I wanted to do all that until I saw your final 10 minutes of coverage.
In that final 10 minutes, we didn't get the most important part of the evening, of the series, of the playoffs, of the season.
We didn't get to watch the Devils skate with the Stanley Cup.
Oh, sure, we got a little of it. We got Scotty Stevens, Randy McKay, Brian Rafalski nervously reaching out until he realized McKay was looking for Ken Daneyko, Daneyko, Martin Brodeur, Bobby Holik. And then we cut away from it all for a player interview.
Not that Stevens' reactions aren't appropriate to the occasion, particularly as the Conn Smythe Trophy winner. But keeping the camera focused on him and Brian Engblom just isn't worth more than the emotion pouring out behind him.
You surely know what the Stanley Cup means to hockey fans. You've treated it with respect throughout the postseason. You can't have covered this sport this year, worked with the former players that have been on your staff, worked, I'm sure, on the ESPN broadcasts in past years and not known just how much that trophy means to the players that compete for it and for the fans that love the sport.
Each year, we know one thing for certain. One team will get possession of the Holy Grail and will undertake one of the greatest traditions in sports: passing the Cup from man to man, each getting their moment to skate on the ice in full uniform with that symbol of their childhood (and adult) dreams, with their fans, family and friends skating vicariously with them.
This year in particular, you had all the drama you needed. You had Petr Sykora, knocked silly in the first period, being honored by his linemate and his coach by bringing his sweater to the celebration. He was surely watching in the hospital; would his teammates do something further to try to communicate something to him? You had a general manager that isn't certain to return next year; what would his face show when one of his players handed him the Cup? Would players somehow address the team's ownership change?
Claude Lemieux, messily divorced from the team in 1995, returns in triumph. Supposed slackers Alexander Mogilny and Vladimir Malakhov win in New Jersey; how will they react? Larry Robinson: fired last year in L.A., brought back as an assistant, promoted in the closing weeks of the season to head coach, author of a now-celebrated tirade that saved the Devils' season, clearly emotional over Sykora's injury, winner as a player with Montreal; that trophy means plenty to him, and to see him hold it once more was an immense part of the allure of the evening.
You had all that, and you ran off for "closing thoughts" and our late local news.
How is that responsible to the devoted fans of the game? I'll answer that. It's completely irresponsible for any organization that intends to cover a championship.
I can speak from very personal experience. In 1994, the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, and MSG covered the game. They had interviews during the celebration, but the cameras basically remained on the Cup at all times, with only a couple of quick cutaways. We watched it go from Gary Bettman to Mark Messier, then all the way down to Barry Richter, to the coaches, to the never-used subs, to the boards for the crowd to reach over and touch, into the dressing room. I'm surprised the cameras didn't follow it to the strip clubs.
I cannot imagine, after 54 years of waiting to watch the Rangers pass the Stanley Cup to each other, missing reactions from Alexei Kovalev and Sergei Nemchinov and Doug Lidster and Jay Wells for a standup interview with Brian Leetch. It's unfathomable. It would have changed the experience completely, and not, definitely not for the better.
You may not have all night for interviews. But ESPN2 does. So does ESPN, really. Two hours of Sportscenter were coming up. We can hold the Blue Jays-Expos highlights for later in the show, can't we? And if someone doesn't have cable or doesn't want to switch, how much are we really missing by losing out on that first interview? Is it more important at that instant to talk about emotion, or to watch it in action?
The most annoying thing about this is that it seems to be a company-wide trend, one that began on ESPN. A couple of years ago, part of the Red Wings' celebration was cut out of our screens by those standups. Last year for Dallas, the standups situation got worse, more aggravating because ESPN remained at the arena well after the teams left the ice. And now this year, you leave Bobby Holik to show Martin Brodeur's wife and children for the 30th time of the night (it's only right; Mrs. Brodeur got more airtime than Holik did during the game, too). You cut to the in-house panel of experts while they're still passing the Cup. You cut to a highlights montage moments thereafter. And then you're off the air. What a way to treat the fans that stayed up past midnight in the East. Particularly in New Jersey.
What would it have taken to get to the team photo, five minutes? Maybe 10? I understand the overtime pushed the game far later than you wanted or expected, and I'm sure you had dolled-up local news anchors throwing hissy fits throughout the nation, wanting to read their stories about cats up a tree and go home.
Let them wait.
By cutting out of the true story for the cookie-cutter reaction standup and by bailing out before the last player holds the Cup, you not only miss the real emotion, but you do a tremendous disservice to both the game and its fans.
When the NHL granted you and ESPN exclusivity on the final two rounds of the playoffs, a responsibility went with it; perhaps an unwritten one, but a responsibility nonetheless. You are the only place local fans can go to watch these games. As such, you owe it to these captive fans to give them what's important. And that doesn't end when the puck goes into the net. If you can't fulfill that responsibility, let local broadcasters do the game, or at least let them on the air the second the game ends, rather than when your broadcast ends. Let them cover the celebration for the fans while you cover it for whoever it is you think you're broadcasting to.
As it stands, you deprived Devils fans across the nation of joining in the celebration of their championship. You deprived hockey fans across the nation of watching one of the most emotional sequences of every season. You deprived the team of sharing its championship moment with its fans.
Most importantly from my own self-centered standpoint, you deprived me of seeing Sergei Nemchinov, one of my favorite players, the only Devil I give the first damn about, skate with the Stanley Cup for the second time. Do you think I can forgive that? Do you really think I should?
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Why do women athletes make less than their male counterparts? The same reason women's basketball players make more than minor-league hockey players. The same reason sportswriters make far less than the pro athletes they cover. The same reason schoolteachers don't make as much as jockeys. The same reason your favorite track stars aren't getting as much love as you'd like. Athletes are paid like entertainers, so they're paid based on how many people want to watch them and pay for the privilege. More people, more money. The more, the better.
Why do people pick on basketballers for turning pro out of high school but not other athletes? You're missing their arguments. You and your politically-correct buds are concerned with education, but the people you're criticizing are worried about the person. Most of the people that are worried are thinking athletically and socially. Your average pro-aspiring college football and basketball player isn't there for his education, Mrs. Jones. He's there looking to improve his game, to improve his visibility, to boost his name, earn a higher draft position and take the greater money that comes from that. In baseball, there are these things called minor leagues, where players do all that developing and improving their game. In hockey, players that don't go to college often play junior hockey, developing their skills, or they go to the minor pro leagues. In each of these, there's a support system for young kids away from home and learning how to become adults that just isn't there in the major pro leagues, where the players are almost all far older.
You think tennis players turning pro at 14, 15, 16 doesn't get negative attention? What rock are you under? It's a major concern to anyone that notices. No one is really ready for that kind of attention and money and fame as a teenager, and your average tennis fan knows that and is worried about it.
You ignored football players (where's the love for them?), presumably because they don't often jump from high school to the NFL. In fact, the last one I can remember was Eric Swann of the Cardinals, and if I remember right, people weren't giving him the love. And just like basketball players, with the exception of your social-conscience pals, the criticism had nothing to do with the deprived education. "An education is a wonderful thing," your friend and my friend Charles Barkley once said, "unless you can run and jump over houses." If you're ready to play in the show, no one should have a problem with your turning pro. Kevin Garnett was, and he proved many people wrong about that, and more power to him. But if you're going to be sitting around with your skills deteriorating and your maturation as a human being stagnating, you should go where your league develops its players. If that's college, go to college. It's noble you want more emphasis on education, and Garnett's academic efforts are nobler, but don't preface your argument with a claim of a double standard that isn't there.
We need smarter rhetoric in our commercials, particularly those that are supposedly selling shoes but seem to be selling the misguided, politically-correct mumbo-jumbo that plagues our culture today. The smarter, the better. Can you dig it?
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Mike Fornabaio
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Michael Fornabaio--mef17@oocities.com