January 5, 2011

Last night

Prince Albert 6 Brandon 5

Moose Jaw 4 Kamloops 2

Medicine Hat 5 Edmonton 2

Saskatoon 5 Calgary 0

Tri-City 8 Seattle 2

Last night Gregg Drinnan was trending on Twitter, why you may ask? Right before the Christmas break the Kamloops Blazers organization delivered a letter to the Kamloops Daily News informing them that Mr. Drinnan would no longer have access to anyone from their organization. This is a violation of the media policy established by the WHL. The Kamloops Daily News posted an editorial in response to this ban that was linked here yesterday.

The WHL released this statement:

WHL Statement In Regards to Gregg Drinnan and the Kamloops Daily News

KAMLOOPS -- In regards to the matter between the Kamloops Daily News, Kamloops Blazers and Western Hockey League regarding their reporter access to Blazer personnel; the WHL has scheduled an in-person meeting for Tuesday, January 11th in Kamloops for the purpose of reaching a resolution on this matter. The Kamloops Daily News’ CHL media credentials continue to provide access to the Interior Savings Centre, Kamloops Blazers practices and any Kamloops Blazers or WHL game.

- Kamloops Blazers Hockey Club

**The Blazers have not spoken with Kamloops Daily News sports reporter Gregg Drinnan for the past two games due to what the team calls "ongoing negative reporting". The newspaper has defended Drinnan. It will be interesting to see what the resolution is.

Dub this Week can not find the original statement and has taken this from Rod Pederson's blog and can not speak to the editting that he may have done to the statement.

Since this as well there has been a huge backlash on Twitter as reported here yesterday. Since Dub This Week posted the first two media people speaking up which were Terry Jones (Edmonton Sun) and Kevin Jesus (Global Saskatoon the following have tweeted and likely many more: Rod Pedersen (CKRM Regina), Sara Orlesky (TSN), Ryan Rishaug (TSN & Blazer alumni), Steve Simmons (Toronto Sun and TSN Reporters), Jeff Marek (CBC Sports), Esther Madziya (CJOC Lethbridge), Cory Wolfe (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix) and John MacKinnon (Edmonton Journal) to name a few.

Some of those comments have included:

"You want good press #kamloopsblazers. How's your decision to ban Gregg Drinnan workin' for ya? He's one of the best in the biz #epicfail"

"One of my fav junior hockey writers @gdrinnan (Gregg Drinnan) got Botta'd by @blazerhockey. Ridiculous move."

"#kamloopsblazers should be embarrassed by their decision to ban Greg Drinnan. It is not the job of the media to serve as cheerleaders."

"WHL's Kamloops Blazers' banning beat writer Greg Drinnan is desperate and outrageous. Sadly, the tactic is tempting in new media world."

"The owners of Kamloops Blazers include:Shane Doan, Jarome Iginla, Mark Recchi & Darryl Sydor. They should be embarrassed by banning a scribe"

The people who have tweeted this can be found on Twitter can be found online but will not be named in fear they maybe banned as well...

Many blogs have been lit up with comments on this topic as well including Rod Pedersen's where Mr. Drinnan was the sports editor in Regina as well as Mitchell Blair (Regina, his post), Jon Keen (Blazers commentator), and Greg Harder (Leader-Post)

Apparently the WHL is sitting on their hands about this and will not render a decision until January 11, 2011. Is this because Mr. Gagliardi the principle owner in the Blazers is also a title sponsor of the league with his Sandman Hotel Chain or because they have no idea on how to handle the media.

In a gate driven hockey league why would they waste time like this in not rendering a decision that their policy already ascribes a decision to? If the local media is providing coverage of the product whether positive or negative isn't just having that coverage better than nothing?

From reports this blog has received the league wasn't even subscribing to the whole new media concept of Facebook and Twitter less than a year ago...