Is it contractual by the league? I don’t know. Just asking.
After every game, the press has access to pro league players and if the player or coach skips out I think they get fined.
in that case then yeah you're right.. the only way any of it makes sense is that it's forced under contract. And receivng a fine kind of verifies that idea, since a fine is what normally comes along with breaching an agreement or a law, etc. Otherwise it makes no sense - no company, and a private company at that - is going to hold a press conference just to allow a horde of vulture reporters to come in there and rip them a new @sshole! That's like a small mom and pop restaurant shop paying for cameras and air time to allow reporters to come in and question how they do their business lol... no sense at all. That's right, let's pay to set up a press conference where anyone can come in and make us look like garbage... not only are we going to lose business from this but we willingly paid for it and arranged it!! lol come on.
It would be interesting to find out how exactly that works. Does the NHL demand that each team hold these conferences as a condition of being granted a franchise? How about the original 6... they go back to the beginning, was this condition a thing way back over 100 years ago?
Because otherwise none of these teams are going to willingly hold these conferences where all they do is get torn to shreds. Like I said in reality, they don't have to answer f-all to anyone on how they operate their business just like any other corporation doesn't have to answer to anyone and no other corporations do this sort of thing anyways.. none of them hold these public events where they'll probably get shamed by dirtbag "reporters".
So for sure they're only doing this because they have to. And they have to because it's probably in the contract with the NHL, so good point there.
Now the question is why. Why does the NHL want this?