Throwing The Towel In

If I had readers that were following my blog and my posts, you would know that this is my 10th post and my final post on this subject.

The Coyotes seem to have reached a plateau in thier season as well as the business aspect of things.  The Coytoes are on the hunt for a buyer, and playing a decent season.  It will be interesting to see who the NHL deems a worthy buyer for this team, if this team will relocate, and if they will solve their financial crisis.  I hope by the end of the season  

As for my expierence in the blogosphere, I cannot say that it is all negative.  Although I didn’t have a readership, other than my professor,  I know I am not really a fan of blogging, but I have gained experience on things that will be useful (Google News and RSS feeds). 

As for ‘professional’ bloggers, I personally don’t think that it is a path I will go down in a career.  Today I was reading a blog from USA Today, and it was deemed a ‘professional blog’, blogs such as The Bleacher Report, aren’t they professional blogs as well?  It is hard to define journalism today, but I believe it is also hard to tell whether or not you are reading ‘professional journalism’.  As I stated before, we never really had this problem until the internet dominated the written word. 

Blogging is for people that have a strong passion about a topic, who want to get their voice heard, and can gain the right readership while doing so, they could also have potential for pursuing a career in the new media field.  Some people in the class, I believe, have the potential for that.  Myself of the other hand, I will stick to my P.R concentration and my love of hockey!

Taking My Helmet Off

If you haven’t already caught onto my name (title of the blog), I am, in fact, a female.  I hope that my gender hasn’t shown through my posts, and my knowledge of this issue.  

I have played hockey all my life, and have been told on various occasions that girls can’t play hockey, and female hockey will never compare to all the male leagues.  When I was in elementary school, I always had a passion for hockey, I even thought I was going to be in the NHL, thats how much I loved the sport.  The boys in my class said it would be impossible, and that hockey was a ‘boy’ sport. 

I continued playing until high school.  My first years in high school, the team has some support from the students and faculty members.  In my final two years, the participation from the students and faculty were both lacking.  We had one or two coaches, where the senior male team had multiple coaches, lots of ice time, student support, and multiple tournaments.

I was never the ‘best’ on any of my teams, but I always gave it my all.  

I am now in my second year of university.  I played intramural hockey last year with mixed genders, although I highly regret not playing this year.  

All my years of watching hockey games and sports highlights, I have noticed a lack of female reporting and commentating.  I have never understood why gender has played an important role about what a person knows. Sports blogs are just as guilty as political blogs in the sense of diversity.  White educated males are dominant in sports journalism.  

If a sports journalism opportunity was presented to me, I’d most likely take it.  The purpose of this post was just reveal that I am a female, writing about a predominately male sport, and if I had any readers, if they would look at my blog any different if I had been a male?

Will The Coyotes Ever Find Happiness?

Since my last post, there hasn’t been any new updates financially with the Coyotes.  Considering this is one of my remaining blog posts, I would like to propose the question listed above.  Will the Phoenix Coyotes ever find happiness, or even just a comfortable position in the NHL.  The Coyotes have been placed on the back burner of the NHL’s worries until it was too late.  

The NHL isn’t putting a timeline on finding a buyer, but for the wellness of the ‘franchise’, they should find a buyer and create some stability in the team.  Looking back, so far, the Coyotes have filed for bankruptcy, lost their coach, former owner, and have been taken over by the National Hockey League.

What the Coyotes’ need is stability, simple as that.  If I had a readership of even a couple people, I would propose the same questions, and I would like to hear everyone’s point of view and different educated opinions on a potential solution for this troubled team.  

Although I am blogging for a class project, I feel it would have been much more efficient if everyone in the class had connected their blogs, and created our own blogosphere within the classroom.  As a group we could have been more interactive with our blogs and made comments on the issues that were interesting to us.  

As for now, the class has almost come to an end, and everyone was in the same situation.  They had made multiple posts, and had zero comments and zero readers.  If the class had all linked their blogs, I feel my blog would be more interactive and possibly more objective, the readership would see more than just my feelings on this issue.

Who will help the Coyotes?

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/12/07/story2.html?b=1260162000%5E2535911

This article from the Phoenix Business Journal explains why the successful Arizona Cardinals will not help the team financially.  

I would first like to again, reiterate my point, a sports story in a business journal! Sports and business are two different things.

I believe that sports associations should help other teams, but the Coyotes need more than just a little help.  I don’t think it is fair that they are counting on other teams for their financial gain.  Other teams shouldn’t have to bare the responsibility of the Coyotes’ misfortune.  The team needs to hook a buyer, under any circumstances and get back to playing the game of hockey and not worry about relocation or finances.  

The Coyotes organization shouldn’t have hurt feelings that an NFL team won’t tax THEIR fans for the financial gain of an NHL team.  

The article suggested different deals were in motion with the arena, which seems to be most of the team’s trouble.  The Coyotes organization better deal with their financial situation before the reputation of the team is ruined, and have lost all of their fan base, they need to do what is best for the team, leave business tactics out of rink!

A Side Note

In the class that I am taking (the one that sparked me to write this blog) there is a re-occurring theme in the students’ blogs.  Everyone seems disinterested and disconnected from the blogosphere.  I feel as though I agree with them, as far as I know, I have a readership of zero.  There are far too many blogs for my blog to surface to the right people. I don’t blame any specific reason.  

There are way to many blogs made by journalists who have had experience in the field.  Even people that have successful blogs, but have zero professional training consider themselves journalists.  If my blog was constructed as well as some of the sports blogs out there, I’m sure I would want to consider myself a journalist as well.  Things brings us to the big money question that everyone asks: who is a journalist.  My answer would have to be,  we never really had this problem before the internet emerged, but I don’t think it will be answered any other way, it’s much too ambiguous.    

Aside from my thoughts about the actual experience of blogging, the Phoenix Coyotes now have a montreal business man wanting to take over the franchise from the NHL.  But the thing is, he isn’t interested in relocating them to Canada!  

The National Post’s headlines to this story lead me to believe different, when I read the headline to the story, I was under the impression that the Coyotes might be headed to Quebec.  That isn’t the case.  This is just a business man who has a dream to have his own hockey team.

More Bids For Coyotes

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/ice-edge-again-takes-aim-at-coyotes/article1341220/

The link above is to an article written for the globe and mail at the end of October.  A group called Ice Edge put in a bid for the Coyotes, and plans to keep them in Glendale.  The NHL’s main concern for potential buyers, is that they keep the team in Glendale, Arizona.  Ice Edge plans to, but proposes the idea of having a few home games in Saskatoon. An investor from Ice Edge believes that there is still a fan base in Phoenix that is willing to support them.

My question to investor Daryl Jones is: If there is a fan base willing to support the Coyotes, then why are they in financial trouble in the first place?  If we take the Toronto Maple Leafs for example, they are a team with a strong fan base, no matter how badly they do in their season, fans still go out and support them.  The Coyotes need to find a place where the same will happen for them.  The NHL needs to consider what is best for the team, and not what is best for their wallets.

This article also caught my interest because the comment section at the bottom gave the article a chance to be objective.  Someone had commented giving a point of view that made the reader think at the end of the article what Ice Edge is really doing (whether they are “desperate or devious”), and what the NHL’s agenda is in even bargaining with Ice edge.  This comment makes me further doubt that the NHL is looking out for the well being of the team, and to keep all key financial players happy.  Hockey has gone corporate ladies and gentlemen.

The Real Story Debate

LINK: http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Players+need+know+real+Coyotes+story/2198984/story.html

This story, I found on theprovince.com (a Can-West Vancouver Newspaper’s online site) sparked my interest.  The article written by Tony Gallagher was an opinion piece summarizing the team’s financial events over the past months, and criticizing the key stake-holders in the team’s struggle.  He clearly shows his dislike towards the Players Association (NHLPA), and critiques businessmen’s actions who have had a say in the Coyotes organization.  

Aside from the content of the article, I am more interesting in the content in which this article is produced.  I found this article on GoogleNews.  If I had not known any better, I would have thought that this was a news article rather than an opinion piece.  The language that Tony had used was emotionally charged, which then lead me to believe that it was an opinion piece.  The article was under “sports” and not opinion.  The article was from Tony’s viewpoint of this issue, but at the bottom of the article, there was space to comment on the topic as long as your comment didn’t have foul language in it.  Most of the comments on this news topic were well constructed, informative, and objective.  The comments allowed for discussion between each other and the one comment refuted the journalist’s (Tony) viewpoint in the article.  

I believe this article means a lot for democracy and blogging. It allows people to comment on the article, state their opinion, whether they agree or disagree with the journalist and usually they explain why they feel that way.  After reading the article, the reader can see a different opinions than the one that was presented in the piece that they had just read, it gives the reader a multi-perspective view of the public opinion.

You don’t really have this convenience with a print article or a television broadcast on the 6:00 news.

Coyotes!

Coyotes off to a Great Start.

 

The fans of the Phoenix Coyotes are very active in the blogosphere and getting their voices heard. I have come across several heated YouTube videos involving fan’s comments on the issue of the Coyotes moving to Hamilton. The fans are very supportive of the Players, but a little more critical of the business side of things.

On a side note, personally, although I am not a true fan of the Coyotes, the issue sparks my interest. I think that bringing an NHL team to Hamilton is a positive thing. Basillie proposed a plan to renovate Copps Coliseum, it would bring revenue and tourists to the City. Many fans have mentioned that Buffalo isn’t far away, and Toronto. I don’t know if everyone realizes, but NY had the Islanders and the Rangers. Basillie would also bail the team out of their financial trouble. The Leafs have sold out games every time they play, who’s to say that the Coyotes wouldn’t have the same support in Hamilton.

Back to the hardcore fans of Phoenix. There are many well constructed blogs that are targeted towards Phoenix fans. They have multimedia (videos, pictures), tons of related hyperlinks, polls, comments, ways to link the blog to your Facebook or Twitter account, all in all, it’s just a well constructed blog that is updated daily with a great readership. The Bleacher Report is another website who is partnered up with FOX Sports and MSN. It is an opinion, news site, and promotes a sense of community among sports fans. In terms of Democracy, this means that fans can get their voices out to other fans from their own computer, and debate about issues such as this one. But the conflict is: will the voices of the fans get to the people who make the important decisions regarding the relocation of the Coyotes? And if the voice reaches the businessmen, will the fans’ voices be a deciding factor for the future of the team?

These sports blogs are a great tool for fans to debate and voice opinions. Before blogs, there were just sports highlights and programs on television (such as Hockey Night In Canada), where sports professionals were the only ones to comment on the game, the players, drafts, the team conflicts, and other issues. But now, just about anyone with a computer can comment and debate whether it be in a form of a YouTube video or a blog, or twitter.

But just an update, that the Coyotes had a great game in September and October, if they continue down the winning path, they may make it to playoffs for the first time in seven years! Despite all the turmoil off the ice, the team on ice doesn’t seem phased by it!