Every reporter, myself included, has asked dumb questions before. But what occurred during Toronto's first road game of the pre-season was due to no Toronto-based reporters in attendance.
Every reporter, myself included, has asked dumb questions before. But what occurred during Toronto's first road game of the pre-season was due to no Toronto-based reporters in attendance.
On Tuesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs dropped a 2-1 decision to the Ottawa Senators in pre-season action. When I woke up the following morning, the biggest talking point to come out of it had nothing to do game itself but rather a question asked to Leafs head coach Craig Berube following the game.
"A lot of people are going at two losses, is it time to panic for this team?"
No, it's pre-season," Berube answered.
Of course, I took a look on Reddit and other social media platforms where users were quick to blame the evil 'Toronto Media' by saying a 'Toronto Reporter' asked Berube if it was time to panic.
While we don't know who asked the question, we can confirm that it was nobody from the Toronto media because there wasn't a single Toronto-based reporter on the trip.
In the past, there used to be at least one or two travelling Toronto-based beat reporters that would travel to every game (including pre-season) but those days are long over. Myself, along with The Hockey News, have been traveling to every Maple Leafs regular season and playoff game for the last three seasons and we plan on doing it again this season. Last year, we decided to skip certain pre-season games, mostly because of the grind and lack of a good business case to go. During the pre-season, the Leafs' only media availabitly on the road is after the game. The club's morning availability would be held in Toronto and the team would then charter in the afternoon of the game instead primarily because of how irrelevant the result is.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfOecUcRyB8[/embed]
During the regular season and playoffs, teams always get in at least the night before their game.
Now as for the poor reporter who was there, she was likely in a spot where there wasn't anyone else to ask questions and what was asked was asked. Generally, if you are a stringer or part of the other side's media, at times you can lean on the team's beat reporters to carry the flow of the media scrum.
There were many instances last season where I was the only visiting reporter and would have to carry the flow of the scrum as local stringers collected quotes.
I generally avoided writing these kind of things because it has nothing to do with the Toronto Maple Leafs and everything to do with us. But this is simply to provide clarity of what occurred, why it occurred and what did not occur.
The Maple Leafs visit the Montreal Canadiens in their second road pre-season game. We know of at least one Toronto-based reporter who will be there. The chances of that type of question being asked again is virtually zero.
If you like reading more about this type of stuff, your feedback is appreciated in the forum.
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