What I hate about sports media

I was reading an article on TSN.ca about the so-called controversy surrounding Alexander Ovechkin’s 50th goal celebration in which he put his hockey stick on the ice and warmed his hands over it signifying that his stick was “hot.” Which is true, the man has scored 50 goals three seasons in a row, which by the NHL standard for the past decade is ridiculous.

TSN is reporting that people are all up in arms about this. That tons of people are mad. Of the hockey players interviewed, they interview Shane O’Brien, Brad Boyes, Willie Mitchell, and Dan Hinote on the topic.

While Mitchell and Boyes liked the celebration they got the reaction out of O’Brien they wanted. He hated it. O’Brien said that if he were on the ice he would have stopped Ovechkin.

Now here is my problem with this: TSN interviewed a bunch of enforcers who are lucky to score 10 goals on the year. TSN wanted to hear Boyes and Mitchell complain about it too so they can say how much they wanted to beat the crap out of Ovechkin. Where’s the top scorers? Where’s Crosby? Malkin? Lecavalier?

Or how about the people who excessively celebrated themselves? They mention Teemu Selanne and Jaromir Jagr as people who did but they didn’t talk to them.

How about talking to people from other sports what they think? How about people from the CFL, a league hugely popular for their end zone dances? Or talk to Terrell Owens or Randy Moss.

To be fair, they did interview Jason Spezza on the topic. But they made the choice to interview mostly enforcers because they were looking for people to say that the game has no place for those celebrations.

There is no real controversy over the celebration. TSN created it. Most of the players say they enjoyed it (and, much to the chagrin of TSN, so did most of the enforcers) and that it was good for the game. But oh no, Shane O’Brien and Dan Hinote doesn’t think it is. Give me a break,

My point: Watch out when sports media does this. Look at who they are interviewing when they are covering a story. Don’t just believe everything sports media (or any media for that matter) shoots at you.

Because half the time, it’s bull-crap.

Click here to see the TSN.ca article