Ordinarily, I will side with coaches and athletes if they become involved in a dispute with media, mainly because there are a lot of dumb reporters with decent high level jobs these days and I feel sorry for the sports officials who have to put up with their dumb, uneducated, and not very well thought out questions. However, there were two cases last week in which I side with the media. The first one involved Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price, who dropped (has to be a record) 77 f-bombs on a group of 10 reporters because he was upset with the amount of information being publicized. He felt more should be kept ‘in-house’. While I don’t have a problem with that most of the time, I think the onus is on Price to be more communicative and say to his group of ten that he prefer certain specific things not be said for whatever reasons he has. It’s up to the reporters, at that time, if they want to release it or not. If they do, then be ready to deal with Price and his onslaught of obscenities. There are those that will disagree with that assertion, but the reality is that the role of the media has changed to become more of a partnership between teams and broadcast/print outlets and that’s just the way it has to be. The other dispute involved Pittsburgh Penguins General Manager Jim Rutherford, who verbally lambasted a newspaper columnist for writing negatively about the Penguins all season long. The columnist, politely, told Rutherford that his role isn’t to write facts, but rather to write opinions and Rutherford told him his opinions were horse bleep. I would suggest looking at where the Pittsburgh Penguins are in the standings and playoffs and then looking at their roster, the columnist is, actually, correct in his opinions. Sounds like Rutherford can’t handle the truth (sorry, Jack Nicholson).
On a somewhat related topic about sports teams and media becoming partners, it has been said to me a few times over the last week that the real reason Ron MacLean has seen his role on NHL broadcasts reduced is because he is not in the good books with Gary Bettman and when the NHL awarded the rights to Rogers Sportsnet, the popular thought is that one of the underlying conditions was MacLean being phased out, with the final straw in the Bettman vs. MacLean rivalry being that MacLean thought freely and sided with the players in the labour dispute. So, keep these things in mind when watching and reading various news reports. The media’s role is no longer to provide fair perspective, but rather to keep advertisers and those that pay the bills happy.
It’s incredible to me to see how passionate people get to oppose a public prayer. Premier Brad Wall says an opening prayer will remain in the legislature despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary. You would think irreparable damage has been done to someone. Instead of people pouring energy into trying to get a prayer outlawed (a prayer that you can ignore, by the way), why don’t these same atheists get together and do something productive such as help change the way ambulance fees are administered or maybe they can do something to get the government to act on deplorable highway conditions. I mean it would be terrible to die on a bad highway; seeing as how you don’t go to heaven and have eternal life. To me, this should be high on an atheist’s list of things to do, but then again I don’t understand people who spew venom at Christian religion, which is the most passive of all religions that I’ve encountered. Worship who you want, when you want and apply what you want to your own life. There are a lot worse things that can come your way than someone requesting God to bless your life. Heaven forbid an atheist notice he actually was blessed. Then what?
I went and saw Def Leppard in Regina on Sunday night and it struck me that they are not only the number one rock band from my youth, but also the fact they’ve been able to keep the same unit together for the last 23 years is also an accomplishment that’s pretty much unheard of in rock music. In fact, this same quintet may have been together even longer if not for the tragic death of its guitar player (Steve Clark). I believe, there have only ever been two band member changes in the history of this act. When they performed Hysteria near the end of the show, they flashed a number of historical pictures on the big screen behind them and I couldn’t help but think where I was when I discovered liking their music. The kid who sat behind me in school (grade eight) was telling me how great they were and I scoffed because it was just my nature to not like something that everyone else did.
Well, I soon came around on them and picked up the Hysteria album for free from my district manager with the Telegraph-Journal newspaper, who had offered up the cassette to me as a reward for securing new door-to-door paper subscribers.
