There’s a little story brewing up in Boston and I have no idea how it’s not a  bigger deal right now.   Nick Roberto, a winger on BU’s hockey team, had been scratched since the beginning of the season pending an investigation into ‘some very serious allegations’, and he ended up suspended for good earlier this week on what are seemingly innocuous charges of betting on sports with bookies.

However, rumor has it there is something much bigger at play here…  Apparently, a handful of players got in real deep with a giant gambling ring and amassed up to $50k in debt.  Investigators found that other players were involved as well, but they aren’t on the team anymore.  Two of the five players that recently departed are #2 overall pick Jack Eichel (yikes!) and Matt O’Connor, the goalie who let in this super sketchy game winning losing goal in the national championship.

You can check out more highlights of Providence upset over #3 Boston here…

This is all shady as fuck, but it’s still fair to be skeptical that the national championship was actually rigged.  It’s really hard to bet on college hockey.  My bookie doesn’t even offer it, and the I think the max limit in Vegas for a game is $5,000.  It’s hard to imagine anybody or any group laying enough money on Providence to cover and profit from a $50k debt and not get noticed by the bookmakers.  Also, the goalie just signed a $925,000 contract and surely wouldn’t have issues covering debt without fixing a game.  Did he hate the program anyways and decide that despite being rich, he still preferred being $50k richer?  Possibly…

No matter what happened, one definite takeaway from this is that there should be no debate on whether or not to allow athletes to gamble on sports.  Some people are complaining that this dude Roberto shouldn’t be suspended because he’s not harming anybody by gambling, but that’s a load of shit.

If anybody fucks up and gets into debt, things like this happen.  That’s how Tim Donaghy got forced to piss all over Steve Nash’s legacy.  It’s happened tons of times in college.  It obviously went down in 1919.  And it’s not okay being a part of sports.

Besides, why do athletes need to gamble in the first place?  When we gamble, we’re just trying to satisfy some competitive urges that athletes get way bigger rushes from when they get to actually play the sports themselves.  There’s no point in them getting involved in this shit.  And don’t tell me about college athletes being poor and needing money.  Everyone in college is poor.

I love Pete Rose to death and he was awesome on Fox this fall, but anybody bitching about him being banned from the game needs to get their heads out of their asses.  Gambling is cool for dumb degenerates like me, but anybody involved in the actual business of sports needs to stay the hell away from it.