Mike Toth taught us all that he knows more than any woman employed as a sports broadcaster, and well look where that landed him. So, pardon the expression in the title. No offense intended.
So, if your at all like me, you listen to your fair share of sports radio, you read the dailies and if you are reading this then I can assume you are reading the blogs too. Additionally, you pile on a few hours of television nightly, a game here or there a highlight/news show etc. You are, as they say, tuned in.
As I have written here lately, the problem with the current status of the Toronto Maple Leafs is that no man’s land isn’t a great place to be if you are covering the team or looking for a story/topic to report on. Take today for example, the big news of the day was that Ron Wilson was unhappy with the stupid penalties the Leafs took against Tampa Bay. No shit Dick Tracy. Jolly Jonas had it in an article of his, on the air and his twitter, Happy Howie Berger had it on the Fan, hell next to charity events for Haiti it was the new of the day.
My question for you is this. In the absence of anything meaningful to discuss, what do you want your scribes to cover? Should they be covering other teams? other leagues, other sports or taking on different angles. If we are willing to accept that the Maple Leafs aren’t newsworthy by virtue of them not being the least bit of interest, what should those who cover them talk about?
For me, I have lots of questions. First and foremost, and this isn’t a knock on the guy, but I am curious what a GM does in the NHL from training camp till the trade deadline. I mean o NHL GM’s have a message board like hfboards.com where they post rumours etc? What have there been so far this year, 4 trades, of which, what, 1 was of any significance? How many times can you call fellow GM’s and say, you trading anyone? Everytime there is a rumor at all the first thing a GM says is “I haven’t even talked to that team in a over a month”. There are only 30 teams in the damn league, if you aren’t talking to each 1 at least 1x a month, then what the hell are you doing?
Second question is for the coaching staff, how do you prepare your team for a meaningless battle? The whole world knows the season is meaningless, each game is becoming more irrelevant with the passing of every day, so how do you keep guy motivated. What the hell are you doing in practices at this stage of the season? Is it preparing for next season already?
Personally, I would like to see some technical information that we don’t usually get to see. What is a GM watching for when they are in press box, what is a coach thinking as his team takes another too many men on the ice penalty…you know the inside stuff that we don’t get ot hear or read about. I think the MSM should be trying to find the nuisances that we don’t get anywhere else. There are no more scoops. There are no traders, so there are no more rumors. Why not get us some real stories that are actually interesting.
What, do you want to read/listen about?
TSM
@yyzsportsmedia