lance won 7 Tours before all was said and done and now after those titles were voided, it leaves a gaping hole from 1999 to 2005 where no racer “officially” won the Tour De France
PATRICE BERGERON: a man whose saga of “cheating” began literally hours after his team was eliminate from the Stanley Cup Finals. After breaking his ribs midway through Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals in Chicago. As doctors wormed over his pained body, Bergeron was quickly removed from the game and anxiously admitted to the cities closest hospital.
Now at the time, Bruin coach Claude Jullian termed the injury to his star center a “Body injury”: very specific.
Yet even through all the secrecy imposed over the situation, it was obvious that something was wrong with the 27 year old.
Nevertheless, while he was still yet to reveal the extent of his ailments, the Bruins in collation with Bergeron understood the seriousness of the situation yet in the end would elect to play him in that crucial do or die Game Six against the Blackhawks.
Now this is where the accusations of dishonest activity come in.
After revealing a few days after being released after a lengthy stay at Mass General Hospital, that the only reason he was able to play in game six was via a nerve block, fans began to clamor about why the medicine used was not a banned substance.
Well in the rulebook it is not but nevertheless, the questions remain: is Patrice Bergeron a cheater?
Lance Armstrong: cheater, Manny Ramirez: cheater, Bill Belicheck in the Spygate scandal: well cheater. 4 names, 4 of the biggest most well-known incidents of cheating in sports, yet nevertheless, in cases like that of Patrice Bergeron, a gray area of what falls under the distinction of cheating and what is fair game emerges.
Like was said earlier, the official definition of cheating in the Merriam Webster dictionary is: “an action that violates rules dishonestly”. But in the world of pro sports, that word has a slightly different meaning.
In the kind of athletics broadcast on NBC, the most common explanation for what actually constitutes cheating is often simply: “An action that gives an athlete an unfair advantage in a game.”
Judging by that standard, an easy formula for figuring out the honesty of a player will often take the form of a question. “Did Lance Armstrong have an unfair advantage over the other bikers in the Tours he won? Well, in theory, yes, but as has been learned time and time again, nothing in sports is as simple as that.
Since 1998, only 57 of the 150 top 10 finishers in the Tour De France have managed to get off completely clean (ie no positive tests and no allegations of cheating) meaning that really, as it is, the only way to contend for the tour is to cheat, simply because everyone else is.
Regardless, Armstrong did cheat, and even statistically speaking, Bergeron did not.
In that Game Six, Bergeron played for 17 minutes and it is not even like he tore it up with a bunch of crucial goals or even a few shots.
Through those 60 minutes while he did register a few hits and while he certainly was not a non-factor in the game, Bergeron’s stat sheet was basically livid with goose eggs.
Cheating in the world of sports is certainly a topic of great dispute mainly because there really is no answer to what it really is. I mean Armstrong was a cheater; we all know that but was Bergeron? Maybe, maybe not.
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