NHL concussion e-mails released

[Kin]

Chris Johnson talked a little bit about this on the Hockey PDOcast a few weeks ago, you might find it interesting: http://hockeypdocast.com/2016/02/28/episode-65-sources-say/. That topic starts at 8:30.

Thanks for that.

In a weird way though we've sort of come around to what we were talking about the other day. One of the reasons I think that the public tends to be anti-player in most issues is because guys like McKenzie et al cultivate these long lasting league/team sources and tend to report things that they say as "insider information". We got a perfect example of that this year with the Reimer stuff. Reimer gets traded, we get a "sources say James Reimer asked for 6 million a year" report and all of a sudden it becomes canon. Sure, Reimer and his camp deny it later but it's already in the public narrative.

So in that interview Johnston, who I don't dislike, says what guys in his job tend to say. That they don't lie, that they won't print an obvious falsehood to get on anyone's good side and they try to simply report the facts but the obvious dodge there is that if a reporter says "sources say James Reimer asked for 6 million a year" then whether or not Reimer asked for that money doesn't make that a lie or not a lie. So long as anonymous sources said it then reporting it as being said by them is true.

This obviously tilts towards ownership/management as they're the people who know about trades/signings/draft decisions and having that insider information provides people in Johnston's position a real incentive to be on their good side. This is obviously less true with players who aren't ever really in a decision to decide anything without a team's approval(even a sought after UFA can only sign a contract a team offers them).

I guess where that distresses me is in situations like what we're talking about with fighting/concussions and media members reporting on it. We have to have a lot of faith that they're going to dig just as hard on things that might look bad for the league and potentially valuable sources as they do on a deadline deal trade. Personally, from what I've seen from the usual hockey media in recent years, I really doubt we're getting good investigative journalism on that front.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I guess where that distresses me is in situations like what we're talking about with fighting/concussions and media members reporting on it. We have to have a lot of faith that they're going to dig just as hard on things that might look bad for the league and potentially valuable sources as they do on a deadline deal trade. Personally, from what I've seen from the usual hockey media in recent years, I really doubt we're getting good investigative journalism on that front.

And that's something that I just saw being discussed on twitter. None of the traditional hockey folks at TSN or Sportsnet have really brought these e-mails up yet. Granted it's early, but it's odd to see a subject this big being completely ignored even on their twitter feeds. Talking about guys like Dreger/McKenzie/Kypreos/Friedman/Cox/Johnson.

Newspaper folk like Mirtle and Bruce Arthur have addressed it, but they're in a different category of media as those others. They're not in it for the scoops. And TSN's Rick Westhead has been reporting on the trial for a long time and has done a pretty great job, but his pieces never really seem to get into the actual hockey coverage on TSN.

 

[herman]

I don't know why fighting is still nominally allowed.

It's normally an arrestable offense out in public. Yet, in a sport where fighting is not the main goal, you are able to mash fist to face for the paltry cost of 2 to 5 minutes of rest.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

While Sportsnet has more or less pretended that these e-mails never existed, they did post this piece on Willie Mitchell talking about how the league needs to do more to protect the players:

?The league needs to do a better job,? Mitchell said. ?Guys need protection.

?There?s a concern with players. Guys are worried about it. Guys talk about it ? the league isn?t doing enough to protect the players,? Mitchell said. ?A couple of years back, a 20-game suspension was a message. You?d be missing games, you get a big chunk of money taken from your pocket ? a quarter of your (annual) salary gone. Those suspensions had gotten the game safer ? still physical, still fast. Shanny (Brendan Shanahan, then the league?s chief disciplinarian) did a great job. But it?s not like that now.?

Of the 27 suspensions issued by the NHL this season for player-on-player hits, 26 were for five games or less. The exception, however, was a steep one for repeat offender Raffi Torres, who was slapped with a 41-game ban back on on Oct. 5 for a headshot on Jakob Silfverberg.

?Players are worried and guys talk about it here in the dressing room, but don?t say much (publicly) because they think they?re going to get fined,? Mitchell said. ?But I can tell you: players are worried about it.

?I?d like to think I?m a rational guy. I?m not an F-U guy. I?m not criticizing the league as a whole,? he said. ?If my game slips, a coach will come tell me, it?s slipping. Well, on trying to protect us, the league is slipping.?

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/panthers-mitchell-talks-concussions-future-hockey/

 

[Bullfrog]

I just skimmed through these quickly and would have to give them a more thorough read later, but Colin Campbell comes across as a grade A jerk.

I just read them and come to the same conclusion. At best, he's completely naive to corporate communication etiquette.

In training courses I've taken, I was taught (and follow) one basic concept: assume every email you write will be released publicly. You want to say something off the record? Pick up the phone or talk in person.

 

[hockeyfan1]

Campbell obviously panning Dreger's concern:

Andrew Berkshire  ‏@AndrewBerkshire
Colin Campbell making fun of Dreger for covering concussion issues