This is something that's been building throughout this series, but Dirk Hoag's front-page post about Ruutu's suspension is pretty much the breaking point for me:

 

The NHL has handed down a one game suspension to Anaheim Thugs forward Jarkko Ruutu, for his late hit on Martin Erat, which knocked Erat out of the game and will keep him out of tomorrow's Game 5 with an upper body injury, as reported by Bryan Mullen of The Tennessean.

 

Between front-paging fanposts with a childish Corey Perry compilation and posting a diving picture in yesterday's game thread, I've completely lost all respect for them as an SB Nation blog.

 

I'm really happy to be a contributor at Anaheim Calling. I love our site and the way we talk hockey here. From what I've seen at other SB Nation blogs, we also seem to be more the rule, rather than the exception. The various hockey blogs are pretty reasonable, self-critical places that dash in the occasional dose of humor. Or they're more tongue-in-cheek, like BoC.

But what really irks me about On The Forecheck is the amount of red meat they rely on. If you're not familiar with the term, it's an often-used political term that refers to issues or positions that exist primarily to fire-up the base. As a modern example, the birther issue could be considered red meat.

It strikes me as trite, and perhaps even lackadaisical, to run a team blog in this way. After all, if it's a team blog, why do you have to go out of your way to fire-up your base? It pisses me off when the OC Register does it. Shouldn't your readership be inherently interested and passionate about your team in the first place? Why on earth do you have to result to cheap thrills like calling us the "Anaheim thugs" on your front page? I understand it's one thing if it's coming from your community. But when it comes from your managing editor, it's another thing completely.

This is nothing more than a rant from me. I'm just, disappointed, I guess. I feel like we do such a great job here of providing meaningful, critical commentary that isn't what you'd expect to find on a team's message board. It just doesn't feel like the kind of thing we should be seeing from the SB Nation Nashville rep. And I'm sort of ashamed for them.