So, now that the Social Media Mob has reduced its commentary on L’Affaire Perry/Bedard to a dull roar, what have we learned?
Well, a couple of things, actually:
1) Darren Pang is full of crap.
2) Apparently Puck Pontiff Mark Chipman has appointed himself Official Apologist for news snoops on the Winnipeg Jets beat.
Let’s start with Pang.
You might remember Panger as a one-time National Hockey League goaltender who needed to stand on a bar stool just to reach up and touch the crossbar. (Seriously. The guy’s shorter than a two-year-old’s attention span. The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t get him a boarding pass for team flights. They just stored him in an overhead luggage bin.)
Nowadays, of course, Pang is a natterbug on Blackhawks and TNT broadcasts, and those duties took him to downtown Winnipeg last weekend, at which time the Corey Perry scandal was still a live grenade and the Family Bedard was still catching internet shrapnel from a Social Media Mob (SMM) that had taken a class-action dive into the deep end of the cesspool known as X.
Just to refresh: Perry had done something ghastly.
So ghastly that the Hawks still won’t talk about it, except to say the veteran forward’s misdeed “does not involve any player or their families.”
So ghastly that the club lit a match and torched his contract.
So ghastly that Perry vanished to put his personal house in order, leaving us to wonder when/if he’ll be seen on an NHL freeze again.
Meantime, rookie Connor Bedard and kin were caught in the swirl of truly odious online innuendo, a rumor that should have ceased with Chicago general manager Kyle Davidson’s disclaimer about players and families.
Alas, the NHL insists that half of Chicago’s skirmishes take place in foreign territory, so last Saturday’s matinee vs. the Jets in Good Ol’ Hometown provided curious news snoops an opportunity to back Bedard against a wall, form a semi-circle around hockey’s latest “it” kid, and ask him about life in a fish bowl that includes enough internet piranha to bite all four legs off an elephant.
This is Pang’s version of that natter (beginning at the 45:45 mark):
“Mark Chipman, the president and owner of the Winnipeg Jets, took the time, as the Hawks were getting on the bus to leave, and made sure he went up to Connor and apologized,” he told Mike Russo on The Athletic Hockey Show on Dec. 5. “It was really one reporter, his name’s Paul Friesen. And he…one question was asked. Connor answered it beautifully. He’s not afraid to answer it. He’s not afraid to tell people that he’s aware of what goes on, and basically it’s a bunch of BS, we’re okay, our family’s…we’re good. But then Paul Friesen asked another question, another question, another question, another question. And so that’s what Mark Chipman was apologizing for.”
What a load of hooey.
This is what I saw and heard on video of that scrum:
Sean Reynolds of Sportsnet sought the first sound bite, asking, “I wonder, you knew you were coming into this league with a spotlight on you. Have you learned or taken any lessons away from the kind of unfortunate place that spotlight can take you?”
Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun then added his voice to the natter. He did not—repeat, not!— ask another question, another question, another question, another question. He had two follow-ups to Reynolds’ kick-start. Two!
“What’s it been like going through it?”
“Is there a message to people who take part in it? I mean, maybe they forget you are people, you are young people.”
There was zero mention of young Connor’s parents or his sister. Both reporters simply sought a sense of how the kid was coping with unwanted attention born of the Perry scandal, and the ‘life in a fish bowl’ portion of the to-and-fro took less than two minutes.
Yet Pang makes it sound as if Friesen went all-60 Minutes on Bedard, badgering him like he’d been O.J.’s driver during the white Ford Bronco slow-speed chase. So lame.
As for Chipman delivering a mea culpa to Connor, spare me.
Last I looked, the Puck Pontiff was co-bankroll, chairman and governor of the Jets, not lord and master of local news snoops. Hell, he rarely talks to them, so I’d suggest he spend his time trying to fill the 3,000-plus unoccupied chairs in the Little Hockey House On The Prairie rather than play the role of journalism prof.
But, hey, perhaps the mea culpa didn’t actually happen. I mean, Pang’s power of recall is highly suspect, given his version of the Bedard-Reynolds/Friesen exchange, so maybe he dreamt it while snoozing in an overhead luggage bin.
Many among the rabble were appalled that Reynolds and Friesen would quiz an 18-year-old kid on such a sensitive subject, but here’s something that Hawks insider Pang tells us about Bedard: “He’s beyond 18.” And here’s Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, who referenced Bedard’s “remarkable maturity” and added this: “He’s not just mature for an 18-year-old. He’s mature, period.” In that case, he ought to be able to handle big-boy questions, which he did, albeit with a degree of discomfort. His poise was admirable. Good for him.
Friesen, who absorbed an unwarranted and fierce flogging on X for his part in the Bedard exchange, is a friend and former colleague, and I can tell you he wouldn’t have approached that scrum with the notion of digging down to the scuzzy elements of internet innuendo. That isn’t how he rolls. He came from a base of empathy, and I’m convinced Reynolds did the same thing. I don’t know Reynolds, but I’ve seen and heard enough of his work to conclude he’s above board. “My idea behind asking that question is to take a family that was victimized and allow people to understand how it affected them, and then maybe think twice about the way that this carried out, the way that this thing spread like wildfire,” he explained to listeners to The Kenny and Renny Show on Dec. 3. Works for me.
The aforementioned Sun-Times beat guy Pope delivered this odd commentary on X: “Winnipeg media asked Connor Bedard about the impact of the Perry ‘rumors’ today. Frankly, I don’t think this was an appropriate time to do so. But I do think his response is worth posting.” Let me see if I’ve got this straight: It wasn’t the proper time to ask the questions, but it was the proper time to record and report the answers. Interesting concept. I mean, without the question there is no response to post. Perhaps Pope developed that twisted logic at the Mark Chipman School of Journalism.
Pope’s colleague, Rick Morrissey, gave Winnipeg news snoops a scolding.
“This was a fire hose pumping gasoline on a blaze that should have been allowed to go out by itself,” he scribbled. “Bedard’s quotes went all over the world.
“Now, what will have staying power—the rumor or Bedard’s response to the rumor?
“The rumor, of course.
“It’s why the questions never should have been asked of him. He never should have been asked about something that had never occurred. And if the Winnipeg reporters went on to write sympathetic stories that painted the rookie as a victim, it doesn’t change the fact that the stories’ foundation was a false rumor—even if the Winnipeg media reported his response, not the rumor itself. You can put nice wrapping paper around a box of poop, but it doesn’t change the box’s contents.”
“Standards separate the media from social media. Reporters have standards that are meant to keep them in check and push them to be fair. Social media has few restrictions, very little conscience and a snuffed-out guiding light.
“If we’re not careful, we in the media eventually will be doing laps in that same cesspool.”
Apparently, it didn’t occur to Morrissey that his own man, Pope, had also “put nice wrapping paper around a box of poop” by reporting Bedard’s response, if not the rumor itself.
If you’ll permit me a philosophical thought, all of the above is a reminder that the human race would be a brilliant concept if not for the people.
Perhaps I’m slow on the uptake, but weren’t the Jets adorned in Royal Canadian Air Force jerseys on Canadian Armed Forces Night at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie on Dec. 4? And won’t they be wearing the same livery on April 1 to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the RCAF? And here I thought specialty unis on theme nights were taboo in the NHL.
I swear I heard Sportsnet gab guy Sam Cosentino rank Jets legend Dale Hawerchuk among the top 20 NHL players of all time. No doubt Ducky was statue-worthy. I’ve always admired him. But top 20? I’m not so sure about that.
On a similar note, there’s an RBC commercial that identifies Auston Matthews as “world’s best hockey player.” Connor McDavid and a handful of other guys demand a recount.
Hey, if you plan a visit to Montreal to watch les Canadiens, you can arrange a personal meet-and-greet visit from mascot Youppi! That’s right, Youppi! At your seat! For $195! Good grief. How much would Mickey and Minnie cost?
Given just one word to describe the Toronto Blue Jays failed pursuit of baseball unicorn Shohei Ohtani, it would have to be “heartbroken.” They’re saying it on our flatscreens, they’re saying it online, they’re saying it in our newspapers, they’re saying it on the streets in the Republic of Tranna. Well, you’ll have to excuse me, but my heart isn’t broken. I bleed Dodgers blue, you see, so I’m delighted that the best player in Major League Baseball is taking a U-Haul up the I-5 from Anaheim to Los Angeles, and I don’t care if they broke the bank ($700 million, 10 years) to land him in a World Series-or-bust gambit.
It’s about the Ohtani saga: Is it just me, or did anyone else find the unabashed cheerleading by Canadian media cringeworthy? I mean, all the “Please, please, please pick us!” groveling was positively hick-townish. I expect to see professional jock journos on the TSN and Sportsnet anchor desks, not Ma and Pa Kettle gushing like ninnies who swilled too much moonshine at the county turkey shoot.
Little wonder rapper and Toronto Raptors courtside sideshow Drake wanted to see Ohtani in Blue Jays linen next season. Except, based on ShoTime’s salary, if the Jays had reeled him in Drake would have been the only person in the Republic of Tranna who could afford tickets.
It’s easy to understand why TSN props up Steve Phillips as its baseball insider/expert—he simply tells the Canadian audience precisely what they want to hear. Are the Blue Jays a World Series contender? “Absolutely?” Is Bo Bichette the best shortstop in baseball? “You bet.” Are the Blue Jays screwed after going all in on Ohtani? “Not at all. They’ll go out and get all the best guys not named Ohtani and they’ll be a better team for it.”
LIV Golf introduced Jon Rahm as its shiny, new toy last week, and many observers were quick to document the Grand Slam champion’s hypocrisy. In June 2022, for example, he said: “To be honest, part of the (LIV) format is not really appealing to me. Shotgun, three days to me is not a golf tournament, no cut. It’s that simple. I want to play against the best in the world in a format that’s been going on for hundreds of years. That’s what I want to see.” Yet now the Spaniard loves those LIV quirks and, hey, he’ll have an extra day off every week to count all the Saudi money that lured him away from the PGA Tour, all of which prompted Eamon Lynch of Golfweek to opine: “In citing his need to feather the family nest for future generations, the appeal of innovative formats and an overwhelming ambition to grow the game, Rahm checked every box in the bullshit bingo that attends all LIV signings.”
It’s only fitting that Sports Illustrated would anoint Deion Sanders its Sportsperson of the Year. I mean, an artificial football coach for an artificial sports magazine sounds about right.
Like many of my vintage, I sometimes yearn for what once was, and SI once was the best sports mag on newsstands everywhere, give or take Sport magazine and the Street and Smith’s Baseball Yearbook. I long ago ceased reading SI, but I do remember a time when you had to do more than lose football games and wear sunglasses to earn the Sportsperson of the Year nod. Any one of Nikola Jokic, Coco Gauff, Lionel Messi, Caitlin Clark or Simone Biles would have been a better choice, but the self-promoting braggart won. Sigh.
The Christine Sinclair farewell last week was superbly orchestrated and tear-inducing, yet, given her accomplishments on soccer pitches around the globe, it still somehow seemed inadequate.
I really enjoy the ‘Weekends With’ feature in the Saturday Globe and Mail. Yesterday it was Simon Houpt in conversation with CBC broadcaster Andi Petrillo and, as always, we discovered more about the person than the talking head. Like, did you know Andria once taught piano and her favorite tune to play is Terms of Endearment? It’s always good copy, and I don’t know why more newspapers don’t put that kind of magazine-style stuff on their sports pages, rather than dreary, day-old info.
Interesting piece from Ted Wyman in today’s Winnipeg Sun about the lack of diversity in Canadian curling. He notes that the vast majority of our Pebble People are white, and Curling Canada seeks to get more people of color, LGBT(etc.) folks and other minorities involved. Ironically, our female champion, Kerri Einarson, is Metis and the men’s world champion, Bruce Mouat, is gay.
Just wondering: Does anyone actually place bets on the information Davis Sanchez provides on TSN? Somehow I doubt it. So why, TSN, why?
Apparently the NBA in-season tournament was a rousing success, but I still don’t know what it was all about. Except, of course, to prove that a soon-to-be 39-year-old LeBron James is still better than 95 per cent of everyone in hoops.
And, finally, I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the Winnipeg Blue Bombers losing the Grey Cup game, and that was three weeks ago.
The River City Renegade 
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