I’m reviewing three articles from the Philadelphia Flyers and Minnesota Wild game from February 6, 2010. The pieces are from an established Flyers blog from SB Nation that runs on Yahoo!, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and NHL.com.
The first article is from the blog Broad Street Hockey, and is the least successful article of the three reviewed. Travis Hughes, the author of this particular post, took an untraditional approach to the game recap and was much more casual than the other two writers. Instead of actually recapping the game and the goals, Hughes talked about the main points of the game and answered questions that he had posed during the game preview. At the end of the post, he also included the comment of the night. Overall, the article was choppy and ineffective. The choppiness may be due to the informality in Hughes’ writing. This is very popular with blogs and can be extremely effective, but Broad Street Hockey isn’t the case. And while some may enjoy this style, I found myself wanting to know more facts about the game along with his analysis. This is an excerpt from his article:
"The problem isn't the defense. No, they were just fine tonight and they've been just fine on that end this entire road trip. The problem isn't the goaltending either. Was Michael Leighton fantastic tonight? No. Much like Khudobin, he was solid but not Brodeur-esque."
This excerpt exemplifies the choppiness and informality that ruins the article. While this may appeal to some, the lack of flow is the true downfall in the article. Sadly, for such a well publicized and popular blog, Hughes doesn’t prove to have the writing talent that the other two writers possess.
The second article is from the Flyers beat writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sam Carchidi. While Carchidi wrote a more traditional game recap, his style was also ineffective. The organization of his article was poor and some of his sentence structures were difficult to read. This is apparent in the following excerpt:
"Reserve goalie Michael Leighton gift-wrapped Minnesota's two goals last night - and the Flyers' punchless offense couldn't overcome those miscues.
Stocky goalie Anton Khudobin, making his first NHL start, outplayed Leighton as the Wild defeated the Flyers, 2-1, at the sold-out Xcel Energy Center."
These are the first two sentences of the article. Typically, a game recap would begin with the second of those two sentences, not the first, as the second actually introduces what the article will be about. This is just one example of the poor organization of the article. However, unlike Hughes, Carchidi included statistics throughout his article. Statistics are vital, especially in sports articles. Play-by-play and analysis are obviously important, but statistics help the audience to truly visualize how a team or player has been performing. Carchidi’s knowledge of hockey and the Philadelphia Flyers is obvious; the language that he uses makes this clear. His Flyers bias, however, spoils his article. While I understand that Carchidi is on the Flyers beat, it is disappointing to see such a one-sided article. Carchidi included only quotes from the Flyers, and wrote little of the Wild.
The third article is a game recap on NHL.com written by NHL Columnist John Kreiser. This article was the best written and therefore, the most effective. Though it was a traditional game recap with play-by-play of the goals and general statistics, Kreiser also took a firm perspective and incorporated a bit of a feature story into the usually-routine article. For example, this was the article’s lead:
"Anton Khudobin has no idea why he's doing what he's doing. The Minnesota Wild hope their rookie goaltender just keeps doing it."
Kreiser’s utilization of quotes was extremely successful and helpful; it looked as if he blended them into the story and they belonged, not like he just threw them in at the last second. He also included a significant amount of background information in a way that helped the article, but didn’t make it a heavy history lesson. For example:
""I can't tell you the secret," said Khudobin, a 23-year-old Russian who was a seventh-round pick by the Wild in 2004."
Of the three articles, Kreiser’s is clearly the most effective, showing how a writer can and should use the elements of storytelling and reporting together while reporting both sides equally.
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