Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Airing Grievances 140 Characters At A Time

The "Twitter-verse" asploded today, with Martin Havlat giving an inside look to what's going on with the Dale Tallon/Stan Bowman/Chicago Blackhawks fiasco. Mirtle has a brief overview of what's happening and what Havlat said.

While this is great for fans to get an inside view to the happenings, turmoils, and pretty much grudges that come out from one player leaving a team because he felt he was disrespected by the organization after giving his all for them; is this the right medium to do it in and what precedent does this put out there for other athlete's who are pissed off at their teammates, coaches, and front office??

To drop a name or so, I've done some stuff with Havlat when he did his FHM Online thing while I was doing my thing for FHM. He's a great guy and he's a straight-shooter. However, I don't think he knows what he's could be getting into by doing something like this-- especially after he ripped the franchise for not giving him a better offer in order to keep him in Chicago. If he does this now, on his own, off of pure emotion-- it could come off as sour grapes and bitterness toward the Hawks-- which could be the case, but isn't the right light he should be portrayed in.

The fine line that Havlat is walking is going to be something that will be very showing of how he is treated for the rest of his career. Should Havlat air this "dirty laundry" off of pure emotion-- how do you think the brass of the Wild or whoever else he plays for will treat him?? How inside do you think he'll get if he goes off on a tangent about how the Hawks are run and what happened?? More over, how trusting will his teammates be if they know he's capable of tweeting about their mishaps or what-have-you?? Sure, those are extreme situations, but at the same time-- it may not be out of the realm of possibility depending on what he does with this Tallon situation.

We talked on the FOHS Draft Show (being fixed in "post", as they say) about the new dimension that Twitter brings to the table with teams tweeting their picks and trades, but this is bringing it to another level and could be a landmark situation we're getting into. It'll be interesting what Havlat does in terms of information given and what could be done afterwords in terms of deleting and not recognizing these tweets at a later time.

All of the people follow Havlat will await with bated breath.....even if he only can use 140 characters and needs to abbreviate like a mofo to get what he wants to say across to the masses. Best of luck with this, Marty-- but at the same time-- there's a better medium to go about it, should you choice it.

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