As we’re always saying around here, there’s a great role for blogs in hockey coverage, particularly as the league has experienced reduced mainstream NHL coverage in recent years. But of course, reading blogs is no substitute for the many great sports journalists that continue to cover the game, and we certainly read all of them religiously.

So just imagine if a major national media source—for instance The Globe & Mail in Canada or The Boston Globe in the US—completely stopped covering the sport of hockey. Those writers and their in-depth stories would be missed greatly. And that’s almost exactly what happened this week at USA Today.

But not to the NHL… to the NBA.