Take Your Ball and Go Home, Jim
Posted by jtbourne on August 22, 2009 · 2 Comments
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Still in my relative infancy as a writer, I’ve been encountering a frequent problem:
How can I write honestly and accurately about NHL news, when the players in question are not only playing like dogs and making poor decisions, but personal friends?
How can I sit down and write something about Dany Heatley conducting himself in a less-than-professional manner this summer, something that could show up in USA Today, when I know and like him? What if he reads it?
Will I ever get another genuine comment? Am I a leper next summer in Kelowna? I don’t want to start alienating people.
The solution, thus far, has been to not touch those topics, but it’s getting increasingly hard to do that as writing has morphed into an actual job.
I’m still feeling out the boundries, but I’ve started getting more confident in my ability to give opinions without coming off too snide.
The good news?
I’ve never met, let alone seen, Jim Balsillie. And you know what I think he should do? Take his ball and go home. That link will take you to Hockey Primetime.com, where I explain his current situation a little better.
I'm a hockey player turned writer. After playing for Alaska Anchorage in the WCHA (NCAA), I carried on with an NHL tryout (New York Islanders in 2007) before spending a couple seasons in the AHL/ECHL (last year was 2008-09). My father, Bob Bourne, won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the '80's, as did my fiancee's dad, Clark Gillies. I'm now the web editor for theScore's hockey blog "Backhand Shelf."
how dare you speak lowly of Heatley. Without him, I wouldn’t have been in the background of the video of him walking into the dressing room yesterday, which made the sportsnet highlights all day. Nearly 3 people recognized me in it!
http://davecunning.wordpress.com
Interesting post.
All you can do is write honestly. I think above all else, people respect honesty.