OHL’s Sudbury Wolves have ‘official newspaper’; that’s one way to ward off bad press

So much for any publicity being good publicity. One way to ensure the latter in the Ontario Hockey League is to win a lot of games and keep the paying public happy. The Sudbury Wolves have a decent shot at doing at least the former this season, but the Eastern Conference club just cannot leave that to chance.

Hence this manoeuvre: last week, the club announced that the local Northern Life twice-weekly would be the Wolves' "official newspaper," which could only be interpreted as a shot across the bow of the daily Sudbury Star. As you would recall, when coach Trent Cull left the Wolves for the AHL's Syracuse Crunch in the summer, the Star, whose coverage is normally even-handed, mentioned the coach's relationship with management and owner Mark Burgess, "was on thin ice much of last season, especially after Burgess' son, Connor, was placed on the team." Fairly innocuous stuff, notwithstanding that a teenaged hockey player got dragged into it.

Normally, it's not this blog's place to comment on how any of the 60 CHL teams deals with local media portals. I'm pretty certain readers care more about what comes out of journalism than what goes on within journalism. But it's just so obvious, plus it might speak to what's becoming of the newspaper industry.

From Peter Ruicci:

In a release, the Wolves stated "Northern Life understands the importance of supporting the local team by providing professional editorial coverage that assists in building our brand in the community and throughout the OHL" and publisher Abbas Homayed promised "unique features" on the team. Who knows, perhaps that won't involve hometown cheerleading.

No one can also know for sure how the rival publications' approaches to reader feedback on Wolves-related articles will differ, namely in how comments are/aren't policed. Far be it to suggest that if people are complaining on the Internet about a hockey team, at least they're talking about the team. Paraphrasing the late great Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who knew what side his bread was buttered on, being slammed by fans beats having the same people kick their TV set or complain about a lousy movie.

In and of itself, if a team and a media portal formed an advertorial, symbiotic relationship, that's their business. For instance, some teams' radio broadcasters work for the club directly, rather than a radio station. Surely anyone sentient enough to watch the player features on a Sportsnet CHL broadcast knows the rights holder has privileged access to the coaches and players that isn't afforded to other media. That's just how it is; there shouldn't be any jealousy. It's only a problem when it interferes with other media folks doing their jobs.

It's worth playing this up, first to point out the undercurrents and secondly as a check on any other CHL teams who do or are thinking of doing the same thing. Nothing is in and of itself and the Wolves' move has the strong scent of an organization behaving like the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla. Just like in 2010-11 when the WHL's Kamloops Blazers denied access to Kamloops Daily News writer Gregg Drinnan, it's not becoming of a professionally run league. The majority of relationships between teams and journalists, speaking from my experience, are cordial and respectful.

How this is going over with the Wolves fans who pay attention, one cannot say. It might even invoke the Streisand Effect. Sometimes it is better to suffer the slings and arrows, eh.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.