On Feb. 6, Sam Reinhart, a forward for the Buffalo Sabres in the National Hockey League was questioned by Mike Harrington, a sports columnist for The Buffalo News, about his effort on a specific play that was made.
In that game, the Detroit Red Wings came away with a two-on-one rush. Sabres’ defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen was the lone Buffalo defender, with Reinhart trying to catch up. Toward the end of the play, Detroit got a clean pass off—with Reinhart nowhere near the play—and ended up scoring to give the Red Wings a 2-0 lead. Some might even say that he “gave up” on the play, showing no effort whatsoever.
Sportsnet, a sports media company based out of Canada, had a radio segment about the confrontation and also talked about the actual play. Reinhart had already been on the ice for a minute and 47 seconds. In terms of hockey, that is a very long shift, especially when it was four-on-four hockey, instead of the normal five-on-five. The amount of energy Reinhart had already exerted was too much. One of the hosts said, “he had the piano backpack, and he’s got spaghetti legs,” referring to his exhaustion.
In the post-game press conferences, Harrington questioned Reinhart with the comment, “Do you think you back-checked on that play the way you need to?” Reinhart responded by saying, “I don’t think I’m going to value that question right now.” Harrington continued to ask the question with different wording and Reinhart continued to refuse to answer the question.
This is not about Reinhart and how he handled the play on defense. The bigger concern is how the media—both initially during the press conference and how the rest of the media world reacted in the days following—handled the situation.
Being honest, Buffalo’s season has not gone according to plan. The team sits in sixth place in the NHL’s Atlantic Division and are 25th in the entire league out of 31 teams. At this point, fans are looking for answers. To an extent, Harrington’s question was warranted, especially since the final score was 4-3 after an overtime shootout. That one Red Wing goal could have made a big difference in the long run.
When Harrington asked the initial question and Reinhart refused to answer it, that should have been it. Sure, Sabres fans want answers. But the answers need to come from the game in general, not specific plays. Pushing players to answer questions like that can cause relationship problems between the press and players, not allowing for good storylines to happen down the line.
If the player does not “value” the question, let it go. Figure out how to draw up a new question in order to reflect the general game or season, instead of attacking players.
