“Around the NHL”: Brendan Shanahan Discusses Recent Suspensions on “Boomer & Carton”

As much as I have expressed my anger with WFAN and the Boomer & Carton show in the past and their treatment of the sport of hockey, I must say I am thoroughly impressed with the interview they conducted with Brendan Shanahan this morning, who has a lot of explaining to do on his decisions to suspend or not suspend certain players in the last few games. Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton asked him some tough questions and really had the VP of Player Safety contradicting himself on several occasions. I used to have a ton of respect for Shanahan, despite the anger I showed towards him and the NHL in my article yesterday, who was one of my favorite players when he came to the Rangers for two seasons in 2006, but I have lost some of that over the last few days, and might not get it back.

In the 22 minute interview, Shanahan discussed his decisions to not suspend Shea Weber, and his perplexing suspension of Matt Carkner for only one game and Carl Hagelin’s three games. The contradictions that arose are when he was repeatedly asked about injuries being the only factor in his decisions and he denied it, though his explanations really did not clear that issue up. Click here to listen to the full interview.

New York Rangers: Media Shunning has Reached It’s Boiling Point

Since the lockout, the New York Rangers have been used to not getting any media coverage, save for a few weeks when they make the playoffs, when perhaps they get a corner of the back page of either the New York Post or Daily News. Even then, you will not hear any puck talk on any of the major radio stations in the area. It is almost as if the sport of hockey does not exist, especially during the regular season. There could be a multitude of reasons for this, like maybe the team having a mediocre season with no players standing out in any exceptional way. Okay, maybe then it would be understandable, but the snowball effect of ignorance one year after another has built up so much that it clouds the media’s coverage even when the team is first in the Eastern Conference, with a nine-point lead, and two points out of being in first place in the entire league. Instead, even though baseball season has been over for months, and the glory of the Super Bowl is now teetering out, we now have to see the New York Knicks and Jeremy Lin on the back page every single day, while the Rangers keep on flying to obscurity in the back of the sports section.