In a phenomenal piece posted to the Player's Tribune website last week, NHL All-Star MVP John Scott detailed his backroom fight against the very league that is now celebrating him. There may be no more infuriating question, allegedly posed to Scott by an NHL official, you can ask a father than "Do you think this is something your kids would be proud of?," so kudos to Scott for not losing it completely and destroying the All-Star festivities in an incandescent blaze of infuriated, implosive glory. Instead, Scott went to the game head held high and played well, notching two goals and walking away - or rather, being carried away by teammates - with the MVP.
It's a story almost too perfect, the edges too well defined, even for Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't seem concerned. According to Scott's agent Ben Hankinson of Octagon Hockey, via Frank Seravalli of TSN, Scott's already been approached about turning his story into a movie.
"The John Scott ride has been nothing short of a rollercoaster to an incredible ending," Hankinson said, per Seravalli. "We do have a lot of different options for him to pursue, but he's not looking to do everything there is. He's going to have some different routes that he can take as far as books and even a potential movie. He can take it as far as he wants to."
It's an improbable story that highlights, among other things, how short the memory of most NHL fans is. It wasn't all that long ago, as Alex Reimer of Forbes notes, that Scott was considered the dirtiest and most hated player in all of professional hockey.
Now, he's a cult hero.
An online crusade, started by Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo Sports in an effort to make light of the NHL's fan voting and the All-Star game in general, turned Scott into an unexpected All-Star captain. The NHL's response, which allegedly involved the aforementioned question being posed to Scott and a trade from the Arizona Coyotes to the Montreal Canadiens and an immediate and likely permanent assignment to their AHL affiliate in Newfoundland, which in turn spurned the Player's Tribune piece, made Scott a sympathetic figure.
The All-Star weekend, complete with in-depth media coverage and a smiling Scott pausing to take a picture of the gathered reporters, humanized the entire spectacle, putting a face to the name that had suddenly garnered so much internet recognition.
And now, it all may very well be coming to a theater near you.
All that's left now is to figure out who will play the 6-foot-8 Scott. Who knows? If "The Revenant" doesn't do it, maybe this will finally be the role that wins Leo that elusive Oscar.
