F Trevor Connelly - Providence College, Hockey East (2024, 19th, VGK)

[Pavel Buchnevich]

So the real problem here is a respected reporter doing due diligence? And you're insinuating that she fabricated sources? Where's your evidence?

You're an absolutely disgraceful poster and it's clear you made up your mind about this well before you even opened the article. This is basically just repackaged Gamergate bullshit from you.

Respected? If you respect her, that's your choice, but I certainly don't. I don't have respect for "journalists" whose job responsibility is to write hit pieces on people, and ruin their life. Thats not journalism. It's even more pathetic when it's a 17 year old.

That article is not due diligence. The fact you call it due diligence and and call her respected suggests you've made up your mind, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I have a very open-mind.

What I read in that article lended towards what I suspected that Connelly has had a troubled childhood, yet this stuff is complicated. I know the internet likes to act like they were saints as children and real life doesn't involve any gray, but these situations often are complicated and not one-sided. I don't believe anything in that article is worth being cancelled, true or not.

 

[BE Friend]

First time hearing the background. Unfortunate.
This is what journalists are supposed to do. Just facts. The digital benefits from tech come with downsides too. But EVERYONE is redeemable.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Because it shows a pattern of behaviour and that its not isolated incidents from when they're 17-18

It might, but its a pattern that started as a 13 year old - do we have confirmation that this is a pattern that is still ongoing? This is a kid who needs to learn some lessons, and hopefully he's begun to, but I'm not ready to ruin a kids career because of decisions made before they can drive a car.

I'd be more curious to hear about how he's behaved this year. Are there any significant incidents? Has he shown any growth or has he continued to bully his peers? If he's still doing the same sort of stuff, then that's a player who is probably not mature enough to join an NHL organization.

 

[Cap'n Flavour]

Respected? If you respect her, that's your choice, but I certainly don't. I don't have respect for "journalists" whose job responsibility is to write hit pieces on people, and ruin their life. Thats not journalism. It's even more pathetic when it's a 17 year old.

That article is not due diligence. The fact you call it due diligence and and call her respected suggests you've made up your mind, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I have a very open-mind.

What I read in that article lended towards what I suspected that Connelly has had a troubled childhood, yet this stuff is complicated. I know the internet likes to act like they were saints as children and real life doesn't involve any gray, but these situations often are complicated and not one-sided. I don't believe anything in that article is worth being cancelled, true or not.

You insinuated that she fabricated sources for this. Where's your evidence? Why don't you actually address the content of the article instead of making broad generalizations?

One incident discussed is when he joined a prep program at a private high school (Bishop Kearney). Connelly claims he was hazed, and was then suspended for, amongst other things, urinating on another student's belongings. He admits to this. The school refuses to comment on the incident. She then quotes a source as backing up Connelly's story about hazing. Why would someone writing a hit piece go to the effort of finding a corroborating source for his side?

Another incident is the racial slur that he reportedly uttered towards another player. It's pretty clear the player was upset by that incident. Strang reports that the target of the slur and his coach were neither questioned prior to nor interviewed during the hearing that ultimately concluded that there wasn't enough evidence. Seems like a pretty half-assed investigation by the league (not by Strang) to me.

Both of these are glaring example of what people refer to as a culture problem in hockey, especially minor hockey. If anything it's a perfect example of how the lack of responsibility by minor hockey programs continues on with players who eventually make the NHL, or at least turn pro. Why shouldn't Strang report on this? Connelly's a public figure now, he and his family have hired lawyers and advisers, it's not like there's some inherent right to privacy being violated here.

 

[Peasy]

You insinuated that she fabricated sources for this. Where's your evidence? Why don't you actually address the content of the article instead of making broad generalizations?

One incident discussed is when he joined a prep program at a private high school (Bishop Kearney). Connelly claims he was hazed, and was then suspended for, amongst other things, urinating on another student's belongings. He admits to this. The school refuses to comment on the incident. She then quotes a source as backing up Connelly's story about hazing. Why would someone writing a hit piece go to the effort of finding a corroborating source for his side?

Another incident is the racial slur that he reportedly uttered towards another player. It's pretty clear the player was upset by that incident. Strang reports that the target of the slur and his coach were neither questioned prior to nor interviewed during the hearing that ultimately concluded that there wasn't enough evidence. Seems like a pretty half-assed investigation by the league (not by Strang) to me.

Both of these are glaring example of what people refer to as a culture problem in hockey, especially minor hockey. If anything it's a perfect example of how the lack of responsibility by minor hockey programs continues on with players who eventually make the NHL, or at least turn pro. Why shouldn't Strang report on this? Connelly's a public figure now, he and his family have hired lawyers and advisers, it's not like there's some inherent right to privacy being violated here.

Trust me its not worth it. This dude thinks the media ruined Mitchell Millers life and now is coming to do the same to Connelly.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Strang wrote it = don’t trust it whatsoever. Biased hit piece.

 

[leafs4life94]

There's a lot of claims, and of course a lot of them are anonymous so there's always going to be validity questions - but where there's smoke there's fire - and the fact that he did need to go between 4 minor programs is also a sign that there may be something there.

The other issues is that it's not like it was one incident when he was 11 - there's been incidents over the course of his minor hockey journey.

IF, and it's a big if, the remorse is genuine (I'm always skeptical of very PR-type answers - which is how a lot of his answers read to me) and he's very up-front with teams about how he's changed, I think teams will be able to move past this. The alleged racial slur is obviously concerning - but there's nothing near the level of the Mitch Miller incident - or really even the Logan Mailloux stuff.

 

[BuiumSaveUs]

I think it’s pretty unethical to write this stuff about a minor. Let the teams do their homework and make their decision in-house.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

You insinuated that she fabricated sources for this. Where's your evidence? Why don't you actually address the content of the article instead of making broad generalizations?

One incident discussed is when he joined a prep program at a private high school (Bishop Kearney). Connelly claims he was hazed, and was then suspended for, amongst other things, urinating on another student's belongings. He admits to this. The school refuses to comment on the incident. She then quotes a source as backing up Connelly's story about hazing. Why would someone writing a hit piece go to the effort of finding a corroborating source for his side?

Another incident is the racial slur that he reportedly uttered towards another player. It's pretty clear the player was upset by that incident. Strang reports that the target of the slur and his coach were neither questioned prior to nor interviewed during the hearing that ultimately concluded that there wasn't enough evidence. Seems like a pretty half-assed investigation by the league (not by Strang) to me.

Both of these are glaring example of what people refer to as a culture problem in hockey, especially minor hockey. If anything it's a perfect example of how the lack of responsibility by minor hockey programs continues on with players who eventually make the NHL, or at least turn pro. Why shouldn't Strang report on this? Connelly's a public figure now, he and his family have hired lawyers and advisers, it's not like there's some inherent right to privacy being violated here.

I don't know what she did or did not do, but when you are throwing out unnamed sources in a hit-piece against a 17 year old, I think that's pathetic. Are these people real? Is it from one or two people who are bitter and she's framing it as a lot of people? Again, we don't know. However, I think it is a violation of journalistic integrity to write a hit-piece on a 17 year old with unnamed sources trashing that person.

Why didn't she have unnamed sources backing Connelly? The named sources seem to be overwhelmingly backing him. When there's such a divide between the named sources backing the player and the unnamed sources not? That poses fair questions about the integrity of the piece. I don't know the answers, but it's a bad look.

Bringing up Logan Mailloux, Mitchell Miller, Tony DeAngelo (in much more than just passing references) in the piece suggests a theme. Why bring up these players? They have nothing to do with what did or did not happen with Connelly. Obviously the writer is trying to connect these situations, and paint them all into a specific boat. I'm sure you know this.

 

[Fantomas]

Apparently he's Simon Boisvert's favorite 2024 NHL draft prospect.

 

[Transplanted Caper]

I'm not sure how a piece that is based on an accurate premise - that off-ice behaviour is now having a meaningful impact on player evaluation compared to previous years - confirmed by team sources in the piece and by noting the DeAngelo pick went without much controversy at the time - can be considered a hit piece.

Connelly is given a chance to respond, a former coach says it was blown out of proportion, another teammate's family calls him a model teammate, and other allegations are put into context of it being reactions TO Connelly being bullied. Whatever you think of Strang or Pronman, his side of the story is given ample space in the piece.

Look, people are free to debate what kinds of transgressions of youth should impact someone's draft position, but the fact is these things ARE part of the evaluation process now, and ignoring that seems much more journalistic malpractice.

From the piece, it seems to me Connelly has some problems, and will need to sort them out and mature to be successful, professionally. Those closer to the situation and those talking to him and his family will have to decide whether there's a path forward in their organization.

 

[Cap'n Flavour]

Why didn't she have unnamed sources backing Connelly? The named sources seem to be overwhelmingly backing him. When there's such a divide between the named sources backing the player and the unnamed sources not? That poses fair questions about the integrity of the piece. I don't know the answers, but it's a bad look.

You literally quoted me giving an example of an unnamed source that backed up Connelly. Transplanted Caper gave some more. Are you even reading any of this?

Bringing up Logan Mailloux, Mitchell Miller, Tony DeAngelo (in much more than just passing references) in the piece suggests a theme. Why bring up these players? They have nothing to do with what did or did not happen with Connelly. Obviously the writer is trying to connect these situations, and paint them all into a specific boat. I'm sure you know this.

The article is about a probable NHL draftees who had serious question about his conduct on and off the ice before the draft, how is it even remotely surprising that other players with similar situations were brought up for context?

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

The other thing mentioned in the article that hasn't been discussed yet is that his agent offered to the writer the name of a what sounds like a notable 2024 draft prospect whose behavior the agent thought was worth investigating.

Whether what his agent said there is true or not, do people seriously believe that a lot of these players don't have trouble in their past? How naive do you have to be to believe that all these NHL'ers were saints in their childhood (and their adulthood)?

We see situation after situation, whether its the Canadian World Junior investigation, the Blackhawks scandal, at least a few players in the various leagues every years that are suspended or worse for off-ice stuff, and then some players who've gotten into legal trouble in their personal lives, like Lucic, Voynov, Galchenyuk.

The NHL isn't the exception to real life. People are complicated, and not everyone has a clean past (and present). It's obvious there are plenty of other NHL players and NHL prospects who have misbehaved in one way or another, and we simply don't know about these situations. Seems a little contradictory to play judge, jury, and executioner of this one situation that has went public when you are lacking perspective of these other situations where you probably are backing players right now that have done some pretty messed up things.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

You literally quoted me giving an example of an unnamed source that backed up Connelly. Transplanted Caper gave some more. Are you even reading any of this?

Okay, well you said source, not unnamed source, in your post.

How about you don't try to sidestep, like you did in your last post, my point about how there is a big disparity in unnamed sources voicing opposition to Connelly and named sources backing him?

The article is about a probable NHL draftees who had serious question about his conduct on and off the ice before the draft, how is it even remotely surprising that other players with similar situations were brought up for context?

Yes, and this is obvious. There was a bent to what was written. The writer was trying to frame it this way, which you've denied. It wasn't an impartial and fair story. It was a hit piece trying to make him into the next one of those players, which was the whole point of naming those players and describing in a lot of detail those situations.

 

[MXD]

I think it’s pretty unethical to write this stuff about a minor. Let the teams do their homework and make their decision in-house.

I don't think the teams themselves wouldn't really like this. Her article is a way, for them, to gather some intel as to the public reaction. It's not like people won't know at a certain point, they may as well know before the draft. Draft age eligibility being what is is.

And yeah, personally, I don't care THAT much about the whole swastika thing (I mean, I'd definitely care if he was my kid, but he's not), but the fact he just can't seem to gel in a hockey lockeroom is definitely an issue.

 

[Pink Mist]

Okay, well you said source, not unnamed source, in your post.

How about you don't try to sidestep, like you did in your last post, my point about how there is a big disparity in unnamed sources voicing opposition to Connelly and named sources backing him?

Maybe because it's clear that Connelly's camp has been active at throwing lawsuits at critics, people don't want to go on the record as a named sourced talking negatively about his past controversies.

Not that difficult to see why there is a disparity between named and unnamed sources for positive and negative sources

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Maybe because it's clear that Connelly's camp has been active at throwing lawsuits at critics, people don't want to go on the record as a named sourced talking negatively about his past controversies.

Not that difficult to see why there is a disparity between named and unnamed sources for positive and negative sources

Two wrongs don't make a right. If you are going to trash a 17 year old's behavior or character for the purposes of a hit piece in a prominent publication, put your name on it. Act like an adult.

 

[MXD]

Two wrongs don't make a right. If you are going to trash a 17 year old's behavior or character for the purposes of a hit piece in a prominent publication, put your name on it. Act like an adult.

It seems like you either aren't understanding what he's writing, or otherwise aren't bothering to read.

 

[Pink Mist]

Two wrongs don't make a right. If you are going to trash a 17 year old's behavior or character for the purposes of a hit piece in a prominent publication, put your name on it. Act like an adult.

How is a wrong to provide background? And can you really not understand why someone wouldn't want to provide comments on the record and face a bullshit lawsuit from Connelly or be harassed? Hiring a lawyer to defend yourself isn't cheap.

Unnamed sources are still vetted before they get included in an article.

 

[bossram]

It's hilariously obvious none of the people defending Connelly and/or trashing Strang (and yes, she is one of the most respected journalists in hockey, cope some more) actually read the article. She just describes Connelly's actions, and she noted which ones were officially corroborated, and which ones were alleged. The rest of the article was a narrative on the state of drafting players with perceived character issues. Nowhere in the article did she ascribe any judgement on Connelly. Some people need to 1) learn how to read, and 2) get a clue.

For someone like Mailloux's faults, he did show some introspection and told the NHL not to draft him given the situation. This is a very different response from Connelly and his camp who've decided to hire lawyers, PR firms, and to trash anyone reporting on him. That in itself kinda says a lot.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

It's hilariously obvious none of the people defending Connelly and/or trashing Strang (and yes, she is one of the most respected journalists in hockey, cope some more) actually read the article. She just describes Connelly's actions, and she noted which ones were officially corroborated, and which ones were alleged. The rest of the article was a narrative on the state of drafting players with perceived character issues. Nowhere in the article did she ascribe any judgement on Connelly. Some people need to 1) learn how to read, and 2) get a clue.

For someone like Mailloux's faults, he did show some introspection and told the NHL not to draft him given the situation. This is a very different response from Connelly and his camp who've decided to hire lawyers, PR firms, and to trash anyone reporting on him. That in itself kinda says a lot.

Strang (and Westhead) only report on negative things. Very slanted journalism. Connelly has red flags no doubt, I'm just not a fan of Strang overall, never has anything positive to report.

 

[BondraTime]

Strang (and Westhead) only report on negative things. Very slanted journalism. Connelly has red flags no doubt, I'm just not a fan of Strang overall, never has anything positive to report.

That’s not slanted journalism, it’s investigative journalism. That’s their job.

 

[bossram]

Strang (and Westhead) only report on negative things. Very slanted journalism. Connelly has red flags no doubt, I'm just not a fan of Strang overall, never has anything positive to report.

Good god man, get a clue.

She's an investigative journalist that reports on the ugly side of hockey culture and sexual assault. These aren't "positive" topics.

What do you want her to report on? That rainbow appearances are up 20% this year? Post a picture of a Happy Puppy of the Day?

That’s not slanted journalism, it’s investigative journalism. That’s their job.

Exactly. That poster is completely clueless.

 

[Peasy]

Strang (and Westhead) only report on negative things. Very slanted journalism. Connelly has red flags no doubt, I'm just not a fan of Strang overall, never has anything positive to report.

Thats literally her job...

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing.

Journalism has gotten so bad people dont even know what an investigative journalist does. They're to used to the constant fluff pieces that get written nowadays.

 

[Slats432]

Rick Westhead.

I swear that guy only has a job to ruin people’s lives.

I used to feel that way, except I realized he is just reporting the wrongdoing and better him doing it than not.