A couple-three blog grades

Howdy! Time to catch up on two or three All Things Avs blog entries, all written by Adrian Dater. Ready, set, grade!

No Avs practice Tuesday; no updates from Landeskog, O’Reilly fronts

In this blog entry, Adrian Dater explains that under the new CBA,  teams must take a minimum of four days off every month, which explains why the Avs did not practice despite their ultra-poopy PK performance of late. Good info, I had no idea about that.

Also included in this blog are a weather update from Canada (it's cold), a bit of an info-free update on Landeskog, and a closing paragraph about Ryan O'Reilly in which Dater now seems to have moved from "The Avs offers are fair" to "The Avs are subbornly refusing to give in." Dater also uses his new catch phrase — "good times" — twice in this blog entry. It isn't old yet, but it will be soon.
A-

Michael Sgarbossa recalled by Avs; Brad Malone bound for Lake Erie

In this blog entry from later in the same day, Dater lets his reader know that Brad Malone has been sent to the AHL to make room for Micheal Sgarbossa. Dater offers some good, albeit brief, facts about Sgarbossa, guesses at where Sacco will use him, and writes that a guy like him could help address the Avs' scoring woes (scoring being something which is not really Malone's forte). This is an example of the perfect recipe for the blog: 3 cups facts with a dash of speculation.
A+

Ryan O’Reilly update: Not much goin’ on

In this blog entry, Dater lets his reader know that those backwoods Russian doctors did not permanently cost Ryan O'Reilly's the use of his foot, it's just a "minor sprain." Whew! I was worried he wouldn't be able to get back and forth to the fridge for beers over the next couple weeks.

Dater goes on to restate his feelings about O'Reilly's contract holdout. AD does not think things are going well, and blames the Avalanche, writing:

The Avs have just let this kind of thing go on for way too long with players. They cut off their nose to spite their face time and again with players who want what – fair or not – is their perceived value. Then they leave and thrive elsewhere. Maybe it’s time for Avs management to take a good hard look in the mirror and say “Maybe it’s us, not them” as to why players seem to do great things away from this team, after, you know, other teams show they care about them at the bargaining table.

I didn't have any other photos to add to today's blog,
so I figured a shout-out to sweet old trucks was in order.

It's now clear that the hint from the earlier blog about Dater's change of heart with O'Reilly's situation was correct; this is pretty much a complete about-face from the attitude Dater had just a couple weeks ago, when he called the Avalanche's offers to O'Reilly "more than fair."

Dater does acknowledge he said that, but writes that "circumstances with the roster have changed." I guess Dater means that if the Avs have a healthy bunch of forwards, O'Reilly is worth $3.5 million per year, but when guys get hurt, he's now worth more? I'm not sure I agree with that logic. If my wife's car breaks down, my truck doesn't suddenly become more valuable. More useful, definitely... but if I'm selling it I'm not going to be able to say "Yeah, I'm asking about a grand more than it's worth, but that's because it's our only car right now." When a team starts paying players based on how much they need them rather than how much they're worth, that team gets into trouble.

While I do see Dater's point to a degree, I feel he's trying to straddle the fence here... on one side he's saying the team is being smart with their money and not overpaying for a guy who's demanding far too much compensation than his body of work would call for, and from the other side of his mouth he's saying the team is being cheap, stubborn, and stupid and chasing away their fans. Perhaps the truth, as it often is, is a mixture of black and white, but here it just sounds like Dater is waffling. If Dater wishes to make his point about the Avalanche front office's attitude towards players in certain situations, he'd be wise to pick as his example a player the Avs are truly trying to underpay, rather than one he's already stated the team has dealt with fairly.

One other note about this blog: Dater writes that under the new CBA, a restricted free agent in O'Reilly's situation can become a free agent if he sits out an entire season of hockey. He has offered no source for this claim, and from what I can tell from reading through the changes to the CBA, he is completely wrong here. If this were the case, why wouldn't EVERY player hold out after his entry-level contract was up, go play in Russia or Sweden for a year, and thereby become a UFA six years early? I think this is a case of Dater severely misunderstanding something he overheard, not bothering to check it, and then throwing his readers into a state of confusion by publishing it as fact. I could be wrong, but the only place I can find this supposed CBA change is in Dater's own writing, so I'm not betting on it. The grade here would be a C if not for this misleading factual error. 
D+

EDIT: Today, Dater published this blog entry, explaining that what he wrote about O'Reilly's RFA status changing after a one-year holdout could be (and as he later adds, is definitely) wrong. He writes that it was told to him "by people I trust," but calls this a "misunderstanding" of the new CBA.

A few readers have blasted AD in the comments section, but perhaps surprisingly, Grading Dater is not going to join in that fun. Although Dater does deflect the blame somewhat by pointing a finger at his unnamed source, the fact that he has created an entire blog entry just to admit that he was wrong and that he was sorry, is pretty cool. Certainly, as a reporter, there should have been some part of his mind that said, "Wait a minute, that doesn't make any freakin' sense at all, I should spend another five minutes googling shit to see if this is accurate before I commit it to print." If he'd done even a little bit of research before he wrote and published it, he'd have avoided this entire thing... but even so, here he comes clean and admits publicly that he was in error, and that's about all you can ask for once the mistake has been made.
A

Hockey is Back!!!

At long last, hockey has returned, and so has Grading Dater! With the lockout wiping out half the season, there hasn't really been much reason to update the blog.  Why? Two reasons:

1. I found it difficult to get motivated to get online and write a blog about hockey (and hockey reporting) when there is no hockey. Just seemed kind of pointless, and with the Broncos being very interesting/heartbreaking this year, the NHL became very easy to ignore.

2. I realize that the DP's writers probably feel exactly like I do about writing when there's nothing to write about, but unlike me they're actually required to write even if they have nothing to write about. So in sympathy with their situation, I was more than willing to cut them the same slack I cut myself.

What articles and blogs the Post's writers (even Terry Frei popped his head back into the NHL to contribute an article or two) did offer were few and far between, and consisted of two general types of article: the Dry & Boring Update Article ("After two weeks of no contact, the NHL and the union are set to meet again today. ZZZZZ") and the Gripefest Blog. Even though I have often stated my distaste for using the All Things Avs blog for such blatant opinioratory (I'm pretty sure I just made that word up), I wasn't too bothered by these because, as I said before, the poor bastards have got to write something.

Three Post-Game Blogs from Dater!

Today, Grading Dater will look at three recent post-game All Things Avs blog entries, all by Adrian Dater. The Avalanche lost the the Coyotes last week 4-1, to the Stars 7-6 in OT, and to the Flames last night 2-1.

Starting with the Coyotes game, Dater's blog can be found here, and it starts with what I consider a very promising paragraph:

I know a few of you probably have come here to watch me take this team to the woodshed. Yeah, there will be a little of that, but really I didn’t think the Avs were all that bad today really. I saw a team that put 40 shots on net, hit a couple of posts and skated pretty hard I thought. So I feel it’s a little hard to sit here and bash the whole team tonight, despite yet another home loss.

I often get a weird, confused feeling when Dater and I agree about something hockey-related. There's a dizziness in my head and a numb feeling at the tips of my fingers; I feel like I can hear the footsteps of insects within the wall; bright lights seem particularly sharp and painful; and I typically spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes handling inanimate objects to test their solidity and form, searching for a glitch in the Matrix.

Actually, I just realized that this description sounds a lot like a hangover... perhaps Dater and I agreed because one of us was drunk? At any rate, there's a lot to like about this blog. Only a few days ago, I wrote that I would like to see a loss like this one receive a "games like this happen" reaction from the Post, and whaddaya know, here it is!

Grading Mike Chambers

AD, the spotlight's off you today!

Yes, this blog is titled "Grading Dater," and for as long as Adrian Dater is the primary Avalanche beat reporter, it will stay that way. Besides, it's catchy in a way that "Grading the Denver Post" just isn't. However, Dater is not the only writer at the Denver Post who covers the Avalanche; Mike Chambers chimes in from time to time, and because the real goal here is to improve (or failing that, to complain about) the local media coverage of the Avalanche rather than to just rip on Dater all the time, it's time to give AD a break, and take a look at Chambers' work for a while.

I can practically hear Dater's sigh of relief from here!

Just like Titanic, Avalanche Without a Captain

Colorado Avalanche waits to name its captain

In this article, Mike Chambers does some last-minute housekeeping before the Avalanche start their regular season. The first bit is about the team's decision to go with three alternate captains rather than naming a captain. Much has been made, including in the comments for this article, by Avs fans of this decision (or indecision, depending on your point of view), but frankly I think it's 99% hot air. I don't think a team functions any better with a captain than they would with three alternates. Chambers includes a quote from coach Sacco to help explain why the Avs are in no hurry, and I agree. A team either has leadership or it doesn't...a cloth "C" sewn on to one guy's jersey doesn't change that in the slightest.

Chambers moves on to discuss the team's final roster moves, which included the reassignment of Stefan Elliott to the AHL, and the placement of three others on the IR list. Unlike Dater's blog entries about these moves, Chambers tells his reader about these moves without any bias or commentary (and without the misleading, uninformed, flat-out wrong stuff Dater threw in about Elliott being forced out to make room for Cumiskey). He finishes this line of discussion by noting that Gabriel Landeskog made the team. Chambers indicates on what line the rookie will likely be playing, and provides a quote from Landeskog as well.

Overall, this is a good, tight, and informative piece of newswriting. Chambers writes with a direct and objective style, which I admire. I read this article, and I have no idea if Chambers thinks having three alternate captains is a good idea or is completely stupid, I have no idea if he thinks Stefan Elliott should have made the team or if he thinks Matt Hunwick and Kyle Cumiskey suck, and I have no idea if he thinks Landeskog is going to win the Calder or fall flat on his face. I have no doubt that Mike Chambers has his own answers to these questions, but he doesn't tip his hand at all in his writing, which is one of the things that makes it so good. His goal is to inform, not to convince... and as usual, he does a great job of it.
A