John Tortorella Goes Full Torts, Completely Steamrolls Philly Reporter For Kevin Hayes Rumor
Very few people in hockey have ever been as misunderstood as John Tortorella. He gets this awful reputation of being an asshole for what? Because he makes players skate at practice and holds them accountable? Because he doesn't sugar coat everything he says to make sure he takes everybody's feelings into consideration? If that clip last night of John Tortorella absolutely laying in to reporter Ant SanFilippo does anything, it's prove that John Tortorella loves his players and will always have their back--even if he didn't see eye-to-eye with those players and they're no longer on his team anymore.
Now just for the sake of context, let's run back the tape a little bit. I think this was a big enough hockey story to break into the world of general sports, but let's still go through this chronologically real quick. Everything really starts last year while Kevin Hayes was a member of the Philadelphia Flyers. He was playing some good hockey at times, but John Tortorella wanted more out of him, I guess. So he ends up healthy scratching Kevin Hayes a few times throughout the year, the two of them have a falling out, and Kevin Hayes is subsequently traded to the St. Louis Blues in the offseason.
All of that sets up this sort of rocky relationship between Kevin Hayes and John Tortorella and the Philadelphia Flyers. Fast forward to earlier this week when the Philadelphia Flyers traded away one of their top prospects, Cutter Gauthier, to the Anaheim Ducks after Gauthier made it abundantly clear he had no interests in ever playing for the Flyers. Gauthier currently plays for Boston College, Kevin Hayes played at Boston College, and Hayes was initially one of the first Flyers to really reach out to Gauthier when he was drafted. So the two have a relationship. And considering how Hayes' relationship soured with the Flyers coincides with Gauthier's refusal to play for the team, well...let's just say that fans wondered if there was anything going on there.
It's one thing for fans to consider if there was any sort of conspiracy surrounding that situation. But it ramps out to an entirely new level when a member of the media comes out with a report that according to his sources, "Kevin Hayes' fingerprints are all over this".
You'll see from Whitney's tweet that Kevin Hayes immediately denied having anything to do with it. And we'll get to more on that in a moment here. But let's just talk about the current state of journalism for a moment here, because journalism doesn't actually exist anymore. Instead, it's been replaced by "media".
When it comes to media, getting the story right has been completely passed over by either A) getting the story first, or B) getting the most clicks or pageviews or downloads. I don't think a guy like Ant SanFilippo would ever just make something up out of nowhere insinuating that Kevin Hayes was involved with this situation. I'm beyond positive that he has a source in the organization who told him that. But there was a time when in order to run with a story, you'd have to get confirmation from two separate sources in order to consider something as "fact". Anything else was just rumor. But in today's media, rumor is all you need to run with in order to get people to click on a story or watch a video, and then your bills get paid by advertisers. We have an entire industry of guys who just run on rumors because that's all the job requires these days, but then you still have an entire sect of media consumers who take those rumors they hear/read and accept them as fact.
You can see how fucked this makes the entire system. Members of the media report on rumors, consumers take them as fact, and nobody ever gives a fuck if those rumors turn out to be blatantly false because the narrative is already out there and that's what people latch on to. Unfortunately, there are a lot of fucking sick and twisted assholes in the world who have worms for brains, and they take these rumors so seriously that they think it gives them the greenlight to say the most evil and vile shit to those who they involve.
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If you're someone who sends death threats, or tells someone like Kevin Hayes that you're happy his brother died? You are a lowlife scumbag piece of shit, and there's no hope for you in life. The only thing we can root for is that you don't procreate and put another one of you out into the world.
But what this all boils down to is a member of the media having a "source" within an organization, thinking that gives them the power to report on something just because one person told them one thing that they haven't confirmed or denied with literally anybody else, putting that rumor out to the world because it's going to generate buzz and pageviews, and now you have a player who had nothing to do with this situation receiving death threats from neanderthal fans. Again, you can see how fucked this entire system is.
And like I said, there's no accountability there. I don't think Ant SanFilippo should be fired or anything like that. But if this were hockey, you can bet your ass he'd get healthy scratched for a few games after making such a big mistake like this. But there's just no accountability at all….
Until a guy like Torts gets up in front of the room and calls you out in front of all your peers. Because that's what John Tortorella does. He's going to hold his players accountable, and now he's going to hold the media accountable as well. He's going to make sure he humiliates you in front of everybody you work with because sometimes that's the only way to get through to people. John Tortorella isn't a bad guy, he's just a necessary evil sometimes. But he'll do anything for his guys. That's my hockey coach.
P.S. -- Clean shot!
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P.P.S -- Flyers sure seem like a great organization to play for that'll make sure they take care of you and your family. Imagine not wanting to play for that.