There's this joke I saw on tumblr that captures my feelings on this pretty well: "A male feminist walked into a bar...because it was set so damn low."

I think to a certain extent I just accept that the average NHL player is not someone I would consider a good person. As a group, my expectations for them are so much lower that my standards have also fallen in this one area, to the extent that I'm pleasantly surprised even when someone does what would be the bare minimum (or less) in other circumstances. So he's lauded basically because he's better than his peers, even if he's really nothing special in any other context.