This is a hockey post, so to bring non hockey people up to speed here is a little background. In 2009 the Boston Bruins traded goal scored Phil Kessel to the Toronto maple leafs for 3 high draft picks (2 first rounds and a second round). The Toronto Maple leafs tanked big time in those years and the draft picks ended up yielding some pretty good hockey players. If you knew who you would have got, perhaps you don't make that deal, but all in all Kessel has played very well for the Toronto Maple Leafs essentially being a point per game player during his tenure.
Lets remember Toronto traded away the right to draft Scott Niedermayer for Tom Kurvers, traded Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft... actually you could write a book on players Toronto traded for players that amounted to nothing... did i mention that Kessel finished 8th in the league in scoring this year... but all we hear about is the trade and his apparent one dimensional play.
OK
So the Leafs are about to meet the Bruins in the first round of the Stanley cup playoffs so the media needs to dwell on this story because they need to "sell the game"... because it is "the game with in the game".
Kessel who is a shy and educated man is charged with being aloof with the local press, and apparently slipped out the back door after practice the other day rather than answering the same questions he has been asked for the past 4 years. Certain curmudgeon reporters are calling for heads to roll over this insult insisting that it is the players duty to meet the press to "sell the game". Yes sell the game don't play it... weren't these the same reporters warning of the danger of the lockout to future revenue when they had no hockey to write about but still filed stories on and eternal stagnent stalemate of a labour dispute?
Why don't they just file a story on what they think Phil Kessel might say when he is asked "did it bother you to be out of the playoffs for 4 years", which happened to be a question he faced today. Holy shit, what do you think? You have a highly competitive athelete not playing hockey when it matters most and you want to ask them if it mattered. Like asking Claude Noel (coach of the Winnipeg Jets) after losing a game that put them out of the playoffs, how did it feel losing that game?
Are we fucking serious... i'd say it feel like his heart was ripped out by gremlins and stomped on by an elephant. Is that selling the game? I guess it is because it it creates a clip of somebody going off the rails and everybody likes to see a good freak out, right.
I mean i don't buy the game, I watch it for free, it's true. I am a rabid fan of my teams but i would never part with the kind of money they want for a ticket or a sweater for that matter... some can justify it, i cannot, i have 3 kids.
When i was a kid my dad and i would go see 5 games a year at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, i believe it cost my dad 22 bucks for the two of us, plus an ice cream bar each. When i was in high school i scalped tickets to pay my way to see a few playoff games. I believe it was 22 bucks a game, and with the money i earned as a dishwasher i bought 5 tickets per game and scalped them for like 60 each and paid my way into the barn... i did take some heat on night for being on another scalpers turf, but i survived.
Now to think that somebody would spend $200 plus on a single ticket is just insane to me, so the idea of "selling the game" carries no weight in my world... i'm priced out. The thing is i don't need to be sold... i don't need a sweater or a ticket to live and die by the game... i find a way.
As my daughter said a few weeks ago to my wife as she settled into bed.... "ahh me and daddy basking in the glow of a leafs victory"... and then later in the week as we watched our donated feed (thanks JK)... "how's the game going kaiya" i said... "well so far there have been 3 holy mackinaw's one for a goal, one for a save, and one for a big hit".
You see it's the game we love, we also love Joe Bowen's excitement... actually we watched the Rangers Carolina game in the hopes that Winnipeg would get in the Playoffs and my daughter, an astute observer of passion noticed how boring the announcers were.
Boring, that's right, just like the press, so focused on selling something to prove their jobs, that the fact is if you love hockey no sales pitch is needed. I was on my driveway shooting pucks into the top corner as a kid before leaf playoff games... i use to think if i could put 12 shots in a row off the post and in than it would affect the hockey gods to tilt the game in the Leafs favor... i would be out there for a while, but i wouldn't come in until it was done, and that's the hockey spirit.
I don't give a rat's ass what some player has to say about some insane question structured to buy into some "sell the game byline". As they say in sports "that's why they play the game"... I don't care what Phil Kessel has to say to some obvious question crafted to barb him... i care if the Leafs win, as i assume he does, and if they do then the media will have a fucking job to do... make it entertaining and park your ego media... less analysis, and more colourful word smithing on the action of the game.
The media's typical "well you have to answer these inane questions" routine feeds the problem, much like telling taxpayers they have to bail out the banks that swindled their money. Right is right and wrong is wrong, don't be the problem, be the solution.
Lets remember Toronto traded away the right to draft Scott Niedermayer for Tom Kurvers, traded Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft... actually you could write a book on players Toronto traded for players that amounted to nothing... did i mention that Kessel finished 8th in the league in scoring this year... but all we hear about is the trade and his apparent one dimensional play.
OK
So the Leafs are about to meet the Bruins in the first round of the Stanley cup playoffs so the media needs to dwell on this story because they need to "sell the game"... because it is "the game with in the game".
Kessel who is a shy and educated man is charged with being aloof with the local press, and apparently slipped out the back door after practice the other day rather than answering the same questions he has been asked for the past 4 years. Certain curmudgeon reporters are calling for heads to roll over this insult insisting that it is the players duty to meet the press to "sell the game". Yes sell the game don't play it... weren't these the same reporters warning of the danger of the lockout to future revenue when they had no hockey to write about but still filed stories on and eternal stagnent stalemate of a labour dispute?
Why don't they just file a story on what they think Phil Kessel might say when he is asked "did it bother you to be out of the playoffs for 4 years", which happened to be a question he faced today. Holy shit, what do you think? You have a highly competitive athelete not playing hockey when it matters most and you want to ask them if it mattered. Like asking Claude Noel (coach of the Winnipeg Jets) after losing a game that put them out of the playoffs, how did it feel losing that game?
Are we fucking serious... i'd say it feel like his heart was ripped out by gremlins and stomped on by an elephant. Is that selling the game? I guess it is because it it creates a clip of somebody going off the rails and everybody likes to see a good freak out, right.
I mean i don't buy the game, I watch it for free, it's true. I am a rabid fan of my teams but i would never part with the kind of money they want for a ticket or a sweater for that matter... some can justify it, i cannot, i have 3 kids.
When i was a kid my dad and i would go see 5 games a year at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, i believe it cost my dad 22 bucks for the two of us, plus an ice cream bar each. When i was in high school i scalped tickets to pay my way to see a few playoff games. I believe it was 22 bucks a game, and with the money i earned as a dishwasher i bought 5 tickets per game and scalped them for like 60 each and paid my way into the barn... i did take some heat on night for being on another scalpers turf, but i survived.
Now to think that somebody would spend $200 plus on a single ticket is just insane to me, so the idea of "selling the game" carries no weight in my world... i'm priced out. The thing is i don't need to be sold... i don't need a sweater or a ticket to live and die by the game... i find a way.
As my daughter said a few weeks ago to my wife as she settled into bed.... "ahh me and daddy basking in the glow of a leafs victory"... and then later in the week as we watched our donated feed (thanks JK)... "how's the game going kaiya" i said... "well so far there have been 3 holy mackinaw's one for a goal, one for a save, and one for a big hit".
You see it's the game we love, we also love Joe Bowen's excitement... actually we watched the Rangers Carolina game in the hopes that Winnipeg would get in the Playoffs and my daughter, an astute observer of passion noticed how boring the announcers were.
Boring, that's right, just like the press, so focused on selling something to prove their jobs, that the fact is if you love hockey no sales pitch is needed. I was on my driveway shooting pucks into the top corner as a kid before leaf playoff games... i use to think if i could put 12 shots in a row off the post and in than it would affect the hockey gods to tilt the game in the Leafs favor... i would be out there for a while, but i wouldn't come in until it was done, and that's the hockey spirit.
I don't give a rat's ass what some player has to say about some insane question structured to buy into some "sell the game byline". As they say in sports "that's why they play the game"... I don't care what Phil Kessel has to say to some obvious question crafted to barb him... i care if the Leafs win, as i assume he does, and if they do then the media will have a fucking job to do... make it entertaining and park your ego media... less analysis, and more colourful word smithing on the action of the game.
The media's typical "well you have to answer these inane questions" routine feeds the problem, much like telling taxpayers they have to bail out the banks that swindled their money. Right is right and wrong is wrong, don't be the problem, be the solution.
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