Final Drinnan-gate thoughts

So, the Kamloops Daily News vs. the Kamloops Blazers feud ("Drinnan-gate"?) came to an end yesterday.

Basically, WHL commissioner Ron Robison sat down with the newspaper and the team and went over the team's list of complaints. At the end of that meeting - which only took 2 hours, apparently (perhaps the complaints were in point form?) - the commissioner ordered the ban to be lifted immediately, Drinnan to be reinstated without conditions, and also admitted that the team had violated the league's media policy.

I await the announcement of the fine which the team deserves. There has to be a punishment to discourage future attempts at this. The league got a lot of bad P.R. over this situation; how much worse would it be for them if it happens again?

It also turns out that the league's own "concerns" - which led to them deciding not to do anything for three weeks while they took that savage beating in the court of public opinion - amounted to nothing more than the league's nose being out of joint because the paper did not cover a press conference.

Guess what? The paper doesn't have to cover any press conference. There's no law that because you serve coffee and muffins and give a speech, that anyone in the media must attend. They can attend or not attend at their own discretion; they answer to their readers/viewers, not to you. If that is the league's sole justification for not resolving this issue immediately, then that is just sad.

And besides, Drinnan had a very valid reason for why the paper wasn't there - he has only a two person sports department and the press conference was scheduled at 10am, and morning papers often see their staff at work until the wee hours. Perhaps some consideration could be shown to the print media in the scheduling of press conferences too, instead of just thinking about how if they get it done early they can get a sound bite on the noon hour TV or radio news.

A few other things as well:

One, regarding the Blazers' complaints about "negative reporting": "negative" is in the eye of the beholder. These look like the complaints of a few people who are made uncomfortable by having the team's lack of success pointed out in print. Too bad. Public scrutiny and criticism come with these jobs. If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Two, I'd like to see somebody push Blazers owners Mark Recchi and Shane Doan to back up their comments about "negativity" and how criticism is affecting the players. Nobody has yet been able to provide an example of where the paper criticized a specific player. There's examples of the coach criticizing specific players though. Embarrassing.

Lastly, I see that Gregg's detractors have been scouring the WHL's press release word by word, looking for any drops of negativity they can wring out of it.

That some of these people work in the "media" and actually endorsed the notion of banning a reporter because you don't like him personally or don't like his opinions is amazing. Can't they see the very bad implications this kind of thing would have for themselves if it were allowed to stand, and they themselves should ever say something the team disliked?

The actions of a few people who claim that Drinnan is the one with a vendetta are....enlightening.

And barring any new developments, this will be my last post on Drinnan-gate. Promise. Back to the on-ice product now.