Ray Emery has lost his hold on the No.1 spot because of injury. Apparently the Senators don't subscribe to the unwritten rule that exists in most circles. (Source: Getty Images)

Ah,the topic of unwritten rules in sports. Debate about whether or not an act is in direct violation of one of the items on a fictitious list of unwritten rules that helps govern and uphold honour in the world of sports is always guaranteed to elicit the type of reaction that sports talk radio and dailies thrive on.  Debate can range from whether or not its right to bunt to break up a no-hitter, running up the score and whether a player can lose his/her job due to injury. The current Ottawa Senators goaltending situation has brought the latter unwritten rule directly into the spotlight. 

The Senators’ dominating start and their continued perch as Eastern Conference heavyweights has been rendered to a secondary headline in the first half of the season because of their lingering goaltender battle between Ray Emery and Martin Gerber. It’s gotten to the point where the discussion of Ottawa’s unresolved goalie issue is as common as hearing Chris Neil say “you know”.

If there was a drinking game revolving around taking a shot every time Chris Neil utters “you know” during an interview there would be a lot of people in need of charcoal and getting their stomachs pumped. During a recent between the periods interview I kept a tally, just for fun to see how many times he would say “you know” and comically and incredibly he said it 37 times over the course of three minutes. If someone’s shopping for Chris Neil in the new year, you know a thesaurus might be a good idea, you know.

Through the midway point of the season, Martin Gerber has seemingly emerged as the number one goaltender judging by the sheer volume of games new head coach John Paddock has entrusted to the goalie the Sens initially imagined as their No. 1 netminder when they signed him to a bloated three-year contract last off-season. Through 48 games Gerber has made 34 appearances to just 17 for Emery. Paddock’s reliance on Gerber has shifted Emery to the bench for the better part of the first half of the season.

It’s an interesting development when you consider the events of last season. Martin Gerber quite frankly was a major bust in his first season with Ottawa. Thankfully for the Senators Ray Emery not only stepped up but prospered in leading the team to their first ever Stanley Cup finals appearance.

So how did we get to this position where we’re at now? How does a goalie who helped lead his team to a Stanley Cup final just a few short months ago lose his hold on the No.1 spot to a goalie who has yet to even win a single playoff series? Much of the explanation goes back to the injury that Emery sustained last season.

During the first half of last season Emery injured his wrist in practice, from a teammate’s errant shot and had to essentially suck it up and play the rest of the season through the pain. In the offseason Emery underwent major surgery on the wrist and his recovery time was slated at three months bringing him right up to the start of this season. Emery subsequently missed training camp this year and was only able to appear in one exhibition game. Cue the start of this season and because of Emery’s continued recovery from wrist surgery, the Senators began the 2007-08 campaign with Gerber in nets and unlike last season he actually played well in Emery’s absence.

This goalie controversy came to a head when Emery became healthy enough to play shortly into the season yet because of Gerber’s strong early play coach Paddock opted to play the hot hand and relegate the team’s former No. 1 to the bench. This brought the debate about the unwritten rule of not losing your job to injury, which is what has clearly happened to Emery.

There was a situation earlier this season in the NFL where the New York Giants lost the services of RB Brandon Jacobs early in the season only to see back-up RB Derrick Ward flourish in his absence. When Jacobs became healthy, Ward once again assumed the position of back-up. Ward didn’t dispute the decision in anyway and in fact brought up the unwritten that exists in sports. “It's tough because I'm a competitor, and I want to have the ball and help my teammates win but I have to look at my reality and it's a long season.  B.J. (Brandon Jacobs) was the starter and it's an unwritten rule that you can't lose your job to an injury.  I knew when B.J. came back he was going to get the ball and deservedly so.”

Bringing the conversation back to hockey in last year’s playoffs the eventual Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks quickly extinguished a potential goaltending controversy that might have distracted them had the issue festered. No. 1 netminder J.S. Giguere took a personal leave of absence on the eve of last year’s playoffs to be with his wife and his ailing newborn son. Back-up Ilya Bryzgalov stepped in for Giguere and promptly led to the team to a 3-0 first round lead against the Minnesota Wild before conceding the netminding duties back to Giguere when his personal family matters became resolved enough for him to play. The Ducks of course went on to win the Stanley Cup and there wasn’t a peep made about the goaltending situation the entire way.

I think for the most part the unwritten rule of not being able to lose your job to injury is a valid way of thinking provided that the player who got injured was playing at a high level of play prior to his injury. So for instance when J.P. Losman lost his starting QB gig to Trent Edwards due to injury I didn’t have a problem with it because Losman wasn’t exactly playing well before getting hurt and Edwards actually helped the Buffalo Bills win some games. If you look at the Emery situation, prior to getting hurt he was backstopping the team to the Stanely Cup finals – a place that they previously hadn’t been able to make it to. Admittedly Emery didn’t play his best hockey in that final series against the Ducks but then again most of the other Senators’ weren’t so great themselves. Does anyone remember that Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley’s offensive contributions were invisible in the Finals or that when Chris Phillips wasn’t busy scoring a goal on his own net that he and Anton Volchenkov, the team’s shutdown pair on defence were a combined -6 in the series. 

There have been a lot of outspoken critics of Ray Emery who cite a litany of perceived distractions ranging from traffic incidents, fights in practice, his tattoos, his mask choice, the colour of his hair, his work ethic in practice and so on. There certainly seems to be a double standard when it comes to public opinion and even the Sens organization’s attitude towards certain things that they’ll reprimand Emery for but yet let other teammates slip by without a mention when they commit the same perceived “offensive” act.

During Emery’s rookie season one of the local Ottawa newspapers photographed Ray getting some new ink to add to his tattoo collection. The pictures made the cover of the paper and left the Sens disappointed with the image that Emery was bringing to the family oriented and clean cut organization. Yet one year later when the Sens signed Joe Corvo as a free agent there he was on the cover of another local daily shirtless and showing off all of his tattoos without a mention from the team.

There was another incident where Emery showed up to practice one day sporting a freshly dyed platinum blonde dome. The next day when he showed up the rink his hair was dyed back to its original black colour. When asked by the media why the sudden change, he simply stated “Well, I liked it.” Obviously we know who didn’t and was the impetus for the change back. That we be fine enough if not for the fact that the organization had absolutely zero problem allowing Bryan Smolinski to field the exact same platinum blonde dye job. Isn’t that the very definition of double standard?

I’ll admit that Ray’s lack of enthusiasm about practice isn’t the healthiest of attitudes to have especially when you’re trying to convince the coaches to put their full faith in you and entrust you with more playing time.  It appears to me that Emery’s reluctance to stay longer in practice and his questioned work ethic by not only coaches but from Sens’ captain Daniel Alfredsson is frustration boiling over the lack of playing time he’s been given this season especially since his improved level of play is directly correlated with getting as much playing time as possible, given that he was injured throughout training camp and much of the pre-season.

One has to wonder that had the Senators just not followed the unwritten rule of a player not being able to lose his spot due to injury then all this controversy about the goaltending position would have been quelled. One also has to think that had the situation been handled differently Ray Emery would have just been able to focus on picking up his play from last season rather than being left confused and frustrated with the apparent lack of loyalty from the organization for the sacrifice he made last year by holding off having surgery and playing the remainder of the 06-07 campaign through pain for the betterment of the team.