NHL Offering Assistance To Papers Not Attending Cup Finals

The NHL this week “began contacting beat writers” who would not be attending the Ducks-Senators Stanley Cup Finals in an “attempt to drum up interest and get stories in papers,” according to William Houston of the Toronto GLOBE & MAIL. The league offered assistance including “delivering information through conference calls and other long-distance measures.” N.Y. Post Sports Editor Greg Gallo, whose paper will not send a writer to the finals, said, “Anaheim and Ottawa just doesn’t work for us.” N.Y. Times Sports Editor Tom Jolly “feels the interest in the game over the past 10 years has declined.” Jolly: “I think the lockout was the watershed moment. There was a lack of outrage in the United States about the lockout, and people took stock of that.” L.A. Times columnist Helene Elliott added, “A lot of decisions are based on web traffic. [Editors] base their decisions on how many clicks different stories get and different teams get.” Houston notes U.S. newspapers accredited for the finals include the Boston Globe, N.Y. Daily News, L.A. Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and USA Today. In Canada, there “may also be fewer newspapers covering the final.” Sun Media’s newspapers will use the Ottawa Sun for their coverage and the CanWest chain will “rely heavily on Ottawa Citizen coverage” (Toronto GLOBE & MAIL, 5/25).

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