Following the Nashville Predators’ series-clinching win over the St. Louis Blues Sunday, star Nashville defenseman P.K. Subban decided to have some fun, picking up a reporter’s recorder and entering a scrum with teammate Roman Josi. He then asked a perfect bland question, followed by a great example of a non-question. Josi had excellent responses to both, as relayed by Predators’ AP correspondent and Rinkside Report writer Jim Diamond:
Here’s the full Subban/Josi exchange. pic.twitter.com/k467A7AhVJ
— Jim Diamond (@diamondhockey) May 7, 2017
So, that’s a fun little poke at the media, right? Apparently not if you’re Jack Todd, the former Montreal Gazette columnist and current contributor, who complained about this being an example of Subban’s selfishness (huh?) on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jacktodd46/status/861376458614345729
It’s sort of funny to see a look-at-me tweet complaining about someone else apparently needing to be the center of attention. Todd took plenty of criticism for that, and took exception to some of it:
Now after decades fighting racism, the Vietnam war etc I'm being called a racist because I have doubts about PK.
We're done, people.— Jack Todd (@jacktodd46) May 8, 2017
He also said this isn’t the first time he’s criticized a coach or player for grabbing a microphone:
Don't like coaches/players grabbing mikes. Ripped Jon Cooper for the same thing. We're in there doing a job. We don't grab their sticks.
— Jack Todd (@jacktodd46) May 8, 2017
It’s worth noting that Todd also penned a Gazette column Sunday about how the Canadiens’ trade of Subban to the Predators for Shea Weber “had to be made.” Here are some lowlights from that:
Subban sells himself better than any player in the history of the National Hockey League. He’s out there, he’s pleasant and funny and articulate, he does spectacular things on the ice, he knows how to beat the drums for his highly public (and entirely worthy) acts of charity.
That has caused many fans to cleave to him with a desperation that lingers even now, nearly a year after the deal that sent him to Nashville.
…This was a deal that had to be made and anyone who sees the Man Mountain in front of Carey Price and thinks the Canadiens are worse off having Weber in town is flat out of his mind.
Yeah, not so much. There are plenty of people who would much rather have Subban, who is younger (he turns 28 this week, while Weber will be 32 in August) and faster, and while Weber had a good season (17 goals, 42 points), it wasn’t that much better than Subban’s by counting stats (10 goals, 42 points), and Subban had the edge in possession metrics. Todd’s right that the Predators’ success and the Canadiens’ lack thereof isn’t just about the Subban-Weber trade, but he’s wrong that critics of it are “flat out of their mind.”
The media members who complain about unconventional occurrences in press conferences or locker rooms provide some of the worst takes out there, perhaps even more so than when they talk about how hard it is to be paid to travel to watch sports. For everyone else, Steph Curry’s daughter is cute and provides some levity, and the SI Kids reporters ask better questions than most of the rest of the media. But there are always grouches out there who have to talk about “the sanctity of the postgame.” Yes, by all means, nothing should interfere with them gathering boring quotes in boring fashion. If they were actually doing the job they complain these things get in the way of, maybe they’d ask better questions, or write something interesting about the post-game disruptions, rather than just whining that it’s in the way of them being typically boring.
Todd’s tweets are just one more example of Montreal media complaining about Subban for being interesting and engaging, things that don’t actually detract from his ability to play hockey. However, those attributes do detract from the stereotypical hockey player image, and from journalists’ attempts to bore us all with cliched answers from cliched people, which Subban hilariously roasted here with his non-question. Perhaps Subban should pick up that recorder full-time someday. He’d probably do a better job with it than some of the current journalists out there.
[Jim Diamond on Twitter]
