News Article: Colorado Avalanche Media Coverage Part VI

[The Abusement Park]

I mean on the surface it's obviously bad that she makes stuff up. But the fact that she's done it for so long and no one knew kinda shows how useless sideline reporters are for the most part. At least she's lying about stuff that doesn't really matter as opposed to... well all political news.

 

[Foppa2118]

It's not just that she lied about what a coach said. It's that this completely tarnishes a reporter's credibility, and brings up a legitimate question, that since she's so comfortable lying in her reporting, how many other things did she lie about, and how can viewers take what she says as truth moving forward?

 

[Pokecheque]

I just wish actual news organizations were held to the same standards y'all want to hold Charissa to.

They are.

It's not just that she lied about what a coach said. It's that this completely tarnishes a reporter's credibility, and brings up a legitimate question, that since she's so comfortable lying in her reporting, how many other things did she lie about, and how can viewers take what she says as truth moving forward?

Yeah, she just brought a ton of scrutiny down on every other single reporter who has that job and a lot of them are already saying “No, we don’t do this and it’s not okay.”

I can’t believe she was so brazen about it. I know she’s more or less admitted to it in the past but according to that article she only implied that she embellished a bit, she never outright said that she created entire reports out of whole cloth.

 

[Foppa2118]

Yeah, she just brought a ton of scrutiny down on every other single reporter who has that job and a lot of them are already saying “No, we don’t do this and it’s not okay.”

I can’t believe she was so brazen about it. I know she’s more or less admitted to it in the past but according to that article she only implied that she embellished a bit, she never outright said that she created entire reports out of whole cloth.

And this is why there needs to be some accountability, instead of glossing over it.

The fact that nothing happened after she admitted to "embellishing", clearly made her feel like it was fine, so she just admitted she made it up.

She even referenced the fact that she didn't get fired as her reason for saying it again publicly. She took the lack of accountability as a sign that what she did was okay.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

If she's just making up some typical coach-speak BS cause they wouldn't talk to her, and it was talked about by the PBP/Color guy during the broadcast, I'd have no problem with that. Commentators do that before, after, and during every broadcast every day. Now, If she's making up blatantly false shit, and reporting it as fact, then I would have a problem with that. Otherwise, I could give a f***.

Per usual, the social justice warriors will blow this way out of proportion and get her fired.

 

[Foppa2118]

How is lying about what someone said ok, just because they wouldn't talk to you? I don't get it.

And how are you guys so confident this is the only thing she lied about or will lie about in the future?

Don't put words in someone else's mouth just to benefit your career. This is not ok.

 

[McMetal]

I just don't see what the big deal is I guess. Yes, she's bullshitting her reports, but at the same time, absolutely none of that shit matters in the slightest. Nobody can tell the difference between an accurately reported string of cliches and a made-up string of cliches. No coach is going to give a detailed report to the media at halftime about what their game plan is anyway, the whole concept of coaches giving halftime interviews is a farce. She isn't taking her job seriously, that's true, but the job is fundamentally unserious.

I kind of fail to see who the victim is in this scandal. Fans, maybe? But none of them are actually relying on the information given there, and if they are, they're fools. Sideline reports are puff pieces for entertainment purposes. They exist to fill airtime between plays, not give fans actual insight. I think people are more annoyed about the curtain being pulled back than they are about being lied to about something meaningless.

 

[willy702]

Imagine if she said Andy Reid wouldn't say anything to me. Then people pissed at Reid and maybe he gets fined for it. Then Chiefs fans call her names and then everyone gets into a social conversation over a big ball of nothing. The whole idea of these are dumb, sorry if I'm not outraged over it.

 

[Pokecheque]

If she's just making up some typical coach-speak BS cause they wouldn't talk to her, and it was talked about by the PBP/Color guy during the broadcast, I'd have no problem with that. Commentators do that before, after, and during every broadcast every day. Now, If she's making up blatantly false shit, and reporting it as fact, then I would have a problem with that. Otherwise, I could give a f***.

Per usual, the social justice warriors will blow this way out of proportion and get her fired.

This has nothing to do with getting her fired. It’s about the fact that she just made things harder in a profression where women are already judged and heavily scrutinized. It was flippant and completely unnecessary for her to do that.

And this is coming from someone who actually likes her and was kinda proud she started with the Rockies and graduated to some big-time national gigs.

I personally don’t want to see her get fired but I don’t see how she avoids some real and likely irreparable damage to her career now.

 

[Pokecheque]

Imagine if she said Andy Reid wouldn't say anything to me. Then people pissed at Reid and maybe he gets fined for it. Then Chiefs fans call her names and then everyone gets into a social conversation over a big ball of nothing. The whole idea of these are dumb, sorry if I'm not outraged over it.

You don’t have to be outraged about it. I’m not. But try and see why a few sideline reporters are dismayed at this. Look up what Laura Okmin said online.

I just kinda feel sad for her. She took a wrecking ball to her reputation and career with some flippant comments and I’m 100% positive she meant no harm. But now she’s persona non grata in the sports coverage community, and some real questions are now coming about whether sideline reporters are even necessary. No one wins here.

 

[Foppa2118]

I just don't see what the big deal is I guess. Yes, she's bullshitting her reports, but at the same time, absolutely none of that shit matters in the slightest. Nobody can tell the difference between an accurately reported string of cliches and a made-up string of cliches. No coach is going to give a detailed report to the media at halftime about what their game plan is anyway, the whole concept of coaches giving halftime interviews is a farce. She isn't taking her job seriously, that's true, but the job is fundamentally unserious.

I kind of fail to see who the victim is in this scandal. Fans, maybe? But none of them are actually relying on the information given there, and if they are, they're fools. Sideline reports are puff pieces for entertainment purposes. They exist to fill airtime between plays, not give fans actual insight. I think people are more annoyed about the curtain being pulled back than they are about being lied to about something meaningless.

I don't agree with this reasoning. If this reasoning was correct, then every sideline reporter can say whatever they want. Bald faced lying is perfectly acceptable, because it's sports.

Either lying is ok or it's not. Either reporters are allowed to intentionally lie or they're not.

I don't see any circumstance where it's ok to put words in someone's mouth that never talked to you, and report that to an audience of millions. Even if it's completely innocuous. She knew the coach wouldn't take the time to watch her sideline reports when they review games, and nobody would tell them either because they would just assume they told her that. She knows this, and she took advantage of it.

If the coach doesn't give you an interview, then you don't get an interview. It's that simple. You don't get to just make things up out of thin air, because you couldn't get an interview. That's the rules other reporters play by.

The victims are those other reporters with integrity, that got passed over for the job she got, because she purposely lied to benefit her career, and they didn't, so it looked like she was getting more scoops than them. Not only that, they have their own credibility questioned now, because now people think lying is commonplace.

And again, this is best case scenario that she never lied about anything else in her reporting, which IMO would be very naive to be confident that's not the case. Someone who would do this, and then brag about it, has a different set of ethics than other people. They have an ends justify the means mentality, and that always trickles over to other areas to some extent.

To be clear, because I haven't expressly said this, I'm not saying she needs to be fired. But there needs to be some accountability, instead of support for her actions. When you know a reporter lied, you can't just condone it, and defend them. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[McMetal]

I don't agree with this reasoning. If this reasoning was correct, then every sideline reporter can say whatever they want. Bald faced lying is perfectly acceptable, because it's sports.

Either lying is ok or it's not. Either reporters are allowed to intentionally lie or they're not.

I don't see any circumstance where it's ok to put words in someone's mouth that never talked to you, and report that to an audience of millions. Even if it's completely innocuous. She knew the coach wouldn't take the time to watch her sideline reports when they review games, and nobody would tell them either because they would just assume they told her that. She knows this, and she took advantage of it.

If the coach doesn't give you an interview, then you don't get an interview. It's that simple. You don't get to just make things up out of thin air, because you couldn't get an interview. That's the rules other reporters play by.

The victims are those other reporters with integrity, that got passed over for the job she got, because she purposely lied to benefit her career, and they didn't, so it looked like she was getting more scoops than them. Not only that, they have their own credibility questioned now, because now people think lying is commonplace.

And again, this is best case scenario that she never lied about anything else in her reporting, which IMO would be very naive to be confident that's not the case. Someone who would do this, and then brag about it, has a different set of ethics than other people. They have an ends justify the means mentality, and that always trickles over to other areas to some extent.

To be clear, because I haven't expressly said this, I'm not saying she needs to be fired. But there needs to be some accountability, instead of support for her actions. When you know a reporter lied, you can't just condone it, and defend them. That doesn't make any sense.

I guess I just disagree with the framing of calling her job "reporting". "Reporter" implies a certain gravity that the job IMO doesn't deserve. Real journalists talk about things that matter, even a TMZ reporter has to watch what they say because of the possible reputational damage to whatever C-lister is the subject of the day. Local news reporters in small towns shape the conversation in their own little worlds even if the wider world doesn't care. But I am struggling to find an analogy to illustrate how utterly, completely pointless the job of a sideline reporter is in that situation. Even if they did say exactly what the coach told them verbatim the answers would be deliberately pointless, vague, and unhelpful.

If you're reporting on an injury to a player or something like that, that's consequential and you need to get it right. Filling in the gaps with fluff hurts the teams and the fans. But sideline reporters aren't there to give critical insight into the coaches decision making process. If they could do that, the coaches wouldn't let them be there. They're entertainers, and I think that's a fundamentally different role than that of a journalist.

Like I said, I think people are just mad that a dirty industry secret is being aired in public. Some people don't like it when pro wrestlers break Kayfabe because it spoils the illusion. She shouldn't have said it out loud, but the act itself I just think is a nothingburger of a story.

 

[Foppa2118]

I guess I just disagree with the framing of calling her job "reporting". "Reporter" implies a certain gravity that the job IMO doesn't deserve. Real journalists talk about things that matter, even a TMZ reporter has to watch what they say because of the possible reputational damage to whatever C-lister is the subject of the day. Local news reporters in small towns shape the conversation in their own little worlds even if the wider world doesn't care. But I am struggling to find an analogy to illustrate how utterly, completely pointless the job of a sideline reporter is in that situation. Even if they did say exactly what the coach told them verbatim the answers would be deliberately pointless, vague, and unhelpful.

If you're reporting on an injury to a player or something like that, that's consequential and you need to get it right. Filling in the gaps with fluff hurts the teams and the fans. But sideline reporters aren't there to give critical insight into the coaches decision making process. If they could do that, the coaches wouldn't let them be there. They're entertainers, and I think that's a fundamentally different role than that of a journalist.

Like I said, I think people are just mad that a dirty industry secret is being aired in public. Some people don't like it when pro wrestlers break Kayfabe because it spoils the illusion. She shouldn't have said it out loud, but the act itself I just think is a nothingburger of a story.

If she had exaggerrated what someone said, or added fluff to fill the gaps as you say, it would be one thing. But completely making up things that someone said, when they never talked to you is very different.

If I was the person that happened to, I would be very upset, even if she just said typical sports cliches. I'd be telling her bosses not to put words in my mouth, when I never talked to them.

She's still a reporter. She's reporting things that other's don't have the ability to know, because she has been given access that they haven't. That's a privilege she has that others don't, and that she was given over other reporters with the integrity not to lie. The viewers that don't have that access trust that she's not lying. Now that trust is broken. That's not a small deal.

Her lack of integrity to lie gave her a big advantage that probably helped her get the job, because it made her look better at getting "interviews" her peers couldn't gets. If you were one of the others that got passed over for her job, wouldn't you be a little upset?

If we normalize this, then it will undoubtably lead to reporters lying in other areas, that aren't as innocuous as sideline reporting. And again this is giving her the benefit of the doubt that she hasn't lied, or over stepped the lines of ethics in more important areas, which I would bet she has.

 

[McMetal]

If she had exaggerrated what someone said, or added fluff to fill the gaps as you say, it would be one thing. But completely making up things that someone said, when they never talked to you is very different.

If I was the person that happened to, I would be very upset, even if she just said typical sports cliches. I'd be telling her bosses not to put words in my mouth, when I never talked to them.

Hypothetically, would you still be upset if you knew that if they had asked you to make a statement, you would have said slightly different sports cliches instead of what they reported? It's all word salad in those interviews. Have you ever heard this exchange at halftime before on Monday Night Football?

"So coach, your team is down 10 points at the half and you're struggling to create offense. How are you going to change your strategy going into the second half?"

"Yeah, we've actually noticed that their zone coverage in the middle of the field has a weakness that we think we can exploit, so we're going to start aggressively attacking the middle of the field with our passing game and try to open up some third down options to convert on more of those."

You haven't heard a coach give a detailed, specific answer like that before, because obviously, why would they tip their hand like that on live TV? What if that gets back to the other sideline and their defensive coordinator adjusts? It could cost you the game.

So what the coach does instead is say some meaningless platitudes about how you have to want the ball more than the other team and they have to dig deep and make some big plays. Nobody pays attention to that because it's nonsense. So what's the difference between reporting somebody's intentionally obfuscating prattle and a slightly different version of that? Why would the coach care? They know they would have said something similarly empty if they had the chance, and the opposing coach doesn't even watch the report because they're fully aware that there's no useful information there anyway, and they would spout the same drivel if they had the same opportunity.

So why do they bother to do the interviews at all if everybody knows they contain nothing of value? For entertainment. The "reports from the locker room" are a way for the NFL to make the viewer feel like they have insight behind the scenes so they feel closer to their team. Every fan is starving for information about how the game is going to change, so much so that they will consume these worthless segments despite knowing deep down that the outcome of the game is still unknowable. They are selling the illusion of insight, nothing more.

If we normalize this, then it will undoubtably lead to reporters lying in other areas, that aren't as innocuous as sideline reporting. And again this is giving her the benefit of the doubt that she hasn't lied, or over stepped the lines of ethics in more important areas, which I would bet she has.

The value of her work in other areas may be tarnished, but that's really only because you know about it. Again, the problem isn't really the act itself, it's the fact that it was said aloud. When I worked in customer service as a supervisor, I would sometimes make up store policies that didn't exist because I needed the interaction to go a certain way. I massaged the truth to both get the result I needed and keep the customer from losing their shit about whatever dumbass thing they wanted me to know about. I can't tell you how many times I said the words "I'll talk to my manager about that" while knowing full well that I would not be doing that. I would sometimes go to the back of the store to "see if we had some in backstock" and literally stand around for a couple of minutes instead of looking for a product that I knew damn well we were out of, just to placate the customer and make them think I had gone above and beyond. The end result is the same: we do not have that in stock. I lied because it wouldn't change the outcome and it made the customer feel better.

If customers at retail stores knew how much the employees lied to them, they would be livid. It's a comfortable falsehood that everybody engages in because it gets the job done, and it only works if the charade is diligently maintained. Every industry has dirty secrets, I'm sure your job has some, too. I have a feeling this is one of those secrets, and the only problem is that the illusion is broken when you know somebody might be making things up, even when what's being fabricated is indistinguishable from the truth.

 

[Foppa2118]

Agree with a lot of this McMetal, but disagree on some.

Hypothetically, would you still be upset if you knew that if they had asked you to make a statement, you would have said slightly different sports cliches instead of what they reported? It's all word salad in those interviews.

It wouldn't matter to me what was said, or even if it was verbatim what I had said in the past.

It's about the principle of it. If I'm a coach, as a public figure, don't put words in my mouth, when I never talked to you.

In part, because I know someone who would do that, would take liberties with me in other areas.

So why do they bother to do the interviews at all if everybody knows they contain nothing of value? For entertainment. The "reports from the locker room" are a way for the NFL to make the viewer feel like they have insight behind the scenes so they feel closer to their team. Every fan is starving for information about how the game is going to change, so much so that they will consume these worthless segments despite knowing deep down that the outcome of the game is still unknowable. They are selling the illusion of insight, nothing more.

Yes, but this, and the analogy to professional wrestling, is different.

Everyone knows WWE is fake and the fans know to suspend disbelief when watching. The game of football is entertainment, but this doesn't come with an expectation that it's fake.

On the contrary, even though it's about a game meant for entertainment, when a reporter relays what a coach told them, the expectation isn't that they're lying, it's that they're telling the truth. Even if they're not quoting verbatim or exaggerating details. They're not expecting that the conversation never happened.

The value of her work in other areas may be tarnished, but that's really only because you know about it. Again, the problem isn't really the act itself, it's the fact that it was said aloud.

No, I think it's the act IMO. If I didn't know about it, I wouldn't know to take issue with it. Lying isn't ok to me, just because I don't know about it.

When I worked in customer service as a supervisor, I would sometimes make up store policies that didn't exist because I needed the interaction to go a certain way. I massaged the truth to both get the result I needed and keep the customer from losing their shit about whatever dumbass thing they wanted me to know about. I can't tell you how many times I said the words "I'll talk to my manager about that" while knowing full well that I would not be doing that. I would sometimes go to the back of the store to "see if we had some in backstock" and literally stand around for a couple of minutes instead of looking for a product that I knew damn well we were out of, just to placate the customer and make them think I had gone above and beyond. The end result is the same: we do not have that in stock. I lied because it wouldn't change the outcome and it made the customer feel better.

If customers at retail stores knew how much the employees lied to them, they would be livid. It's a comfortable falsehood that everybody engages in because it gets the job done, and it only works if the charade is diligently maintained. Every industry has dirty secrets, I'm sure your job has some, too. I have a feeling this is one of those secrets, and the only problem is that the illusion is broken when you know somebody might be making things up, even when what's being fabricated is indistinguishable from the truth.

I don't know exactly how I feel about this, but I think that role is different than a reporters, and I certainly don't take issue with it the same I do this. Maybe a reason not to work in Customer Service, so you're not put in that position, as you probably came to the conclusion.

There's just a higher expectation for reporters. Even sports reporters. In part because a lot of them want to be the reporters in other fields. I see Clarissa also worked for Extra reporting on entertainment news like your TMZ example. Doesn't this bring into question whether or not she lied about celebrities?

Even if reporters make errors, and a few have intentionally lied in the past, the whole principle of journalism is that it's an objective report on what actually happened, because the viewers/readers couldn't witness it. They are relying on your honesty. It's key to the whole thing. That's why it's important not to lie about what someone said, who never talked to you.

 

[McMetal]

Agree with a lot of this McMetal, but disagree on some.



It wouldn't matter to me what was said, or even if it was verbatim what I had said in the past.

It's about the principle of it. If I'm a coach, as a public figure, don't put words in my mouth, when I never talked to you.

In part, because I know someone who would do that, would take liberties with me in other areas.



Yes, but this, and the analogy to professional wrestling, is different.

Everyone knows WWE is fake and the fans know to suspend disbelief when watching. The game of football is entertainment, but this doesn't come with an expectation that it's fake.

On the contrary, even though it's about a game meant for entertainment, when a reporter relays what a coach told them, the expectation isn't that they're lying, it's that they're telling the truth. Even if they're not quoting verbatim or exaggerating details. They're not expecting that the conversation never happened.



No, I think it's the act IMO. If I didn't know about it, I wouldn't know to take issue with it. Lying isn't ok to me, just because I don't know about it.



I don't know exactly how I feel about this, but I think that role is different than a reporters, and I certainly don't take issue with it the same I do this. Maybe a reason not to work in Customer Service, so you're not put in that position, as you probably came to the conclusion.

There's just a higher expectation for reporters. Even sports reporters. In part because a lot of them want to be the reporters in other fields. I see Clarissa also worked for Extra reporting on entertainment news like your TMZ example. Doesn't this bring into question whether or not she lied about celebrities?

Even if reporters make errors, and a few have intentionally lied in the past, the whole principle of journalism is that it's an objective report on what actually happened, because the viewers/readers couldn't witness it. They are relying on your honesty. It's key to the whole thing. That's why it's important not to lie about what someone said, who never talked to you.

I get what you're saying, but people lie all the time. Especially in the entertainment industry, which is where this falls. I mean, lying to customers is baked in to a customer service job. If you're an angry customer, my job is explicitly not to do whatever you want me to do. My job is to protect the store and also make sure that you come back even if you don't get what you want. It's a common misconception about the retail business. If I give you a bunch of free stuff just because you raise a stink, that hurts our bottom line. And if you leave and never come back, that also costs us business. So we walk a fine line of placating you without costing the store any money, and that almost always includes stretching the truth and even outright lying to your face. If you insist the cashier needs to be retrained because they denied your coupon, I will happily agree even if I know they did nothing wrong. If you insist on speaking to my manager, I will do everything in my power to head that off, because my directive was to not bother them with trivial issues. If that includes lying, my manager was fine with that as long as my two primary directives were met. I was the ablative armor so that upper management didn't have to come deal with every entitled moron that came through trying to bully us into given them free stuff.

And I was damn good at de-escalation, too. I could play good cop and bad cop in the same interaction, calm them down, sometimes even just let them vent it out until they were exhausted and easier to manipulate. I can count on one hand the times a customer actually managed to make me angry. So I fibbed, fudged, embellished, gave meaningless concessions when I could, and most of the time they left mollified.

I don't feel bad about any of it, either. I was doing my job, and almost all of the time I was absolutely right and I knew my managers up the chain of command would approve of what I was doing. But the fact that I lied my ass off on a nearly daily basis for 13 years in that job doesn't mean I lie in my new job or in my personal life, too. I am usually skeptical of slippery slope arguments, I think there's a line of separation between the actual journalism side of a job like that and the entertainment side. It's not a given that lying on one side means you have/will lie about the other side.

 

[Foppa2118]

I get what you're saying, but people lie all the time. Especially in the entertainment industry, which is where this falls. I mean, lying to customers is baked in to a customer service job. If you're an angry customer, my job is explicitly not to do whatever you want me to do. My job is to protect the store and also make sure that you come back even if you don't get what you want. It's a common misconception about the retail business. If I give you a bunch of free stuff just because you raise a stink, that hurts our bottom line. And if you leave and never come back, that also costs us business. So we walk a fine line of placating you without costing the store any money, and that almost always includes stretching the truth and even outright lying to your face. If you insist the cashier needs to be retrained because they denied your coupon, I will happily agree even if I know they did nothing wrong. If you insist on speaking to my manager, I will do everything in my power to head that off, because my directive was to not bother them with trivial issues. If that includes lying, my manager was fine with that as long as my two primary directives were met. I was the ablative armor so that upper management didn't have to come deal with every entitled moron that came through trying to bully us into given them free stuff.

And I was damn good at de-escalation, too. I could play good cop and bad cop in the same interaction, calm them down, sometimes even just let them vent it out until they were exhausted and easier to manipulate. I can count on one hand the times a customer actually managed to make me angry. So I fibbed, fudged, embellished, gave meaningless concessions when I could, and most of the time they left mollified.

I don't feel bad about any of it, either. I was doing my job, and almost all of the time I was absolutely right and I knew my managers up the chain of command would approve of what I was doing. But the fact that I lied my ass off on a nearly daily basis for 13 years in that job doesn't mean I lie in my new job or in my personal life, too. I am usually skeptical of slippery slope arguments, I think there's a line of separation between the actual journalism side of a job like that and the entertainment side. It's not a given that lying on one side means you have/will lie about the other side.

Yes, but like I said, your situations was different. Journalism is dependent on honesty. They're neutral observors. Customer service is not. You were there to protect the company.

And journalists know this, which is why they're coming out in droves to say this is not ok. It goes against their code of ethics, and is taken very seriously, just like plagiarism. You lose credibility with your audience, you lose everything.

Good to hear your perspective though. We'll have to disagree on this one.

 

[Pokecheque]

And now she’s trying to backpedal furiously. We’ll see if it works.

Boomer Gordon, who’s usually the guy who lands on the “no big deal” side of these kinds of debates, freaked out on her.

 

[Bonzai12]

All the ethics and honesty of journalism went out the window about 20 years ago.

It’s really weird that the hill that journalists finally chose to stand/die on is going to be sideline reporting of Thursday night football games? Out of all things in this world?

 

[Pokecheque]

All the ethics and honesty of journalism went out the window about 20 years ago.

It’s really weird that the hill that journalists finally chose to stand/die on is going to be sideline reporting of Thursday night football games? Out of all things in this world?

Believe it or not there are still honest journalists out there.

 

[tshack]

Believe it or not there are still honest journalists out there.

Just gonna plug defector dot com in here.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

I was pretty flippant earlier, but I honestly do believe that news and journalism in general have been in decline since the advent of the 24 hour news cycle. Are there good reporters and journalists? Of course, there are. Are there bad ones? Obviously. But the overall problem I have is the editorializing of the news. They not only report the news but how you should think and feel about it. They shape the news. Even by deciding what stories to cover the news outlets show their biases.

Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate editorial content. I also believe there is a place for opinion and think pieces. But most legacy news agencies have not only blurred the lines but have actually become incapable of impartially covering most stories.

 

[Hennessy]

Stepping aside from this ethics in sideline reporting discussion for a moment to ask what's certainly been covered earlier in this thread (sorry, I've not been on HFBoards much as their data privacy policy pop-ups prevent access on my phone).

Anyway...why is Yan Stastny a studio analyst for Altitude? He has no history with the team other than his brother, father, and uncles playing for the franchise. It's not that he's doing a poor job, it just feels so random. I mean, it's not like Rycroft was a beloved fan-favorite veteran of the Avs, but at least he played for them. And obviously, Liles was a stalwart. Heck, Leschyshyn had a lot of games - mostly in Quebec, but still. It's not like they didn't have options.
Ah well. It's not an outrage or anything. Just weird.

Carry on with the discussing how journalists should not just make stuff up.

 

[RampoSanta]

Stepping aside from this ethics in sideline reporting discussion for a moment to ask what's certainly been covered earlier in this thread (sorry, I've not been on HFBoards much as their data privacy policy pop-ups prevent access on my phone).

Anyway...why is Yan Stastny a studio analyst for Altitude? He has no history with the team other than his brother, father, and uncles playing for the franchise. It's not that he's doing a poor job, it just feels so random. I mean, it's not like Rycroft was a beloved fan-favorite veteran of the Avs, but at least he played for them. And obviously, Liles was a stalwart. Heck, Leschyshyn had a lot of games - mostly in Quebec, but still. It's not like they didn't have options.
Ah well. It's not an outrage or anything. Just weird.

Carry on with the discussing how journalists should not just make stuff up.

I think they had a D-list budget and Yan is the only one who would work for peanuts.

 

[Pokecheque]

Stepping aside from this ethics in sideline reporting discussion for a moment to ask what's certainly been covered earlier in this thread (sorry, I've not been on HFBoards much as their data privacy policy pop-ups prevent access on my phone).

Anyway...why is Yan Stastny a studio analyst for Altitude? He has no history with the team other than his brother, father, and uncles playing for the franchise. It's not that he's doing a poor job, it just feels so random. I mean, it's not like Rycroft was a beloved fan-favorite veteran of the Avs, but at least he played for them. And obviously, Liles was a stalwart. Heck, Leschyshyn had a lot of games - mostly in Quebec, but still. It's not like they didn't have options.
Ah well. It's not an outrage or anything. Just weird.

Carry on with the discussing how journalists should not just make stuff up.

Probably trying to pick guys who already lived in the area. I don’t know for sure if Yan did but I know Ken Klee has been living in Colorado forever, well before he actually played for the Avs.