Holy Sour Grapes Batman!!!

I dont know if everybody has seen this:
http://senators.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=767&id=33172

Dammit! I don't have sound at work. Is it cool? Did Brian Murray say Paddock sucked his ***s?

Lol no. IT was an interview after the 3-2 SO win against BUffalo.

But a LOT of interesting points, going towards the trade deadline.
He says he will not trade a good player for a 2nd round pick (Kuba? Neil? McAmmond?). But he will DEFINITELY trade some players, because some changes have to be made.

THen he talks about Paddock and Hartsburg. He said he often told Hartsburg that the players needed more ice time during practice. That they had to be more active. It seems Hartsburg didnt listen hey?

WTF does he mean he won't trade a good player for a 2nd round pick?

Holy Dung, I'm scared.

Someone coddle me.

MurderOnIce wrote:

davetherave wrote:This is just another example of the media whipping up controversy.

The headline screams: PADDOCK BLAMES MURRAY

Paddock simply said (and we don't know what the question was):

"I think now (Murray's) next in line. We were 14 games over .500 when I was fired. They're seven under now. Somebody needs to take responsibility for that. Whether the coaches he hired and fired were good or not, they're his players and they're either not playing good or can't play, one or the other."

Simply stated. There's no sour grapes there.

If you buy in to this manufactured controversy you are basically letting your opinion be manipulated by TSN and Sun Media.

I am not sure I agree here at all. If you bold the next line..."(the players) either not playing good or can't play, one or the other." And the other quote that 'Murray just has bad players' plain and simple is sour grapes. It says Murray isn't doing his job and the teams sucks.

He said basically.... Alfie, Heatley, Spezza and the rest of the team CAN'T play. He was on the bench as an assistant when they went to a cup final. They CAN play, just not for him or seemingly Hartsburg. That isn't a good thing but it is still far different than what he said.

MOI, Paddock said what he said. What he said is no different than what as already been said, in one form or another, by hockey journalists, bloggers, forum members like those who post here, and even some NHL players.

What TSN/Sun Media have engaged in, is what is called 'ambush journalism'. Ask a leading question, look for a 'juicy' quote and wrap it all in a headline that is sure to make people react. This is exactly what happened here.

This afternoon, TSN's Bob McKenzie was already on Team 1200 doing damage control, saying that what John Paddock said really wasn't outrageous or provocative at all. He even defended Paddock's record, and his statement about Bryan Murray being 'next in line'.

Was it, in the end, a good idea for John Paddock to speak his mind?

Considering his coaching record with the Senators was, after all, a winning record, and that criticism has been heaped on him subsequent to his firing--as if the collapse of the Senators that season was his fault--one might be forgiven for responding as he did.

Imagine yourself in his shoes, for a moment. What would you do?

Again, this is not to say John Paddock is right. But who are we to suggest he shouldn't be allowed to say what he thinks?

Murray responds to Paddock's comments:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2009/02/12/murray_responds/

He's still a Sens employee - on the payroll so to speak. I say cut his salary loose.

Maybe Paddock has forgotten:

They may have been 14 games over .500, but they were playing at a blistering 0.300 clip at the time of the firing; the only reason for the "14 games over .500" was the hangover effect from Murray's system the year before, and the 15-2 start that they had. (numbers from memory, so don't hold me to them)

The fact that Clouston has them playing better, and doing has done it after only a few days of implementing changes, suggests that Paddock was simply out of his depth. This makes his comments even the more stupid and ill-timed.

Oh, and I agree about cutting his salary.
But it should come from Melnyk, through Murray/Mlackar.

So much for their friendship...

Shabbs, thanks for pointing this out.

IMHO it's important to note this part of the report on Sportsnet:

Murray says Paddock contacted him via e-mail this morning to apologize for the comments to the suburban Philadelphia newspaper. Paddock, who is now the head coach of the Flyers AHL farm team, told Murray that he didn't know he was being interviewed at the time he made the comments.

What surprised Murray the most about the comments in Thursday's newspaper is that Paddock is still technically a Senators employee. The club is paying him for the final two years of his contract, but Murray warned that these types of comments in the future could cost Paddock his salary.

"There are a couple clauses we could put into play. We're not vindictive in that regard - we're just disappointed," Murray said. "In all of our contracts, you don't have the right to share anything from inside the organization or say anything about the organization. And he is aware of it."

There are a few aspects that remain unclear. What were the circumstances under which Paddock made the comments to the reporter?

Responsible media professionals know that anytime they interview someone, they are advised to inform them of the purpose of the interview.

But incidents like this serve as a warning to be careful when talking to reporters, and explain why what players and coaches say is so 'sanitized' by the NHL's communications advisors.

The scary thing relates to the proliferation of blogs, and the courts now ruling that bloggers are "legitimate news media" [I'm not even going to try to defend that one...] and thus have the same priveleges as traditional media reporters. Because the coaches and players can never know who is or isn't a blogger, they have to assume everyone is, and thus everything they say has to be considered as potential "media-speak" rather than reality.

Boy, look out. Lucky they aren't 'vindictive'.

SensHobo, whose blog always seems to offer a balanced view of the hockey world and the Senators' part in it, had this to say about The Paddock Affair:

From Allen Panzeri of the Ottawa Citizen, a clarification of the potential repercussions of Paddock’s ‘remarks,’

That’s technically a violation of Paddock’s contract with the Senators, which forbids him from using any inside information in future jobs and enjoins him from demeaning the organization.
Murray said last night it was not the intention of the team to stop paying Paddock, but he said he’d be talking to his former coach over the next few days to let him know that option exists.
Almost immediately following the publication of the story, Paddock sent Murray an apology via e-mail. He told Murray he didn’t know he was being interviewed and that his comments had been taken out of context.
Murray said he was willing to consider that something vital might have been lost in translation, as it were, because it was out of character for Paddock to speak as he did.

Could it have been a misinterpretation? Perhaps; we all know that Semin’s Crosby comments were attributed as such. Could it have been something passed on by someone in an overheard conversation? Sure, we’ve all heard of this term known as ‘gossip,’ something the hockey world is not at all immune from. It could have even been a zealous reporter, looking for a story much as one had been Frankenstein’d together this week to imagine a rift between Heatley and Clouston, and after my own time at the ASG I’ve come to believe that many of these stories, and the rumours you hear, come from someone being in the right place at the right time to hear the right conversation, and choosing to make those overheard possibly casual and non-commital private conversations part of the public sphere after many a transformation on a laptop to find the most reader-compelling form. John Paddock’s not the kind of guy to throw stuff like that around with malice.

http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/sh/comments/sens_alive_and_still_kicking/

Maybe one of the co-founders can invite SensHobo to join this forum.