Hello folks, finally got around to reading this and I have to say 1. I appreciate this discussion about my reasoning/reporting far more than other discussions I've seen elsewhere. I think it's fair, and I think you should be questioning me. I also think the person who said I'm confused if I want to be a social media personality or a professional beat writer is absolutely correct -- I am confused about that in navigating the current media landscape. I love writing stories, I hate day-to-day stuff, and I simply cannot shut up when it comes to giving my opinion. I also wanted to say 2. if you don't want me hanging around here and occasionally popping in I'll delete my account, not trying to be a hall monitor or call people out for anything, but sometimes I like to get story ideas/etc. from here because there is often a lot of really insightful back-and-forth that makes me think differently than the hivemind of Twitter.
I did want to address the ethnic vs. racial slur thing: I referred to it as a "racial slur" while questioning Tony and he didn't correct me, so then I went "slur" in the story. I want to make it clear that in no part of my reporting did I call him a racist, and I get there can be splitting hairs when it comes to these definitions. I simply referred to it as a "slur" in the story. I also wanted to say the story mentioned nothing about his politics, just that he engaged in a politically charged conversation with a fan that resulted in him urging the fan to find him outside of MSG. (
The Hurricanes' signing of Tony DeAngelo was a choice — and one that could change the perception of the team).
If I needed everyone in hockey to agree with my admittedly radical political views I'd be very disappointed. As I've tweeted, it'd be extremely naïve to assume even half of any NHL locker room is liberal. That was never the issue, and no one has to agree with me about politics. The main red flags for me, as I hope the article represented if you read it in good faith, are the temper, fan relations, and the fact that he was literally waived by a team less than a year ago. How does that not raise some eyebrows?
I was actually going into that press conference hoping he had changed and the Canes had more to say than they did. That press conference was on them, not Tony. I respected Tony for answering questions head on although I sincerely don't believe he's "changed" because I wasn't presented with enough evidence. I am open to the possibility that he has, though. I don't think Bear should have been questioned about this but the response was encouraging, and I tweeted it out for that reason.
And finally, you'll notice in my tweets about the Virtanen situation I was Careful to say "THE CANES say the team never had interest in Virtanen." A source not with the Canes is the one who told me and the multiple reporters who tweeted the initial reports that the Canes were interested. I'm still working on figuring out the truth there, but the Canes saying they weren't interested doesn't mean enough to me to throw that all out the window.
Anyways, cheers
