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'Accidents', the Jets Way.

August 21, 2014, 1:12 PM ET [35 Comments]
Peter Tessier
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
There is a time for everything and right now Jets fans are seeing the 'arrival of analytics' come around the NHL while watching it pass the franchise. It's another case of fans, many with growing impatience because of lack of activity by the team, questioning it.

That is all that's left to do. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

Without action, direction, movement or inertia fans and critics create their own, yours truly included. I like to have content, I like to discuss news relevant to the team but there rarely is any away from controversy, at least in the dead time of summer.

Last night Kane's comments from an interview with the Team1040 broke across Twitter. At the same time the Free Press with a quick article from Tim Campbell clarifying the favouring of a tweet mocking the Winnipeg Jets off-season by Andrew Ladd came out. No one from TNSE rushed to help Kane but in Campbell's article this interesting bit appeared, "Ladd, who spoke to the Free Press this afternoon, said he had looked at Twitter just before going for his daily workout and didn’t realize what he’d done until contacted by the Jets communications staff."

Where was that staff with Evander Kane? Where were they at the draft when after taking Ehlers Kevin Cheveldayoff was asked about the tweet that Kane favourited. One where a fan asked Flyer GM Ron Hextal to trade for Kane. As Patti Dawn Swanson pointed out in her blog, Patti the River City Renegade, there is a whole lot of contradiction going on. You can read it HERE

The Jets are known to be very tight lipped about information. It's their approach to almost everything the organization has done before and since the return of NHL hockey to Winnipeg. Unfortunately this style of communication lends itself to much conjecture and speculation on the information that is available. It's often incomplete and from various sources, some reliable and some not. The result is opinions are formed and TNSE often has to manage them from behind.

Take Ladd and Kane for example- should each not be subject to the same level of account for their actions? Ladd gets a hall pass and Kane gets vilified for stoking trade rumours about him. More importantly should the communications staff at TNSE been way out in front of Kane as fast as they were with Ladd? A quick phone interview with a sympathetic reporter from the Jets print media sponsor the Winnipeg Free Press could have helped the Jets with Kane's tweet, just as it did with Ladd's yesterday.

True North Sports and Entertainment has a funny culture within it. It's like the time George Bush had to address the world about Al Queda after the 9/11 attack, 'you're either with us or against us'. As momentum built around the Thrashers moving to Winnipeg not a peep was heard from the many in TNSE who knew more. After the Jets arrived and the building began to change I was chatting with a person at TNSE about the possible new colours and logo after the name was announced. "Oh," they said. "We're not allowed to talk, we've all been told what is expected and required of us in regards to changes, and confidentiality."

Ladd and Kane are also employees of TNSE. Clearly the expectations and requirements are quite different for each as TNSE sees it. When discussing some of the Kane rumours this past year one media member said to me, "I'm not sure where they come from but there sure are a lot of people who don't like him(Kane) in the organization".

Well that's reassuring isn't it.
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