Portzline leaving the Dispatch

[DarkandStormy]

^^FYI, the piece is not pay-walled.

 

[Viqsi]

As a Miami student, I say OSU can suck it.

As a side note, is this what most of Porty's articles are like now? Because if so, I'll subscribe immediately. That was a great article.

So far the bulk of his articles have been his usual player-by-player previews that he does every year, plus a handful of extra ones for things like the Wennberg signing. Those previews have been coming out at the rate of one per day, though, so they're kind of dominating his output at the moment.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Porty posted a long piece about how tOSU has ignored the young Ohio talent and how young players feel (not good) about tOSU.

It's a piece the Dispatch would NEVER had let him write, IMO. He kills the Buckeyes. Fairly.

I asked him.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

As a Miami student, I say OSU can suck it.

In all seriousness though, it comes down to one thing other than recruitment as to why players choose Miami over OSU. At Miami, hockey is the sport on campus. It's pretty awesome actually, being a hockey fan here. At OSU, it's much further down the ladder.

Even though Miami's rink is small, it's packed for every game, and it's loud as hell, and there is a lot of hockey tradition. At OSU, there is also a lot of tradition, and maybe even more people coming to games, but I'm sure playing in the Schott with thousands of empty seats doesn't create a similar atmosphere.

I would like to see both schools be able to succeed in mining the talent here, but obviously I'm fine with Miami having the edge. Partially because the arrogance of OSU has always been apparent to me, and also because it's cool for me to watch central Ohio kids play here- knowing that they played at the same rinks I did, and that we might've even played against each other a long time ago before they were this good, is pretty awesome.

That above is definitely something OSU can and should tap into, given that it really is the hometown school, but Miami deserves a lot of credit for jumping on this immediately. Good for them.

Miami had its day in the sun. They are a very mediocre program now. Blasi has become quite blase.

Also, tickets are pretty easy to get. And they don't pack the place every game anymore-as if packing a 3,000 seat bandbox with free tickets to students amounts to much in the first place.

 

[GoJackets1]

Miami had its day in the sun. They are a very mediocre program now. Blasi has become quite blase.

Also, tickets are pretty easy to get. And they don't pack the place every game anymore-as if packing a 3,000 seat bandbox with free tickets to students amounts to much in the first place.

Any team that graduates it's entire team in two years is going to have a couple bad years.

Also, I never said that it was hard to get tickets. All I said was, and this is a shocker, a small filled stadium is a better atmosphere than the Schott with 13000 empty seats.

Sorry Miami offends you. Agreed on Blasi though.

 

[CBJ goalie]

On Twitter, for the Blue Jackets I follow;

@CBJProspects - They put up snippets and clips of what the franchise prospects are doing.
@CBJFoundation - Charity events and works.
@TReed1919 - Dispatch writer has moved to The Athletic
@APortzline - Ditto
@BobbyMacSports - Bob McElligott has his CBJ in 30 podcasts linked and announced to Twitter, usually a daily thing during the season.
@LeoWelch - a quiet Twitter user, but some interesting stuff.
@RobMixer - Writer and contributor to several publications
@BlueJacketsNHL - official team feed
@ShellyHawk45 - Jody Shelly - usually some good takes.

For General Hockey;
@TSNBobMcKenzie - always has insight and good rumors on deals
@Craig Custance - The Athletic Editor
@KeeperoftheCup - Phil Pritchard - I wish I could be this guy!
@Buccigross - John Buccigross - if you never played Bucci's Overtime Challenge, you need to check it out.

I also follow a couple players. Bobrovsky has joined Twitter this summer and it has been fun and interesting watching him travel all around Europe and Russia. He just put up a picture of him rock climbing in Aspen Colo this morning. It has been amazing to watch him get more and more familiar with English and engage with fans and friends.

Fantastic stuff, thanks for this!

 

[Cyclones Rock]

Any team that graduates it's entire team in two years is going to have a couple bad years.

Also, I never said that it was hard to get tickets. All I said was, and this is a shocker, a small filled stadium is a better atmosphere than the Schott with 13000 empty seats.

Sorry Miami offends you. Agreed on Blasi though.

Miami hardly offends me. Many of my academically challenged high school classmates went there and I had a great time during my many visits to Oxford.

 

[Forepar]

Per new Dispatch writer Adam Jardy today, the Jackets got swept in 4 last year.

Felt like I was reading a piece written for a high school team in the small local paper (not just for that reason, just a choppy puffy piece with lots of unnecessary set up for the quotes that were included. Got to step it up...and yes I am still mostly a print guy, although all the ravings here about The Athletic have me considering it.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Seriously, now that they have added all the major Canadian cities, there is SO MUCH hockey coverage now....it's awesome.

 

[GoJackets1]

Miami hardly offends me. Many of my academically challenged high school classmates went there and I had a great time during my many visits to Oxford.

Congrats on not being academically challenged then, I suppose. :

 

[1857 Howitzer]

Per new Dispatch writer Adam Jardy today, the Jackets got swept in 4 last year.

Felt like I was reading a piece written for a high school team in the small local paper (not just for that reason, just a choppy puffy piece with lots of unnecessary set up for the quotes that were included. Got to step it up...and yes I am still mostly a print guy, although all the ravings here about The Athletic have me considering it.

He's the OSU BB beat writer.

 

[Samkow]

Is Mixer's writing at all like his twitter feed?

 

[Heinze 57]

That was a good article and pretty enlightening. I sort of know John Markell personally who is still the only Ohio State head coach to guide the team to the Frozen Four and he said recruiting hockey players to OSU was like recruiting baseball players to the University of Toronto. There's some local talent, but not enough to sustain an entire team. In fairness to OSU there's a lot of barriers to winning a recruit that other schools don't have and this area still isn't a hockey hotbed. They should go harder after local talent, but I can see their point of view as well.

I'm an OSU hockey fan and rooting for them to figure their s*** out, but I don't hate Miami. Two major collegiate hockey programs that close performing consistently well could only help grow the participation of the sport in the state. A kid growing up in Columbus probably doesn't have a realistic shot of playing professional hockey, but collegiate hockey isn't that far fetched a dream.

 

[Heinze 57]

I asked him.

That's a pretty diplomatic answer and doesn't really answer the question.

He was never told no, but he probably knew better than to ever ask if he could write an OSU smear article for the Columbus Dispatch in the first place.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

I doubt a long-term professional writer would ever be afraid to ask to write an article about something so meaningless.

 

[Old Guy]

In response to what Heinz shared, I find that believable. Which is why somebody should have responded and contributed OSU's point of view in this article. To ignore the story and refuse to participate reinforces the arrogance in my opinion. Why not talk?

 

[Jaxs]

In response to what Heinz shared, I find that believable. Which is why somebody should have responded and contributed OSU's point of view in this article. To ignore the story and refuse to participate reinforces the arrogance in my opinion. Why not talk?

Would definitely like to see OSU's retort to Portzline's article.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

GREAT piece by Porty on Biitner after the game today

https://theathletic.com/97465/2017/09/08/portzline-paul-bittner-returns-to-hockey-in-a-big-way/

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Long interview with Torts just posted

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Long interview with Torts just posted

To me, it seems like Torts is expecting this team to not be as good as last years team.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

It read to me where he thinks the team needs to be better than last year to get the same amount of points. When he said about 1/3 the way through the year, "I think this year we may get the bounces," he knows winning 16 in a row won't happen. Just an expectation of having to work harder.

 

[Heinze 57]

That's what I expected to hear from Torts and I agree with him.

We're not going to get the benefit of catching 90% efforts from teams or seeing a lot of backups early in the season like we did last year so yeah it will be harder.

I think they'll be a better team, harder, more ready for the playoffs, who will have fewer points, but still makes the playoffs. We won't win 16 straight games ever again for as long as we live, but we might have a 9 wins in 10 stretch or something like that. I also don't expect the mini-collapse they had at the end of the season to happen again. That goes both ways.

 

[Monk]

That's what I expected to hear from Torts and I agree with him.

We're not going to get the benefit of catching 90% efforts from teams or seeing a lot of backups early in the season like we did last year so yeah it will be harder.

I think they'll be a better team, harder, more ready for the playoffs, who will have fewer points, but still makes the playoffs. We won't win 16 straight games ever again for as long as we live, but we might have a 9 wins in 10 stretch or something like that. I also don't expect the mini-collapse they had at the end of the season to happen again. That goes both ways.

This. Better team, fewer points.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

This. Better team, fewer points.

Tastes great, less filling.

 

[Monk]

Tastes great, less filling.

That's what she said.