from Bruce Dowbiggin at the Globe and Mail,

“Instead of waiting for ESPN to give the lockout its customary 23 seconds of news before giving Barry Melrose the floor for his ‘drunk uncle at the wedding’ analysis, hockey fans of every experience level and demographic can distribute and scrutinize the news of the day on Twitter – while also offering a suitable place to vent, frequently profanely.”

“Fans no longer have to wait for a talk-show host to put them on the air or a letter to the editor to be printed,” says Mitch Melnick, long-time radio host on TSN Radio 690 in Montreal. “The immediacy of a well-crafted tweet almost has the effect of putting you in the room when Gary Bettman reads them. And you know he reads them. If not originals then certainly via retweets... Whether they care or not is an entirely different matter.”

Have the sound and fury affected negotiations? The man who preceded Don Fehr as executive director of the NHLPA thinks so. “Twitter has changed the landscape since the last CBA negotiation in that every development in this standoff has gone viral almost instantly,” says Paul Kelly, now a sports lawyer in Boston. “Social media has also allowed the parties to attempt to shape public opinion directly and through surrogates, including players, agents, owners, friendly media sources and others.”

more