What’s it like being Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the NHL insider, on Trade Deadline day?

[Zeeker]

sounds like you need to check out 32 thoughts. He talks about all teams, players and games and it’s not all about trades or contracts. It’s about gameplay.

Maybe I misunderstood you but you don’t even seem to know who you’re criticising lol

I very much do know what I’m criticizing (it’s not Friedman himself) but I’m clearly not articulating it very well!

And I don’t feel strongly enough about the argument to keep going lol, but if you look at some of the discourse when Adrian Wojnarowski retired you’ll see what I mean.

 

[Team_Spirit]

The agents puppet slept 3 hours what a hero

What a joke

 

[Zeeker]

The agents puppet slept 3 hours what a hero

What a joke

Exactly, his job is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things (reporting breaking news two minutes earlier than the next best insider) and people treat it like he’s curing cancer.

Nothing against Friedman himself as much as the role of the Insider is being strangely mystified/revered.

 

[DJB]

The same as any other day...

A man that HANDSOME, spends his days fighting off women / groupies.

Found the Friedman account

 

[tarheelhockey]

I very much do know what I’m criticizing (it’s not Friedman himself) but I’m clearly not articulating it very well!

And I don’t feel strongly enough about the argument to keep going lol, but if you look at some of the discourse when Adrian Wojnarowski retired you’ll see what I mean.

I’m on the same page, and I’m glad someone else sees it.

This video actually left me feeling a bit cold to the whole thing. So you’re telling me this guy spends 21 hours on his phone every day, having absolutely zero impact on anything, just begging front office leakers for scraps of info so he can “break” transactions a few minutes before they become official?

In other words, if Friedman didn’t exist, everything would be exactly the same?

The whole dynamic really is weird. I recognize that he’s at the top of his profession, but the profession seems pretty useless.

 

[Zirakzigil]

You misunderstand.

A. I’m aware that insiders like MacKenzie existed before Friedman.
B. I understand that Friedman isn’t reporting on off ice drama.

I’m referring to the relatively new emergence of the “Insider” as the object of attention, and to some extent people craving “transaction news” over actual on-ice play. It’s telling that HFBoards breaks down every year at the Trade Deadline and July 1st but never during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

One example: let’s marvel at the Insider’s phone screen time (I’ve seen that recently in the NBA with Shams Charania too). The fascination with these Insiders is strange and unwarranted: breaking news two minutes before other outlets provides little value.

Ahhahahaha funny. We broke down twice during 4 Nations and regularly during big playoff games. Its our trademark.

 

[hirawl]

An insider's main task is to be there when some news is fed to you for you to scoop on social media. Naturally as soon as possible for the clicks and likes and follows. Pretty much nothing is leaked by accident and nothing that's not supposed to be found out is found out by journalistic means. It's a job for a digital display.

Friedman is the best of the billboards. Go Elliotte!