Re: Vancouver's Hockey "Media" (or "Idiots" as Torts calls them)

Mr.Miyagi · Post by **Mr.Miyagi** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:29 am

Mondi - Excellent analysis and great post.

I absolutley agree with you 100%. Coming off of the most successful season in franchise history (individual and team success) and the stories coming out of the west were about how the Sedins are too soft and Luongo is no good when the going gets tough. Also, when we lost Hamhuis our defence was no good anymore. Kesler and Burrows dissapeared. Blah, blah, blah ...
It was a summer of dissecting and analysing the team's failure to the point where we hit the panic but every time there is a couple losses in a row.

The average hockey fan knows better, but what about the fence-sitting hockey fan that doesn't? Does this kind of knee-jerk media make him/her think otherwise? Does the atmosphere around the media make them look elsewhere for a team to follow and cheer forr? For anyone arrogant enough to think this team doesn't need new fans or non-hockey fans to become fans of this club you should give your head a shake. In order to grow the game, we need new fans constantly. I don't want to hear it.

Back to the media ... I think the team (players, coaches, management) have it figured out. They can tune out the hype and controversy machine. They can differentiate between true statements or whim statements. The fans on the other hand, may not be able to.

BCReefer · Post by **BCReefer** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:32 am

You can say the samething about all media, we wanted 24/7 news and sports and now we have it. They need to fill air time with something so if there is nothing to talk about then make something up or talk about it so people start thinking there is an issue.

To be honest, I am starting to turn off 1040 more and more because they talk about the same crap day after day and baseball is one sport I don't give a damn about so once they talk about that I prefer to listen to 60 minutes of traffic. Having the paper guys on constantly pimping out their blogs or tweets ..... yawn ..... who cares what they think, can you count how many time they mention the Province during the morning and afternoon slots?

Maybe I still have the SC hangover but so far this year I just can't get up for the games, I have flipped channels to Discovery and watch a documentry and forget to turn back and miss an entire period. Tonight's game against Calgary has more interest but Columbus/PHO or Nashville, boring.

ukcanuck · Post by **ukcanuck** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:05 am

And yet if you are a media personality and say one thing positive for the Canucks, you are quickly accused of being in the teams pockets. Dan Russell, fat pig that he is spent a good portion of his radio show the other week to barbeque whatshisnoodle (botchford) for defending the Canucks after the dirtiest divingest most arrogant team in hockey tag that Recchi pinned them with.
As long as guys like ratfuck russell has a job in media, its always going to be the lowest common denominator

Nice rant by the way Mondi

Chef Boi RD · Post by **Chef Boi RD** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:27 am

Great post Mondi, nice to know that I am not the only one out there sharing those same feelings regarding our local sports media.

You forgot to add Paul Chapman to the group, he is awful. Talk about stirring the pot on a so-called "goalie controversy" this guy is the worse, you can tell that Ferraro wants to tear this guy a new one. Ferraro is the only guy I can handle on 1040, after that I stop tuning in cause I find myself completely put off by these clowns.

It's a real wonder how GM's put up with these guys, Mike Gillis can barely contain his excitement from being interviewed by them. You can just tell in the tone of his voice that he has no respect for these jack asses, and rightly so. Poor Brian Burke and his fighting irish ways tried to go toe to toe with them but you can't beat the mighty pen and the media's 'last word in' positioning. David Pratts mocking of Burke's wife on public radio was nothing short of disgusting. David Pratt and Don Taylor's literal cock sucking of Ron Maclean's little dick when they got him on to take him to task for Macleans witch-hunting of Alex Burrows was pathetic. I've lost complete respect for Taylor, thank god for him he has Gary Valk or otherwise I wouldn't tune into his post game shows.

I find the ex-hockey players the most interesting cause well, they actually played the game and really know what goes on behind the scenes instead of the ramped up speculation and sensationalizing done by our local sports media figures.

But seriously, who are these guys and why do we listen? 99% of them never played the game of hockey but they talk with such wisdom, case in point - the great sage Tony Gallagher, just who the fuck is this guy? His condescending criticisms are like so above those he criticizes it's like they are doing him such a dis-service for bringing such comical anguish to his daily routine. I mean god, Tony has all the answers, it frustrates him greatly that nobody is tapping into his wisdoms on hockey.

dangler · Post by **dangler** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 12:23 pm

got to agree with you royaldude other than Ferraro,Valk & Garret I don't put too much stock into whats being said or printed in the media.I find it astonishing how many of my fellow citizens drink that shit up though.

I used to absolutely hate Gallagher when he was only a writer,but actually find him amusing to listen to with his geeky delivery, and I even heard him complaining about the modern media the other day.
I never understood why Taylor took that radio gig $$?,it definately isn't his strong suit and has hurt his career.

If you have time to listen to Dan Russel you definately need some new hobbies.

Benjo · Post by **Benjo** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Pass It to Bulis' nerdy references and this here hockey talk message board is all I need. I have don't have time to listen to/read the rants/writings of a bunch of guys who are paid to cover the team but can only find headlines to talk about from front page of the CDC forum . These are guys that are blessed with media credentials that can ask hard hitting important questions yet they only choose to manufacture stories to create drama.
I know I'm not a strong contributor on this board but I appreciate the all of the people on this board that have unique opinions and actually research them to back them up with proof and debate. S_C, Topper, Potatoe, HW and many more continue to make this a one stop shop for all things Canuck related.

I also find if funny that the paid media has a strong dislike for bloggers, obviously see them as a threat. Except for Scott Oake who frequently uses Pass it to Bulis questions on After Hours.

nucksin7 · Post by **nucksin7** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:58 pm

Great post Mondi. I commend you for saying what i think most of us are feeling.

The sports media in this town is absurd when it comes to the Canucks. They dont speak for the hockey club, they dont speak for the fans, they speak for themselves. Anytime anybody voices any displeasure with their coverage, they hide behind the excuse that these are "professional athletes", as if that makes their weak arguments & criticisms somehow valid.

I personally stopped listening to the TEAM 1040 last year during round 1 against Chicago, after they threw the team & Luongo under the bus after Game 5. It was post-game, Lu had just got lit up , the series was 3-2 Van heading back to Chicago, and I was embarassed listening to Blake Price & the idiots rip them up on air. I say embarassed because I knew, that somewhere, either in Vancouver or over the internet, Chicago fans were tuning in and laughing while our city devoured our team like the sky was falling. It makes the whole city, shit the whole of BC look bad everytime the Province's front page is another amateur column about "concern" "panic" or "worry". If only Tony Gallagher was held to the same lofty standards he has for the players everytime he writes an article, the man would of been on employment insurance 20 years ago.

Speaking purely as a fan, with no corporate interests or sponsorhsips, only the money I pay out of my pocket for tickets & beer, I enjoyed last season. From the start to, well almost finish, I enjoyed the whole ride. It was an excellent season. I look back on that club with great fondness. Everything about last season, except the bitter end, was everything you could want as a sports fan, of any team, in any sport. So why all the hate in the media? They surely dont speak for me, or my friends, or my family. All the people I know love this club.

I wish/hope that the players on the team know how much we as fans appreciate their accomplishments, no matter what all these self-righteous pencil pushing media stooges say about them.

Thanks for the thread Mondi, & giving me a chance to vent as well!

-Believe

ESQ · Post by **ESQ** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:25 pm

I agree with basically all of the sentiments in this thread. However...

Mondi wrote: SNP basically existing solely to cover the Canucks

My feeling, and what the general consensus in this thread so far seems to be, is that SNP's coverage isn't actually all that bad. I think Shorthouse is great and a worthy successor to Hughson and Robson, and that Garrett is smart enough to embrace the "Homer" label, but still provide critical colour commentary. Taylor is still one of the best highlights guys in the business, and when that's all that he's asked to do he is still great IMO.

These other melvins think that they need to convince everybody they're not homers, even though they write for the Province or have a show on the Team and clearly only watch Canucks hockey games, so they over-compensate. I would put Botchford, Gallagher, Chapman, Russell, Price, Patterson in this category. Pratt was in this category, and thank god he's gone. With Macintyre and Cole you at least can tell they still root for the Canucks, and they've seen enough to be able to ride out a 3 game losing streak.

Sekeres is my absolute least favourite (ever since he wrote that retarded "The Canucks and the Sedins are $30 million apart" article). However, he is a recent transplant to the city, I believe he is a Toronto-area native. I don't think he's over-compensating for his fandom, I think he's just a stupid twat.

I would agree with RD on the Cup hangover - my Canucks Media consumption has plummeted this year due to frustration from the SCF. No more Team, no more Province.

The hockey writers I do respect are Bob Mckenzie, Lebrun, Puck-daddy. I really, really miss Gary Mason's columns, I think he was the best sports columnist this city has had in recent memory. I also miss the original Canucks blogger for Eklund's site - I thought he was an excellent writer but after he left the site for THN I never saw his articles again. Really too bad.

nucksin7 · Post by **nucksin7** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:42 am

ESQ wrote:I agree with basically all of the sentiments in this thread. However...
Mondi wrote: SNP basically existing solely to cover the Canucks
My feeling, and what the general consensus in this thread so far seems to be, is that SNP's coverage isn't actually all that bad. I think Shorthouse is great and a worthy successor to Hughson and Robson, and that Garrett is smart enough to embrace the "Homer" label, but still provide critical colour commentary. Taylor is still one of the best highlights guys in the business, and when that's all that he's asked to do he is still great IMO.

These other melvins think that they need to convince everybody they're not homers, even though they write for the Province or have a show on the Team and clearly only watch Canucks hockey games, so they over-compensate. I would put Botchford, Gallagher, Chapman, Russell, Price, Patterson in this category. Pratt was in this category, and thank god he's gone. With Macintyre and Cole you at least can tell they still root for the Canucks, and they've seen enough to be able to ride out a 3 game losing streak.

So who is it that hires these guys?

I've heard, but I have no idea, that Craig MacEwen is a boss for SNP. If so he obviously gets it.

Is Barry Mcdonald the boss on the TEAM? If so, somebody's gotta shake him up.

The Province is really just a lost cause. Pure Entertainment.

wienerdog · Post by **wienerdog** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:46 am

In Vancouver, the media across the entire bandwidth, not just sports, had become dreadfully poor. Absolute garbage. In fact, that's true of the national media as well: even the once globally-respected G&M has become frequently unreadable.

As a result, I no longer give a fuck about the media. And I refuse to get worked up about it anymore either.

As some others have pointed out, that's why alternative and home-grown outlets - like this great site here - exist. They are resources where an enlightened few can apply their own communal filter to the dreck that's being pumped out there. The Internet is the last remaining safe-haven: you can pretty much find an analogous site to this one for almost any subject you can imagine.

Truth be told, it's the fault of the population at large. Look at the fucking diarrhea that's put on TV these days: when you have a street-pizza program like Survivor being accepted by the LCD as "reality", it's no wonder the state of the media is wallowing in the cesspool. Nobody demands better and holds any of these people accountable. They just keep slurping it up. It's revolting.

FFS™, these days you can be responsible for crashing an entire global economy without paying any consequences at all.

dbr · Post by **dbr** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:24 am

BCReefer wrote:You can say the samething about all media, we wanted 24/7 news and sports and now we have it. They need to fill air time with something so if there is nothing to talk about then make something up or talk about it so people start thinking there is an issue.

God forbid they go out and find something to talk about rather than resorting immediately to muckraking if someone hasn't dropped a real story right in their fucking laps.

I don't listen to 1040 at all so I can't really speak to what goes on there, but how much coverage of Canucks prospects occurs in the Sun or Province? How much about the business side of the Canucks organization? Hell I'd take a human interest story about Corey Schneider's family dog over stuff these guys fabricate when they would be otherwise required to get off their ass and do some reporting.

wienerdog wrote:In Vancouver, the media across the entire bandwidth, not just sports, had become dreadfully poor. Absolute garbage. In fact, that's true of the national media as well: even the once globally-respected G&M has become frequently unreadable.

As a result, I no longer give a fuck about the media. And I refuse to get worked up about it anymore either.

Great post, I completely agree. Journalism is in a sorry state these days for the most part, the silver lining is that there are lots of interesting alternatives out there and hopefully teams and players continue to cut the blowhards in the press out of the equation where possible using media like twitter.

On that note, I'm not a big Burkie fan but I had a chuckle at this quip:

@LeafsBB20: I love the quote about the liars in sports. Many gainfully employed in the media.

wienerdog · Post by **wienerdog** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:33 pm

Mondi wrote:Agreement on the general state of the media. And, I applaud those who reject the dreck (1040 in particular), but my question is whether these outlets undermine the psychology of the team.

Does the media "undermine the psychology" of the public at large? IMO, it couldn't be more detrimental, and only the blind fools, small childen and blissfully ignorant idiots wouldn't understand that.

So, if it does in fact affect the team, that's a failed responsibility of the management, and - more directly - of the player themself.

The media is fucked, and it's not even up for debate, as far as I'm concerned. But it's also not the media's job to fluff the team either, Mondi, even were they doing a decent job. That is as ludicrious as any other slanted approach that the "journalists" should be avoiding.

It is, however, the players' responsibilty to allow media access (to sell the product) while ignoring the shit they are slinging.

It's like asking if a given actor's swollen head is the responsibilty of the celeb machine that fuels their carrer. Is the media to blame for Lindsay Lohan, or Britney Spears, or Mel Gibson, or Charlie Sheen? If you put your head in the guillotine, it may get cut off.

People are fucking adults with brain power that they should start using one of these days. Responsibility is the purview of the individual.

Fucking period.

dbr · Post by **dbr** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 3:58 pm

I don't think weinerdog is talking about "the way it should be" though, I think he is talking about the way it is and he is spot on IMO.

Unless the Canucks organization wants to go to war with the media in this town or unless the fans organize and boycott, they are not going to change; they sell enough papers/ad time/whatever to get by on their routine right now so changing is likely not in the cards.

Instead it is on the people consuming said media to think for themselves and to believe (or disbelieve) what they choose.

It simply can't be any other way.

BCReefer · Post by **BCReefer** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:10 pm

Worked late and on the way home tonight I heard the replay of the afternoon shits with Jim Robinson (sp). Like many we grew up with the guy and what I found out today was that

a) the stars came from Imperial oil who used to sponsor hockey and they had 3 stars in the emblem.
b) at one time MANY years back they used to get the ticker tape about a baseball game and then Jim would do play by play with sound affects and listeners thought it was live.

link http://hockey-blog-in-canada.blogspot.c ... night.html to the write up as I cannot find the actual picture to post.

Too bad they didn't spend a lot of time with him.

Sticky · Post by **Sticky** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:08 pm

Mondi wrote:I'm curious what posters around here think about the power of suggestion. Or the psychological impact redundant and insidious questions can have on human beings.

You could insert repetitive in there as well... And for the record, I think that common logic would tell us that the impact level is proportional to the "listening" level.

If the team could truly and fully tune out the BS... Then there should be no effect. In reality, as Ferraro mentioned the other morning, the players DO pay some attention to what is written and talked about. I would think that there is some level of impact on the teams performance.

I found myself listening to 1040, just in time to hear Jeff "constantly auditioning for the Music Express DJ job at the PNE" Patterson gloat about the media always getting the last word, and that Burke should have known it was a battle he couldn't win. Talk about a chickenshit attitude... Hiding behind a microphone. They know that they can say (insinuate) whatever they want, and apparently, don't feel much pressure of accountability.

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