Of Limited Interest

This is the third time I've graced (?) a post with this title and it's coz only about two people besides me will actually CARE about the subject matter which, of course, is hockey.  Today it's an extended interview HNIC did last night with four-time Stanley Cup champion, six-time Norris Trophy winner, Olympics world champion, and Red Wings captain Nick Lidstrom.   

The piece is of obvious interest to Wings fans.  Hockey fans in general will also like it, as Nick and the interviewers go beyond the Wings in the discussion.  Non-hockey fans might be interested, too... if only to contrast the attitude and accessibility of one of our sport's biggest stars with that of athletes in the other major sports.  And to learn what it's like to suffer a ruptured testicle in the Stanley Cup playoffs and then come back to win the Cup after missing ONE game.  There's tough, and then there's TOUGH.

h/t to Kukla's Korner... where you can find a similar interview with Mike Modano.

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One of the things you saw in the interview above... assuming you watched it, of course... is Mr. Lidstrom's incredible modesty and self-assurance.  Not boastful assuredness, just a quiet unassuming confidence that has no need of self-promotion.  His deeds speak for themselves.  Which brings to mind this... my final excerpt from Hitch-22: 

Over the course of the last decade, I have become vividly aware of a literally lethal challenge from the sort of people who deal in absolute certainty and believe themselves to be actuated and justified by a supreme authority. To have spent so long learning so relatively little, and then to be menaced in every aspect of my life by people who already know everything, and who have all the information they need…

More depressing still, to see that in the face of this vicious assault so many of the best lack all conviction, hesitating to defend the society that makes their existence possible, while the worst are full to the brim and boiling over with murderous exaltation. It’s quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is no totalitarian solution while also insisting that, yes, we on our side also have unalterable convictions and are willing to fight for them.

After various past allegiances, I have come to believe that Karl Marx was rightest of all when he recommended continual doubt and self-criticism.

To give you the proper context of the quote... Hitch is mainly on about Lefties in politics but none among us are immune from hubris.  Mr. Hitchens is a wise man and it's a pity more people don't take his counsel about doubt and self-criticism, common as it is, seriously.  You can rest assured that anyone who claims to know it all most certainly doesn't.  Insecurity breeds a false sense of superiority; it's always been so.