In this All Habs piece, I do a little sociology lite in an analysis of how fans and media pundits use twitter to chime in and debate NHL coaches. In response to announcements regarding prominent coaches who were given new hockey jobs during or at the end of this past season, I gathered a sample of fan and media comments on Twitter and developed four narratives that express the types of story lines told about hockey coaches. Digital media affects sports and fandom in complex and uneven ways, and this piece shows how hockey fans and media writers use Twitter to bring themselves to have symbolic control and involvement with NHL affairs and developments.
Coach Opera
By Avi Goldberg
For fans of the Montreal Canadiens, one of the most compelling stories of last offseason was the repatriation of Michel Therrien as head coach. Though this development gave an academic colleague and me a surprise opportunity to employ a little humour in a fancy stats lite analysis
of Therrien’s potential in his second go around with the club, many of
us fans routinely enjoy observing the movement of coaches from one NHL
gig to another. And, despite its abbreviated and intensified pace, or
maybe because of it, this past season provided a handful of interesting
developments to be written into the script of hockey’s ongoing coach opera.
To make some sense of it all, I’ve looked at this past season’s major
coaching transactions in conjunction with a half-scientifically
gathered sample of comments from the Twitterverse, and I’ve come up with
four storylines that fans and hockey media pundits use to talk about
NHL coaches. A comparative look at popular coaching storylines reveals a
lot about the relationship between the perceived needs of NHL teams and
the drama produced and consumed by those who follow the plotlines of
their favourite team serials.
You can continue to read the piece in its entirety here.
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