Can’t Get Enough - Hockey News Unhappy With Canes
I was reading an interesting article in the Hockey News at lunchtime today. It seems that senior sportswriter Ken Campbell is upset that he and other writers were cut-off in the dreassingroom last night while trying to ask questions of All-Star MVP Eric Staal. According to Campbell, the Hurricanes “Media Relations guy” told everyone that Eric had answered enough questions, and cut off further interviews at that point. I’ll quote part of the article here since the link to it is above.
SORRY, NO MORE FOR ERIC
In the NHL’s defense, the league has worked very hard to connect with its fans and expose its young stars in an effort to get hockey into the consciousness of the U.S. fan base.
But old habits do die hard. Here we were at the All-Star Game and Eric Staal was named the most valuable player. (Rick Nash was jobbed out of the award for the second straight year, but I digress.) In the middle of the dressing room, the Carolina Hurricanes media relation’s guy cut off questions and denied several other major news outlets the opportunity to speak with Staal, citing he had already answered enough questions.
My word. Last time I checked, the Hurricanes weren’t exactly conjuring up images of the New York Yankees. After winning the Stanley Cup two years ago, the Hurricanes have struggled to remain competitive and are not exactly a household name. You’d think they’d welcome the chance to showcase one of their young players whenever possible.
Yeah, you’d think. Of course, this is the same organization that recently derailed the opportunity of having itself on the cover of The Hockey News. Earlier this month, we hatched the idea of doing a cover story on Hurricanes winger Ray Whitney with the premise that he is the funniest man in hockey. It was the kind of lighthearted, interesting off-ice story we thought would offer an interesting change of pace.
When we approached the Hurricanes with the request, we received the following response: “Ray Whitney does not want to talk about his sense of humor. He will be happy to talk about hockey, but he does not want to discuss his sense of humor.â€
And then people in the league wonder why the NHL can’t beat strongman competitions from the 1970s in television ratings.
First of all, there are two sides to every story. Maybe Staal had a plane to catch and was short on time? Maybe the media relations guy was pressed for time for some reason? Maybe Staal gave him a time limit beforehand and the limit had been reached?
As far as the Ray Whitney story goes, maybe the Canes didn’t think that it was appropriate to run a story about “The Wizard” clowning around while the team was in the middle of a losing streak? Perhaps Ray didn’t want to do the story himself for some other reason? It does seem odd that Ray wouldn’t want to discuss his sense of humor. Whitney almost goes out of his way to show humor in everything that is put out by the Hurricanes Canesvision and Fox Sports staff.
Campbell does have a valid point though about the NHL needing to do what’s necessary to grow the game and in my humble opinion, the Hurricanes media people do seem a bit lacking or inflexible regarding some things. What good does it do the franchise if their players are the best kept secrets in the sports world, let alone Raleigh?
Bad Company
—-UPDATE—- Hurricanes Director of Media Relations Mike Sundheim responded to Campbell’s article here and the Hockey News has since changed their story a bit. Maybe we will be seeing an article about Ray Whitney after all?
About the Author: Bubba is a hockey fan/citizen journalist who has always wanted to be a sportswriter and is pursuing his dream. He also writes a Hurricanes blog for 
chris juengel | Jan 28, 2008 | Reply
yea i agree
last night before the announcement of the mvp
the commentators mention that rick nash or nabokov should have the mvp.
and i looked at my wife and said
“figures, everyone throws us under the bus or forgets us”
even though staal had two tying goals
and he set up the game winner
im not blaming commentators (mostly)
but it just seems that after last year
its cool now to forget about the hurricanes.
(yes we down somewhat sucked during our stretch of 17 injuries)
but right now we are playing at about .500
back and forth between wins and losses,
trying to get a rhythm going
thats better than a lot of teams.
and the race is still on!
i just dont get it.
its not like we have a chris neil takin cheap shots.
or a ass hole mouthing off to everyone
we are we hated?
not to mention
even when we were no2 in the league at the beginning of this year,
nobody was talkin about us.
i was so happy to see what eric did last ngiht
and my wife and i were jumping up and down when they called his name.
(thats a picture)
best all star game ive ever seen
it was gREAT hockey and it was exciting
-chris
John | Jan 28, 2008 | Reply
Aw. I would’ve loved to hear Whitney in a cover story.
CaniacSean | Jan 28, 2008 | Reply
Guys,
I hate to disagree with you, but I really could not believe that Staal was handed the MVP! I felt that Rick Nash deserved it more, and after having lost out on it last year, it was even worse. Staal had a great night, but Nash had a better one. I fail to see why Staal was poicked over Nash. It’s not like Staal has not had his day in the sun. He is on NHL2008, has been on numerous magazine covers, etc. Part of the reason he does not get the credit he deserves or that people feel he deserves is due to Raliegh being a media armpit. We are not NY, LA, Toronto, or Chicago. We are Mayberry.
I do feel like Chris in that when we were doing well at the beginning of the year, we were being ignored by the mainstream media. But that is the way it is. I wouldn’t ask for too much from the press, because when you are up and they are paying attention to you, they love you. But when you are down, they show their teeth and roll their eyes, looking for that extar bit of meat to pull from the bone. Lets just get this team quietly turned around, and make the playoffs.
I would have awarded the MVP to Nash, hands down!
Sean
magnolia_mer | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Just goes to show you that there’s more than one side to every story.
I would ask that you make a separate blog post about Mike Sundheim’s response to give it equal weight, just in case someone doesn’t take the time to read all the way to the end of the Hockey News rant post.
I think the Hurricanes do plenty to accomodate the media. I don’t like it that they get smeared because a couple of boneheads couldn’t follow directions to the podium. Let the man take a shower, for crying out loud.
I also think that perhaps Ray Whitney would rather do interviews about his skill as a player than his sense of humor - once the Canes are on a steady winning streak, I’m sure. Why not do a cover story about the team’s favorite colors? Puh-leeze.
nyrfan | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Great site you got here. I run my own New York Rangers blog and in prep for tonight’s game,I setup a link to your site. Check it out: http://nyrangersblog.blogspot.com/
JR | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I completely disagree with Sean, Eric was deserving of the MVP award, both his goals tied the score and his assist started the play that lead to the winning goal with seconds to go. I am not saying the he was hands down the only player to consider but I do think he was deserving of the honor. As for Raleigh being Mayberry, comments like that…especially from a Hurricanes Fan do not make sense to me at all. Either you have not been to Raleigh in 75 years or you have no Idea what Mayberry is and have just heard that comment somewhere else. Even in the original series you are referring too, Raleigh was known as the big City.
As for Campbell he clearly is not a reputable source for information, I understand that it is a blog post but when you are a member of the Media and blog I think you should carry an extra burden of providing accurate information which Campbell failed to do.
Bubba | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I have no problem with Staal winning the MVP over Nash. As JR mentions, Staal’s points came at more crucial times and besides DiPietro was distracted and was talking to the Versus TV crew when Nash scored that first goal just 12 clicks into the game. I wouldn’t be bragging too much about that one..*L*
Mer…I’ll try to do a separate post later, especially if anything else comes from this. It’s pretty obvious where the fault lies in this case because Campbell’s original post was heavily edited.
But until the Hurricanes can sell out every single game and each player has all the promotion opportunities that they can handle, I think there is still more that can be done within the marketing and media departments. Just my humble opinion.
nyrfan…I put a link to your blog on the game thread and will link to your blog on the blogroll later.
Thanks for the comments all…
CaniacSean | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
JR,
don’t take my comments personal. I live in Raliegh and have for 7 years, so it is a comment made from trying to find media that does decent coverage of our teams nationally (exception being college basketball). It is still not a media savvy town. I have watched great things happen here, that don’t get covered nationally, let alone here by our local news, and Hurricanes news is no different.
As for Staal, well, AS A HURRICANES FAN, I still have to dis-agree with the choice.
Later!
Ken | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Staal was simply awesome in the All Star game. Eric’s game tying goal play was beautiful to watch, and his assist won the game. He also opened the scoring, right after Nash scored. He also had a beautiful almost-assist to Kovalchuk who was robbed by an awesome glove save. Eric is a great all-around player and I believe deserved the award. It was a great lift to Carolina, who as we all know has been really struggling the past few months. Staal is one bright light in an otherwise dark place and a reminder that all is not stinky in Carolina. Another few facts to consider in the Staal v. Nash debate. Staal scored 2 and finished w/a +2, while Nash scored 3 but finished w/a +1. Also, Staal leads Nash by 5 points in the regular league. No problem w/the MVP choice.