I have discovered an interesting dilemma recently that I'm finding to be more of an issue when posting articles or information about hockey that I thought I would share with everyone because I just do not know and cannot tell you if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Let me start by giving you some background:
In my hockey cyberspace travels over the years it's something that has changed a lot from the days of faceoff.com where you knew a writer like Peter Botte of the Daily News was doing a weekly team report for them or Alan Hahn of Newsday was doing his weekly update report for the Sporting News.
For those who remember this also know both sites stop doing updates from the print media and cut out team reports from local hockey writers.
I posted a link to the New York Sun yesterday in the daily articles because it has occasional updates on the Islanders in their NHL section and the work has a quality that impresses me. I was also very happy to see it in a New York City publication because the News, Times and Post have been a disaster in terms of hockey coverage.
I find the occasional work by Kevin Greenstein in the Sun to be very good in general and he was one of the few writers with the insight to see last year's Islanders were not going to be as bad as many predicted and he knew his subject.
What I found out this morning by reading the entire page is that Mr Greenstein who wrote the article and another good NHL update today on the NHLPA changes also posted the same information on a site called InsideHockey.com where it says he is Editor in Chief.
Recently after crediting a writer here named Brian Bohl for an Islander article in the Daily News, I was told Mr Bohl writes for NY Sports Day (updated 10-27/thanks Adam) who's website does a good job letting it's readers know on the main page they are an independent sports website that is not affiliated with any other news organization.
Last summer or the one before one of the two Boston publications (Globe or Herald) in their summer rumors section took a fan Internet rumor off of a message forum and posted it in their Sunday blurbs about Alexei Yashin and a number one pick being traded to another team. This made the rounds to several mainstream media sources before someone figured out the Globe or Herald professional writer did not get his/her rumor from a hockey source but a fan posting off of a message forum.
Earlier this year a fellow by the name of Tom Liodice who was at HF during my time there and does an excellent job covering the Bridgeport Sound Tigers was surprised to discover his article on the Sound Tigers appeared in a visiting teams newspaper publication. When I congratulated him he asked me to find the link and sent it to him because he did not know.
What I am getting at here is are the newspaper editors taking posters and bloggers off their own websites who cover games and printing their work to supplement hockey coverage or are these members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association of America?
Are we at a point where it's fair to ask is there a difference as long as the work is of good quality?
Can we even tell the difference in some cases anymore given the quality work of some of these folks who do supplement coverage vs the established hockey writer receiving less and less space. A few newspapers feature blogs of folks who are not team beat writers.
All this brings me back to the Professional Hockey Writers Association of America because I always get a chuckle when someone writes about the Long Island Chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association of American nominating a player for an award because all I saw was one beatwriter for Newsday whether it was John Valenti or Alan Hahn and now Greg Logan or someone sitting in an office who had never written a hockey article.
During the 2002 Carolina-Detroit finals then President Larry Brooks of the New York Post reportedly lobbied to keep amateur writers out of covering the final and failed.
How do I know this? Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette told us in his column later that year where Mr Brooks never mentioned it in his Sunday NY Post Column.
I used to have a very conservative opinion on this and now I just do not know anymore so I would like to hear from others.
All I can tell you is New York Islander Fan Central will not be appearing in the New York Times Islander blog section unless I know about it.