Digital Media & Hockey Reporting

In this All Habs piece, I respond to some recent mainstream writing that has celebrated the power of new media to allow fans and bloggers to influence both sports leagues and the sports media. To assess this issue in more nuanced way than what has appeared in the mainstream press, I interviewed Elliotte Friedman (CBC), Larry Brooks (New York Post), Darren Dreger (TSN), and Michael Grange (Sportsnet) to get their impressions on how the new media world has affected their hockey reporting and writing and on whether social media allowed hockey fans to influence the NHL and the NHLPA as they worked to end last season's lockout.

Digital Voices: Social Media, Hockey Reporting, and the Fans

By Avi Goldberg

In the ongoing consideration of the effects of social media, one unsolved puzzle is the extent to which digital technologies are changing human communications and interactions. And, with members of the media increasingly relying on Twitter to cover events of all kinds, it’s not surprising that this issue has been addressed in relation to reporting on sports in particular.

Think about the Manti Te’o hoax. Though it sounds alarm bells about the state of contemporary relationships, the fact that it demonstrates digital media’s potential to upend traditional sports journalism has drawn attention as well. Similarly, in a recent Globe and Mail piece on its impact on the hockey lockout, Bruce Dowbiggin argued that social media “emerged [from the lockout] as a powerful voice by defying the [NHL] and traditional media who have long brushed them off.”

In terms of new media and reporting on the world of hockey, are we witnessing fundamental change for the better or merely incremental modifications of that which existed before?

To explore this question, I canvassed the views of a handful of well-known mainstream hockey reporters. Based on their routine work that straddles real and virtual frontiers, the consensus among them is that digital media is promoting a significant evolution in hockey reporting, but not a revolutionary and uniformly positive transformation.

You can continue to read the piece in its entirety here.

Digesting That NHL Lockout Thing

In this piece, I present my thoughts on a few major dynamics I paid attention to during the suddenly resolved NHL lockout. On the very day I am posting this, hockey fans in Montreal and Canada are anxiously waiting for training camps to open and for the abbreviated 48 game race to the Canada Day Stanley Cup Finals to begin.  

 

113 Days of What, Exactly? The ‘Catelli’ Lockout

By Avi Goldberg

I know that we’re all sick and tired of the lockout. And, though it won’t be long before hockey fans in Canada get back into the routine of the games, many of us are also somewhat troubled by what we and local businesses and their workers have had to endure over the last 113 days. As we wait for the sides to ratify the new CBA, and for a feverishly short training camp to prepare for a feverishly short season, I’ve reflected and come up with five issues that summarize what I think went down. I will explore some of these issues again in the future but let’s hope that most of them can now be permanently put to rest.

You can continue to read the piece in its entirety here.