The multi-talented Sean Shapiro posted a couple of paragraphs regarding a certain organization’s inability or unwillingness to speak with the media and/or fans during a certain GM’s tenure, and while I never said this out loud, I have been thinking it since Ken Holland left the organization:
On another front, I’m fascinated to see what this does to the culture of the Red Wings, and how open/friendly the organization is going forward. Yzerman kept things locked down to an extreme level, outside of the head coach and himself, no one from hockey operations was ever available to the media. There were also in-house limitations on the Red Wings public relations and content teams that no other team in the league had to deal with, it’s something I’ve personally witnessed in my role, and while there were never complaints from those people, you could see how the ethos from the top made their job more difficult.
For those people, and fan access to the team, this news should make their job easier, and I’m a firm believer that the GM truly sets the tone of how much an organization is and isn’t willing to live in a new media world.
That matters to me, obviously, because I’d love my job to be easier, and I’d love for the Red Wings to be more like the Dallas Stars, where the GM actually encourages members of his staff to be interviewed for stories, but for any Detroit fans, only one thing really matters.
Continued (paywall); Yzerman just didn’t make himself available to the media, which is one thing…
The fact that the Horcoff, Draper, Yawney, Tanguay, etc. couldn’t talk to the media as Yzerman’s emissaries made things particularly difficult…
And there is a wall between franchise and fan base right now. There really is, and it’s got to change.
