Pierre McGuire Said That Johnny Oduya Brought "Street Cred" To The Dallas Stars

Pierre just said Johnny Oduya brought “street cred” to the Dallas Stars.

Hockey Twitter is gonna be PISSED.

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 4, 2016

Pierre said Johnny Oduya gave Dallas "street cred" I bet he has no idea why that's a poor choice of words #ohno #stars #nhl

— Matthew Maratea (@mmaratea22) May 4, 2016

@SportsSturm "Johnny Oduya brought instant street cred to the Dallas Stars"

Woo.

— Carson Currens (@gccur) May 4, 2016

In all fairness, Johnny Oduya IS black. The fact that he is Swedish doesn't change that skin color of his. Pierre McGuire was just trying to pay him a compliment. If he was a white guy I am sure he would have said he brought experience, veteran leadership, and championship mettle, but for black guys we just use ebonics to shorten that to "street cred". It's the same way in which white guys have personality, fashion sense, and confidence while black guys just have "swag". No reason to be up in arms. Pierre McGuire was just trying to make some relatively mundane praise sound cooler for the darker demographic. As one of the few black players in the National Hockey League I think Johnny Oduya at least deserves some racially relevant recognition. What if Tony X. DVRed the game to watch again later? Wouldn't want to confuse him with a bunch of big words while talking about the black player during the broadcast. It may have sounded weird coming from the mouth of a quirky analyst that can count the amount of black people that have entered his house on one single hand, but I feel pretty comfortable saying he was only of good intentions..

Seriously though, I'm not offended by Pierre McGuire saying that Johnny Oduya brings "street cred". I don't think it's racist, per se. It was just....awkward, which actually fits Pierre McGuire to a 'T'. He could probably tell me where Johnny Oduya played his PeeWee hockey, but he can't commend the black dude's performance without delving into his "big" bag of African American sayings. Pierre McGuire is your book smart friend that could recite every stage of photosynthesis from 6th grade science, but can't go an entire social interaction without creating an uncomfortable silence. I am not even sure he thinks he slipped up, because there's a 50% chance that he overheard his son's rap music and has absolutely no idea what "street cred" even means. Of course that means that there is a 50% chance that he does and just picked a poor time to use it, but that's just Pierre being Pierre.