Well as many of you know the NHL trade deadline came and went and one of the biggest commotions of the day was the trading of Edmonton’s Ryan Smyth. I think it’s absolutely amazing how the media has covered the whole ordeal.
At first there was not much talk in the media of the Oilers moving Smyth, but once they did the media exploded trying to uncover every possible detail of the trade. Smyth himself said he found out about the trade, not through the phone call from Kevin Lowe but, through his television. Apparently Smyth was watching the little sports tracker on the bottom of the sports channel and discovered he’d been traded to the New York Islanders.
Here’s where I find this of interest in context to this class: Smyth found out about his own future through the media, via his television set. The media knew about the trade before the guy involved in it did. The media was able to relay their knowledge of the trade to the public before Kevin Lowe, the one performing the trade, even had time to call Smyth and inform him of the transaction. Kind of interesting how fast the media has become. Within minutes they are able to broadcast things as they happen.
Now for those of you who are hockey fans I will leave you this clip of Smyth’s fairwell. I don’t care if you’re not an Oiler’s fan, you can’t help but appreciate what this guy has done for his team and the city of Edmonton. Few others in the game today have such a bond with their team, fans, and the city. This clip shows it’s more than just a business. It’s people’s lives, their family’s lives, and the fans’ lives that are affected by trading away the face of a team. (Much like it would be if Joe Sakic were ever traded) I’ll put both part 1 and part 2 of his fairwell on here.
I found out that smyth was traded when someone commented on my blog in reference to something I posted. I was totally shocked and excited (flames fan). Those videos are pretty brutal, especially the first one. As much as I consider Smyth to be an obstacle to the stanley cup, I felt pretty bad for him. It is kind of scary to think that other people he didn’t know knew about his trade before he did. It kind of reminded me of when kevin federline found out about his divorce via text message while on air shooting an interview for muchmusic. Nice Blog!