I always thought that the reason the NHL and Minnesota Wild got such poor media coverage was because hockey isn't a very popular sport - especially when it's competing with other professional leagues in the area like the NFL, MLB, and NBA. But I was wrong - the reason the media coverage is poor is because the media itself is just stupid.

Nikki and I were at the Wild game on 1/9/2006 and were listening to the post-game press conference on the radio on the way home. If you've never listened to coach Jacques Lemaire speak during the post-game press conference then you're missing a good listen. His French-Canadian accent is extremely thick and it's entertaining to listen to him speak. He's always very blunt in his remarks too and has interesting things to say.

Anyway, one of the reporters attempted to ask a "question" about how Kurtis Foster (a Wild defenseman) took some bad penalties and as a result he was benched for a lot of the game. The reporter said something like this (this isn't an exact quote and I'm just going from memory):

So in the 2nd and 3rd period, Foster wasn't playing much. He took some pretty bad penalties in the 2nd period and you had to bench him. A guy can't take penalties like that and expect to play.

So what exactly was the question for Jacques to answer? Jacques didn't really know either, so his response was something like this (again, not an exact quote):

Well I guess you have my answer already. He didn't play because he took bad penalties. Do you have any other questions with the answers already for me?

A second reporter then did the exact same thing asking about why defenseman Filip Kuba wasn't dressed for the game, saying that his play has been sub-par lately and that he needed to be scratched from the roster. Jacques responded similarly saying how great it was that they were doing the press conference for him by giving all the answers.

Other than that, the reporters just commented about some of the bad puck bounces and talked about how much of a bummer it was to lose the game.

Why aren't these reporters asking questions and digging for information? Why aren't they interested in other important aspects of the game? The first two reporters could have had a lot more to write about if they would have asked "Why was Kurtis Foster benched" and "Why was Filip Kuba scratched". Jacques probably would have elaborated a lot more instead of making fun of the journalists. Why didn't they ask about other important parts of the game instead of commenting about trivial stuff like puck bounces? Why not ask about why Tjarnqvist keeps making bad passes and creates turnovers? Why not ask about how well he thought Gaborik played? Why not ask about how it looks like the Wild are starting to favor Fernandez over Roloson in goal? Who does he think played well and played poorly?

Maybe if the local media knew how to gather information then the NHL and the Wild would get better coverage. I always thought it was the low popularity of the sport.