Earlier this week the Edmonton Oilers made NHL history by naming Connor McDavid their 15th captain in franchise history.
This was historic because Connor McDavid is now the youngest captain of an NHL team ever, at 19 years, 266 days old (a title held previously by Gabriel Landeskog at 19 years, 286 days). Despite reading many articles praising McDavid for his own maturity and praising the Oilers organization for recognizing the young man’s talent, I personally do not agree with the decision. I believe that while a person’s ability to lead and talent are extremely important, the amount of experience that they have is equally important in their ability to lead. McDavid was named captain coming off his first regular season which was shortened by an injury to his left clavicle (McDavid finished the season with 48 points in 45 games). After reading these analyses of the decision, I’m beginning to realize that the media is doing to my perception of McDavid exactly what it did to my perception of other NHL stars, such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.
When professional sports teams have breakout players, it can usually become obvious. They’re the players whose stats become repeated several times a day, players whose jerseys sell out instantly in stores, players people look to when the team is down in an important game, and players whose off days become blown extremely out of proportion. These players face the same challenges that most professional athletes do, which is attempting to keep calm and focus on their individual performance and contributions to the team without letting the constant media psych them out. Many focus on star players and how they react to the media, but one has to wonder how the consistent media attention of one specific person has to effect the whole team? Constant focusing on one player, especially in a team sport such as hockey, is blatantly unacceptable. In a game where you have 4 forward lines of 3 people, 4 defensive lines of 2 people, and 1 to 2 goalies playing per game, and a fairly long list of various head coaches and assistant coaches, it is astounding to me that the shortcomings of one player can be called the causation of a loss no matter what that players’ assumed level of leadership is.
My favorite go to example of media insanity is the Washington Capitals. Alexander Ovechkin, the captain, is an extremely talented player, and I don’t want that to get lost in this discussion. The man knows how to move a puck and can bury it when he needs to. Sure his defensive play isn’t exactly much to write home about, but it usually never is for any sniper, let alone one with as lethal a shot as Ovechkin’s. The media is constantly focusing on Ovechkin, whether it’s for some pretty hilarious antics at an All-Star tournament, or for leading a national team at the world cup, you won’t ever find him out of the spotlight. Which isn’t necessarily a problem, until you take a step back and look at who fills out the rest of the Washington Capitals’ roster. Fast, incredibly intelligent, phenomenal puck-movers fill that team; players such as Evgeny Kuznetsov, T.J. Oshie, Niklas Backstrom, Karl Alzner, and Brooks Orpik just to name a few. Even worse is some of those names are used to their own amount of media spotlight on other teams, such as when T.J. Oshie was still playing for the St. Louis Blues as a member of that team’s core. With a Washington Capitals team that regularly boasts preparedness and readiness to contend for a Stanley Cup, the franchise has never won it once. While a lot of their problems can be attributed to the coaching staff’s inability to connect to their players, one has to wonder if many players are really into it to win it with a team whose media appears to so blatantly care about only the production of one or two players?
The 2015 NHL draft is another fine example of the media ruining two rising NHL stars for me, the number 1 and number 2 picks in the draft Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel (who were picked by the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres, respectively). McDavid was drafted from his amateur team the Erie Otters of the OHL and Eichel was drafted straight out of Boston University. Both of these men are incredibly talented (I mean McDavid was born 2 months before me and he makes $925,000 a year, where did I go wrong?!), however the constant media attention, war-mongering between Sabres and Coyotes fans, and a literal three-camera concentration on McDavid’s face at the NHL draft lottery where it was announced what team he would play for with almost 100% certainty.
The NHL and their media associations obviously aren’t going to reel in player centric reporting, especially as long as it continues to garner sales numbers for Crosby, Jagr, Ovechkin, and other merchandise. Sports journalism allows the players to maintain their individual identities for the fans, allowing them to be more than just a number on a team’s roster, but as of late the world of hockey media has been taking leadership management and player reporting to unacceptable heights, and it is ruining the enjoyment of athleticism, power, and skill that I’ve come to love within professional hockey.
