Saturday Night's All Right for Irresponsible Journalism: Thoughts on the Ron Maclean/Alex Burrows controversy

by nucksandpucks on Jan 19, 2010 7:54 AM PST in Rants Comment 12 comments

This is obviously a little late to the game, but Dan Murphy weighed in yesterday with his thoughts about Ron Maclean's segment last Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada and it was the first thing I've read that really captured how I felt about the matter. I haven't read everything out there, but compared with what I have read this seems to be the sanest and strongest take on the matter and it inspired me to share my thoughts about the incident.

Three things in particular really frustrate me about Maclean's actions:

1) The complete absence of any attempt at impartiality.

Media is always biased, and HNIC seems to be moving more towards having opinionated commentators not named Don Cherry, but if you're going to do a story at least make a token effort to present the other side of the story. Part of this is Maclean's casual assertion of questionable truths as hard facts. An example of this is

"I can't imagine [Auger] said "I'll get you." We all agree on that."

Uh, do we Ron? Or is the fact that people don't agree on what Auger said one of the major reasons for this whole mess?

2) The cherry-picking of examples of Burrows' actions. As Murphy says,

Did anyone else think the transgressions that the CBC showed weren't all that disgusting? Burrows with a slight spear on Bouchard; Burrows leaves his feet for a hit; Burrows shoves a guy from the bench; Burrows trash-talks players prior to a game and during TV timeouts. Are you kidding me? What's the big deal? Not big enough for a suspension obviously.

Or, as canucklehead666 wrote on this blog two days ago,

Most alarmingly, the focus on the story was past transgressions of Alex Burrows, painting him in a light that even such noted dirty players like Sean Avery and Chris Pronger haven't seen.

Yes, Alex Burrows plays on (and frequently crosses) the edge. But so do countless player throughout the league. I guarantee that you could assemble a similar highlight package for at least 50 players in the league and it would be as damning, if not more so, than the one they showed on Burrows. But, as media outlets who I generally consider less credible than the CBC know all too well, you can cast anyone in pretty much any light if you cherry-pick the evidence effectively.

3) Ron Maclean's need to be the league policeman

Ron Maclean is a knowledgeable and clever hockey TV host. Maybe it's years of sitting next to the overly-opinionated Don Cherry and biting his tongue, but when Maclean gets a chance to an air an opinion he can do so in an annoyingly pious and arrogant. In this instance, apparently Ron Mclean felt the need to play Sherlock Holmes for the NHL by exposing years of Burrows' transgressions - as if the league wasn't freakin' aware of this already. For me, the most striking line from the Murphy piece was this point:

The diving call Auger made on Burrows in the Nashville game was the second diving penalty of his career. The first happed in 2006. So if Burrows has been on a watch-list for quite some time then he must be playing pretty cleanly.

Huh, you'd think a guy who Maclean claims has such a spotty history of "chicanery" would have, y'know, received more diving penalties or suspensions in his career.

Apparently if Maclean ran the league it would by an idyllic place in which he would rule as a fair arbiter of hockey judgment. And apparently he feels the need, on this issue, to make it a personal crusade in which he is the shining knight who saves the NHL from its own inability to police itself.

******

I could carry on - I have the video playing as I write this, and I keep hearing things that just anger me. I have lost a lot of respect for Maclean because of this. He seems content to present a slanted point of view so long as it supports his personal point of view. There are millions of people out there who do this - fortunately they don't have a platform as large as Hockey Night in Canada on which to air their views.

Having that platform, and the legitimacy that it grants, makes Maclean's actions nothing better than irresponsible and biased journalism.

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Why

The only reason why McLean and Healy and Hrudy are jumping all over Burrows, is because he is not a Leaf. If he was a Leaf they would be the first to be signing the petition to oust the dirty rotten Canadian hating ref who has it out for the leafs. :D

by WillBGoalie on Jan 19, 2010 8:08 AM PST reply actions

The NHL screwed up handling a situation again. McLean is just unfairly throwing more fuel on the fire.

On the other hand Burrows went about it wrong, letting emotion get the better, and attacking an official publically. Should have gone to the coach before the game and alerted the other officials of what had transpired and then handled it with the league itself.

If the allegation were true from Burrows perspective, Auger might have been suspended, fined, or what I believe to be the best course of action, be banned from officiating Vancouver Canuck games for the forseeable future and have been warned by his superiors on how to officiate with a level head and level hand.

If the allegation were untrue, then it would have been handled quietly and perhaps no fine at all. Again, remove Auger from officiating Canuck games.

By drawing the media in, and embarassing the official publically like that, of course the NHL was going to slap Burrows and brush it under the carpet as it does with everything negative. Officials have a difficult job and are under a lot of scrutiny and often take a lot of abuse from players, officials, fans, media, coaches, etc. (‘you suck ref’) so referees stick up for each other. If only he hadn’t allowed (Burr) his emotions to get the best of him and make this all public, maybe things could have been done better. That said, Burrows could have been a poster boy with offensive efforts and stats (tied with Iginla for goals) and his storied past (undrafted), an eye opener for the east which has less respect for western stars (due to the later starts and thus not watching any of them play – ie. CBC announcers when the Canucks travel east and they can’t get half the Canuck player names right). Too bad Burr piped up publically, and shame on the NHL for not investigating this properly, and also for allowing the media to affect directly/indirectly their decision (peer pressure) to ‘close the matter’ so immediately (just like the Ron Wilson tampering last summer – seems like the NHL doesn’t like our Canucks, heh).

by ceiling kat on Jan 19, 2010 9:31 AM PST reply actions

There are some positives that come from Burrows saying this in the media. I think now there is a spotlight on the refs every game. This will force the refs, at least for this season, to try their hardest to be impartial. I’m not saying all refs are like Auger but I believe that none of the refs want to add any other negative attention to the situation so I think in a way this will help.

by marcness52 on Jan 19, 2010 9:55 AM PST up reply actions

“Pious and arrogant”: exactly.

Used to be a guy who made outrageous puns and kind of simpered around to make sure that Don was sort of under control but still being Don.

Somewhere along the way, it appears, he started to see himself (and perhaps it’s because others saw him) as the voice of a certain Canada. Where the rough-n-tumble crowd might want Grapes as PM, Ronnie is the voice of the Others: the bad-sweater-wearing, Sting-concert-attending, secretly snobbish crowd. The ones who cringe a bit from the stuff Cherry says.

And so he became a more active protagonist on Coach’s Corner. And he started doing the Jerry-Springer-style “Final Thoughts” during the Hotstove, often blithely flying in the face of what the guests had said.

Very pretentious and irritating stance. Which is why the words “pious and arrogant” sum it up so nicely.

"He'll play, you know he'll play. He'll play on crutches if he has to... and he'll play at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night! This game is over!"

by narwhal on Jan 19, 2010 11:30 AM PST reply actions

Somewhere along the way, it appears, he started to see himself (and perhaps it’s because others saw him) as the voice of a certain Canada.

Very true… I think it really got going after he almost left the network a few years back, and there was a huge public outcry. I feel like that might have inflated his ego a tad too much.

by nucksandpucks on Jan 19, 2010 3:14 PM PST up reply actions

Personally, I’ll keep watching Ron. The guy cracks me up and is no doubt entertaining, even if he is cheesy.

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Jan 19, 2010 5:05 PM PST up reply actions

PapaBurr KNOWS!

http://www.vancouversun.com/business…093/story.html

“Ron MacLean, I didn’t really like him as a person before. He just seems like a puppet to Don Cherry and the CBC. He’s a puppet to most people, I guess. It was just very, very unprofessional.”

Alex Burrows, with 11 goals in his past seven games, was asked if he knew who else has managed that.
He was stumped, but when told it was the Calgary Flames, he roared with laughter.

by yoata on Jan 19, 2010 12:25 PM PST reply actions

I kinda think the Nordic sweater Ron donned, if you will, for the Winter Olympics (I forget which one – Torino?) was the beginning of the end of my respect for him. All of a sudden he seemed smug. I still kind of love him, but agree that his ‘evidence’ against Burrows was ridiculous.

by wjn on Jan 19, 2010 9:14 PM PST reply actions

I can't take it anymore have to add my two cents.

Sorry so long…but here goes.

While there have been some very well written stories about the real issue involving Alexandre Burrows, how is it that there are “credible” sports writers/commentators out there that seem to have missed the entire point of this saga? I don’t expect the fans that post a reply to one of the many columns written to be objective but I do expect that of the “journalist”.

A few cases here:

Kelly Hrudey who every time I have heard him speak on this subject he is more upset that Alex even mentioned it? It doesn’t appear that he cares about anything else, just the fact that Burrows called out Auger in the media. Right, wrong or indifferent the charge still needs to be considered. He has also mentioned that he had known refs would target players in the past because they wouldn’t keep their mouths shut etc… That seems, at least to me, lend more credence to Burrows claims.

The numerous writers who just want Burrows to shut up and take his medicine because he is an agitator, diver, embellisher (new word I made up), trash talker etc. Because apparently if you play the game that way you all of a sudden have zero credibility off the ice? I believe Jason Botchford/Dan Murphy did a very good job of pointing out that a person on the NHL “watch list” has been called for diving, which is apparently his biggest offense, twice in his career. He has never been suspended and as far as I know has never injured another player with a cheap shot (I am making an assumption there, but him not being suspended leads me to believe that). So this live by the sword die by the sword attitude that a lot of the “journalist” assign to this case just doesn’t hold water. What are they thinking when they write those articles?

Ron Maclean he spent eleven minutes to not make his point? He needed to go around and clarify his point? That tells me he had no point other than running Burrows through the mud. Why would he feel the need to do that? I was watching the video he showed and was waiting to see Burrows on the Grassy Knoll! While he did show some unflattering video the one he showed that blew me away was the one of him trash talking Khabibulin. Really Ron? I was unaware that Alexandre Burrows was the first athlete to trash talk another athlete? Ron do you have any naked pictures of your wife? Want some? One of the biggest baseball trash talk lines ever uttered? Ron I wouldn’t watch a sport if the players weren’t trash talking period! Give me a effen break!

All this begs the question why? why when Alexandre Burrows isn’t the first to ever bring up the question of a referee is he being slaughter by some members of the press? My “Oliver Stone” side coming out here, but if you can’t stifle them with truth then you misdirect and “slander”.

I have a few observations that I haven’t heard out there, that I know of:

I have heard commentators, even ones on Burrows side, say that even if the diving penalty was bogus that they could have called him for holding the stick. Okay I can buy that per the video. My question then is this…Why then did Stephane Auger feel the need to call a dive if he wasn’t trying to make a point?
This notion that “the ref is only human” defense? God if I hear that one more time I’m going to jab a #2 pencil in my ear. YES we all know the refs are human, no we don’t want robots! That being said I think that all of us fans while we will bitch and moan about a bad call we accept them as human. What I cannot accept is them bringing a personal grudge into a game with them. ONE of the biggest things they are paid for is impartiality! When they put that sweater on they are to leave their grudges in the locker room. If they can’t then they should quit. I don’t think that should just be a theory it should be a reality and in my opinion there is no reason for it not to be, but that’s just me? Also they are paid to ref that one game, not any game before hand.

Now I know that the majority of Canucks fans know that Burrows is no angel and I’m sure most of us wish that diving and embellishing would just leave the game, but that does not make him any less credible. I am truly hoping that some good will come of this for the NHL because I truly believe that this issue has more to do with the league as a whole than with Alexandre Burrows or Stephane Auger. I just want to know that the game I love to watch is being played on level ice. As do all NHL fans no matter where they live or what team they root for.

by Sharkbeight on Jan 19, 2010 11:04 PM PST reply actions 2 recs

Your comments are appreciated and are so well thought out that they should be in a fanpost, or even on our main page. Well-said.
Stay away from pencils! You will hear that statement again. Over and over again.

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Jan 20, 2010 1:36 AM PST up reply actions

That being said I think that all of us fans while we will bitch and moan about a bad call we accept them as human. What I cannot accept is them bringing a personal grudge into a game with them. ONE of the biggest things they are paid for is impartiality! When they put that sweater on they are to leave their grudges in the locker room. If they can’t then they should quit. I don’t think that should just be a theory it should be a reality and in my opinion there is no reason for it not to be, but that’s just me?

I would rec the hell out of this if I had more than one vote. :)

That is what bothers me to most about someone who says, “oh, every team has to deal with that.” NO teams should have to deal with refereeing that is intentionally incorrect. It implies that the NHL isn’t really capable of any better, it’s only a third-rate league, so how is it fair to expect high standards of professionalism? Bleargh.

"While there's life, there's hope." --Cicero

by Baroque on Jan 20, 2010 4:21 AM PST up reply actions

Leaving my feelings about what rate the NHL is as a league I will say I agree 100%. I think bad calls when they are human error do even out over the course of the season. But as you rightly pointed out, “No team should have to deal with refereeing that is intentionally incorrect.”

by Section 312 on Jan 20, 2010 9:56 AM PST up reply actions