Eric Stephens

[The Midnight Burrito]

Seems like an okay guy. Not the greatest writer IMO. Spread too thin covering a sport he's not all that interested in including a team he appears to have abandoned. I don't think that reflects on his character, it's just annoying.

That about covers it.

Click to read more...

 

[jiggsawpuzzle35]

We don’t live in a hockey crazed market. I think most of us are looking for a beat reporter who’s also an insider and that’s not going to be him. He’s fine when he exclusively covers the Ducks and not the Kings.

 

[Leonardo87]

Stephens has always been respectful, has replied to some of my tweets or posts on the Athletic. I just think him covering two teams has spread his coverage thin, really don't blame him though. I look to get morning skate updates, injury updates, and maybe some interviews from players at those skates/practices. Derek Lee has been doing a great job with that.

Because of the lack of coverage, it's not worth it for me to renew my subscription.

 

[TheGoodShepard1]

Cannot believe we actually made a thread about this lol. But I guess it beats this board being hi-jacked by repeated discussions about him.

 

[Leonardo87]

Cannot believe we actually made a thread about this lol. But I guess it beats this board being hi-jacked by repeated discussions about him.

It's fine, I don't want other threads going off-topic. There is so much to discuss about this roster and team, and Stephens should not be one of them in those other threads.

 

[DuckDuckGetz]

Seeing "Tribute" made me think he died - happy that's not the case lol.

I understand fans wanting a bit more digging from our writers but the reality is that HFBoards is a tiny subset of a small market fandom. 95% of Ducks fans probably don't even know who he is.

Not to mention, an "important" part of modern sports journalism is having a persona on social media, so I don't really mind that he tweets about other stuff. The hate he gets is absurd imo.

 

[MMC]

He's very polite when I see him coming through the media entrance

 

[JAHV]

I apologize for infecting other threads with my Eric Stephens thoughts, but it bothered me that he was so maligned around here. He's far from the best hockey writer, but I don't think he deserves the harsh criticism that's been thrown his way.

I'm not on social media, so my only interactions with Eric have been reading his stuff (first in the Register and the past few years in The Athletic), sending stuff in to his mailbags, and commenting on his articles on The Athletic, to which he's replied several times. In those limited interactions, he strikes me as someone who's good at writing, who enjoys his job, and who is incredibly polite and gracious. I've enjoyed his writing over the years, and it's been a good source of Ducks content.

My quibbles with him are few:

• He's a good writer, but he's not great. I'm not putting him up there in the echelon of great beat writers. He gets the job done in a satisfactory fashion.
• He has never cultivated sources or inside access (even while with the Register) that would give him those little extra insights into what some of the organization's top members are thinking when they make decisions. I understand the Ducks are tight-lipped, so I'm not blaming him for this necessarily, but it is something his content has lacked throughout the years that would have given it a bit of extra juice.
• Now that he's covering at least two teams for The Athletic (Ducks and Kings) and, seemingly, a third this season (Sharks), he's really not providing much of anything. We used to get three or four Ducks articles per week. It dropped to two last year, if we were lucky, since I'm sure he's been told to focus more on the better, larger market team (Kings). That's a huge bummer for me, since there aren't many places to go to consume professional-grade Ducks content. I love the rest of the hockey content on The Athletic enough to keep my subscription, but this is a big blow to my enjoyment of that site. I may consider canceling in the near future. However, I don't blame Stephens for any of this. When Lisa Dillman left her Kings beat, I assume Stephens was told by The Athletic that he would either lose his job or have to cover multiple teams. That choice seems like an easy one and doesn't deserve scorn.

It's not so much that I think he's unassailable as a beat writer, but more that I don't understand the vitriol. At worst, he seems like a nice guy who made a tough professional choice that results in him producing far less Ducks content.

 

[Terry Yake]

the amount of hate he gets on here is hilarious

 

[McDonald19]

Thankfully we have Derek Lee feeding us Ducks info. nowadays.

 

[robbieboy3686]

If anyone knows what his Venmo/cashapp is, plZ lmk. I’ll send him money for a beer and I’ll just leave it at that

Thankfully we have Derek Lee feeding us Ducks info. nowadays.

D lee Is an example of chasing what you love and not the money, and at the same time finding the money as a result. Guys living the dream

 

[Anaheim4ever]

Liked It when he was with the OC register and enjoyed his articles there but on Athletic not as much. I don't understand the hate he gets either. In general we aren't gonna have outstanding super quality insider reporters for our market.

It's not like he's calling people wrong names and it's not like he's Felix sicard.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Stephens has always been respectful, has replied to some of my tweets or posts on the Athletic. I just think him covering two teams has spread his coverage thin, really don't blame him though. I look to get morning skate updates, injury updates, and maybe some interviews from players at those skates/practices. Derek Lee has been doing a great job with that.

Because of the lack of coverage, it's not worth it for me to renew my subscription.

I think he's covering three teams now: Ducks, Kings, and Sharks. That must suck for him to be spread that thin.

Stephens gets a bad rap because many think he supposed to be a beat writer, when he's more of a long form type writer.

On a tangent, I totally forgot that Dillman left the OCRegister. They got Andrew Knoll writing articles now. At least they have a writer. Here's a sample of his writing:

Ducks’ Leo Carlsson expected to make NHL debut against Stars

The No. 2 overall pick in June’s NHL draft, Carlsson sat out the first two games but will likely center the top line alongside Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras and log significant power-play time on Th…

www.ocregister.com

 

[HanSolo]

He's a respectable guy but honestly, even before he was assigned to the Kings it always felt like he was doing the bare minimum when it came to Ducks coverage.

I know reference to dual fandom is a testy subject but I didn't really realize how bad it was until the VGK entered the league, who have like 3-4 guys who do the same job as beat reporter and do it diligently (Ken Boeklhe (SinBin), Jesse Granger (the Athletic), Ryan The Hockey Guy (Fox Sports LV), Ben Gotz (LV Review Journal)) any time some update is made public you can count on these four guys immediately tweeting the same update at roughly the same time.

The best coverage of Leo Carlsson's injury status came from Elliote Friedman of all people. I get Anaheim is a smaller market but the weak coverage is frustrating. Derek Lee does a solid job for a little known publication but I find it really hard to believe that in the entire state of California there isn't one man or woman with a passion for sports reporting who is worth a hire to cover a major sports team diligently.

 

[Ducks DVM]

People who don’t like him should just treat him the way they should treat an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend. Move on, stop obsessing, ignore them, and move on to the new hotness.

Derek Lee.

 

[JAHV]

I will definitely check out Lee's stuff regularly. I appreciate all the tweets people have shared of his. It's good stuff.

 

[Quack Shot]

Stephens has always been respectful, has replied to some of my tweets or posts on the Athletic. I just think him covering two teams has spread his coverage thin, really don't blame him though. I look to get morning skate updates, injury updates, and maybe some interviews from players at those skates/practices. Derek Lee has been doing a great job with that.

Because of the lack of coverage, it's not worth it for me to renew my subscription.

Same here, cancelled my subscription awhile back. Wasn’t worth keeping.

 

[Mr Rogers]

to put in a few words only: hockey is far from his favourite sport and in no way is he a fan of the team and it shows. Derek is a fan and his content is just a lot better

To those who have said Eric has been a little snooty/snobby to fans at times, i'm with you. i've seen him appear dismissive of inquiring fans over the years - it seemed like fake exasperation to me and manufactured irritation but either way it was dumb. especially when he was on twitter more, a little less so now but that's probably because he doesn't even use twitter.

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

D lee Is an example of chasing what you love and not the money, and at the same time finding the money as a result. Guys living the dream

How did you come to this conclusion?

 

[TheGoodShepard1]

We don’t live in a hockey crazed market. I think most of us are looking for a beat reporter who’s also an insider and that’s not going to be him. He’s fine when he exclusively covers the Ducks and not the Kings.

This is true to an extent, but I find it hard to believe in 20+ years covering the team, he couldn't find an in with a single source inside the building. Which then means we have to rely on (inter)national media, who couldn't have been bothered to provide much information, even when they were good.

 

[Ducks DVM]

This is true to an extent, but I find it hard to believe in 20+ years covering the team, he couldn't find an in with a single source inside the building. Which then means we have to rely on (inter)national media, who couldn't have been bothered to provide much information, even when they were good.

I would PM with him 10-12 years ago on Twitter, and he was adamant that he would only report on things he knew 100% to be true, because he wanted to maintain his credibility. I found that reasonable and admirable, and don’t think that (understandable as it may be) the “I WANT!” desires of fans trumps that.

 

[Ducks]

It's not so much that I think he's unassailable as a beat writer, but more that I don't understand the vitriol. At worst, he seems like a nice guy who made a tough professional choice that results in him producing far less Ducks content.

So far the reasons I've seen in here and other threads are:

"He's not a hockey insider."
"Hockey isn't his favorite sport."
"He's not getting paid enough to care."

also "He's snooty."

Make of that what you will, but don't for any reason in this thread imply that these are shallow reasons that don't match the level of vitriol he gets and that there's probably a more obvious reason behind these excuses that we're apparently not allowed to acknowledge.

 

[Mr Rogers]

So far the reasons I've seen in here and other threads are:

"He's not a hockey insider."
"Hockey isn't his favorite sport."
"He's not getting paid enough to care."

also "He's snooty."

Make of that what you will, but don't for any reason in this thread imply that these are shallow reasons that don't match the level of vitriol he gets and that there's probably a more obvious reason behind these excuses that we're apparently not allowed to acknowledge.

I can only speak for myself, but i personally said the same type of things about Dan Wood. i'm sure they're great people, but they leave you wanting more and aren't great at their job. Also Stephens has been a little snarky to fans (online at least) over the years, and i'd know because i was one of them a while back. it sticks out to me because of how unusual i thought it was for a beat writer to respond to fans like that, not because of anything else.

 

[JAHV]

I would PM with him 10-12 years ago on Twitter, and he was adamant that he would only report on things he knew 100% to be true, because he wanted to maintain his credibility. I found that reasonable and admirable, and don’t think that (understandable as it may be) the “I WANT!” desires of fans trumps that.

This was the impression I got from him - that he was only willing to report absolute facts that he got on the record. There are other beat writers who get around this by having other sources or by being a bit more speculative based on what they've seen. Stephens seemed unwilling to do that.

While I would have appreciated the extra tidbits, I understand why he does things the way he does. It seems like he takes journalistic integrity very seriously, which I appreciate as well.

 

[JAHV]

I can only speak for myself, but i personally said the same type of things about Dan Wood. i'm sure they're great people, but they leave you wanting more and aren't great at their job. Also Stephens has been a little snarky to fans (online at least) over the years, and i'd know because i was one of them a while back. it sticks out to me because of how unusual i thought it was for a beat writer to respond to fans like that, not because of anything else.

Perhaps this was on Twitter, which I've never joined. His interactions in his mailbags, in his chats, and in the comment sections of his articles has always been unfailingly polite and gracious. I can't dispute your personal experience and it sucks that you had a bad one. I've just never seen it, and others who have commented on meeting him in person have said that he was quite amiable.