from the Calgary Flames,

Hey Brian, lifelong Flames fan here. Just wondering how you find the Calgary media as opposed to the Toronto media?

I’d say the two biggest differences are the Toronto media, they’re like Lemmings – there’s masses of them everywhere.

Everywhere where you turn there’s someone there with a recording device. The players are forced to deal with a huge quantity that gets tiresome, frankly. There will be 100 media in the room after a game and here there might be 40 and in Anaheim there might be 20 or 15. The number one thing is the volume, there’s a crush of them everywhere. Number two is, of course, in a 5-million market compared to a 1.2-million or whatever we are. The social media component is huge. If a player stops at a bar to have one beer, someone’s going to tweet that he had four. Or if he’s talking to a woman. Social media, if you add that to the media thing, is a crushing burden. Second is the attitude. I’ve said this before so this isn’t a revelation, I think in Toronto they breed on the misery of the team. When the team does poorly then love it and love to pick up rocks and throw them.

I think here the media have been fair. I think they’d like us to do well but they’re not cheerleaders and I think they’ve been fair.

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