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Carey Price
Saturday night I was away from my twitter account and with a friend to watch the game between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning and apparently I missed some interesting chatter.
Seems as though Jaroslav Halak’s agent, Mr Walsh tweeted some stats on twitter which in and of itself is not out of the ordinary but instead of tweeting his client’s statistics he tweeted Carey Price’s stats.
There was a short exchange on twitter and it eventually caught the eye of the Hockey Night in Canada crew. You can find further details in links below.
The internet and social media like twitter and blogs have certainly changed many rules of how people get their news, scoops and opinions on virtually everything. While one can question what exactly was meant by Mr Walsh’s comments it certainly started a bit of a firestorm almost immediately.
If the Montreal Canadiens had a strong winning record with Jacques Martin using one of his goaltenders as his go-to guy this may not be an issue and I suppose it may never have been tweeted. But in light of the team’s play early on it has added to the drama that has followed the Habs through last season and into this one.
This “tweeting incident” aside the team has suffered from both defensive and offensive woes. Both Price and Halak have played quite well (in my opinion) thus far this season. One thing both goaltenders have faced is a loose defense in front of their crease.
I thought that the “win and you’re in” strategy that seemed to be used by Jacques Martin wasn’t a bad idea. Create (or try to) a healthy competition between both goaltenders and keep them hungry.
Back to this “twitter controversy“… it certainly didn’t go unnoticed and here are a few of the reactions:
CBC – Halak agent faces Twitter backlash
TSN – HALAK’S AGENT CAUSES UPROAR WITH POST-GAME TWITTER COMMENTS
ALL Habs blog – Hockey Night in Canada Takes Interest in All Habs’ Feud
Do you think it will affect the relationship between these guys?
Do you think it will affect the dressing room in any way?
Maybe this is just a minor hiccup but one thing is for sure, it sure does add to the drama in Montreal.
Yves Arsenault is a blogger from PEI. He also writes about the Canadiens on his blog Yves on Habs and can be found on twitter @yves_on_habs.
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Like Montreal needs anymore drama to deal with (said with heavy sarcasm). I think that an agent needs to look after his clients best interests. Personally, I don’t think that he did his client any favors by calling out Carey Price.
That being said, I’m all for Freedom of Speech. It’s up to each one of us to police ourselves with what we throw out into the nether world of the Internet. A good rule of thumb to follow is this: Pick the worst case scenario and the backlash it would bring. If you can’t back up any claims you make or take the criticism that is sure to follow….. Don’t put it up there for the world to see.
I agree Rick.
Personally I think it would have been a better approach to highlight his client’s successes instead of mentioning another player’s performance to bolster his client.
Walsh’s move was an absolute catastrophe. I don’t know what message he was trying to send – but it certainly got lost in the delivery.
Everyone is free to tweet what they wish, but for the sake of how he’s viewed by public and clients alike you would think Walsh would have shown a little more discretion.
This is a lose-lose situation for Walsh and possibly Halak.
Agree Clayton, as he is supposed to be representing Halak it was plain Dumb. I would fire him.