Cheers and Jeers – May 18th

The Good and the Bad of this past week.

It’s Friday. So we close out the "Week That Was" with our latest volume of… "Cheers and Jeers!"

This week, I check the terrible sources from CTV News and NBC LA, but write a tome of historical signifance for Jo Innes and @LAKINGS.

JEERS to CTV News for the use of their "sources". In a story about David Booth and his bear hunting controversy, CTV News decided to quote fan reaction to his use of a bear baiting technique. Instead of correctly crediting the quote to a commenter on a specific blog, they twice credited the comments to "one blogger". Fortunately, the story has since been updated to correctly cite the sources of the quotes.

CHEERS to Jo Innes (@jonana) for her excellent piece on The Score’s Backhand Shelf on shoulder labrums and how it related to Canucks’ center Ryan Kesler. It is an incredibly insightful and detailed post that gives people some real, tangible information on how Kesler potentially suffered this injury and what his recovery process will look like.

JEERS to NBCLA for employing a moron in their graphics department. NBCLA ran a story last week about the hype in the LA sports world with the three occupants of Staples Center (Kings, Lakers and Clippers) all in the playoffs. However, instead of the LA Kings logo, the simpleton in the graphics department put up the logo from the Sacramento Kings. My question for the guy who made this mistake… Did you miss the giant purple basketball? Or the name "SACRAMENTO"?

CHEERS to LA Kings twitter account, yet again, for being awesome. In response to the stupid mistake from NBCLA, @LAKINGS tweeted the following, "Hey @NBCLA. Can we talk about everything that is wrong with this: lockerz.com/s/209070756". HAHAHAHA. Dynamite. It’s tough to figure who’s having a better playoffs – the team on the ice, or the social media team, because both have been outstanding for the past 5 weeks.

JEERS to the Phoenix Coyotes for completely losing the plot in games 2 and 3, and ultimately now the series. In game 2, you have Shane Doan with a hit from behind (which earned him a five and a game), Martin Hanzal with an even worse hit from behind (five and a game and a one game suspension) and Derek Morris with a nasty looking knee-on-knee hit (2 min penalty). In game 3, the Coyotes were okay through 2 periods then collapsed again once Dwight King scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period. After that goal, which put the Kings up 2-1, the Coyotes took four penalties (one off-setting) with the final slashing penalty to Radim Vrbata, with less than a minute to play, acting as the nail in the coffin of their third straight loss. It’s absolutely stupid behavior and shows that the Coyotes have collapsed. They’re done. When you fold like a tent after being down ONE goal with almost an entire period to come back, you’ve mentally checked out. Say goodnight, Phoenix.

CHEERS to the researchers who discovered the earliest known reference to the game of hockey, going all the way back to the 18th century. According to the article posted on Global Toronto (via NBC’s Pro Hockey Talk), two Swedish researchers uncovered the earliest known image and reference to ice hockey, dating back to December 1796. This is pretty amazing, as it pre-dates other known references by several decades, and indicates that the subject of the book may have been playing hockey on ice for several decades BEFORE the book was published. So it’s safe to assume that earliest notions of ice hockey date back to the mid-18th century. Amazing stuff.