NHL denies credentials to major media outlet

(Hope this isn't a D_B)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/hockey/nhl/07_playoffs/2007/06/al-jazeera-shut-out-of-cup-finals.html (via Deadspin)

Ottawa -- The blogosphere has created a minor problem for the NHL public relations department, which isn't always sure which organizations merit credentials for the Stanley Cup finals. Maybe this is a dotcom world and we're just living in it (or typing for it), but not every one of the mushrooming sites is going to get into the official hockey tent -- as was discussed at the Professional Hockey Writers Association meeting Sunday morning.

Of course, some better-known news organizations also have been shut out.

Like Al-Jazeera.

Al-Jazeera has no one at the Stanley Cup finals, its credential request having been turned down. Given the paucity of non-aligned (i.e. Southern California) newspapers from the States covering the final between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators -- the Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, both Denver papers, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, New York Daily News and the Buffalo News have been spotted through three games -- you might have thought the NHL would have been happy to reach a, hmmm, really non-traditional hockey market, but, alas, that didn't happen. Why Al-Jazeera saw the news value in something that, say, the Detroit News apparently hasn't is for deeper thinkers than me.

So no Al-Jazeera. And no Chicago Tribune.

 

Watch the 2007-2008 NHL TV contract BE with Al-Jazeera

 

It's a better-known name than Versus.


Versus and NBC actually still have the rights next year.

 

Would that enable hockey to do better than, say, the WNBA on television?

 

I, too, have always felt Al-Jazeera has better news judgement than the Detroit News...

 

Was Norm MacLean stringing for them?

 

Skeletor was able to procure a ride to Anaheim and Ottawa?

 

This news item can't be true: With my own eyes in Ottawa I saw someone with a credential that had Al-Strachan on it.

 

In the United States and Canada, Al-Jazeera is as major a media outlet as The Good 5¢ Cigar.

Idiot.

 

Talk about two parties meant for each other.

 

Well, maybe. but, given the state of the league's general North American prestige these days, the NHL's not in a position to make this call.

 

"I went to a sectarian conflict ... and a hockey game broke out."