Yesterday was a tough day for the hockey world. There have been countless hours and words devoted to the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv tragedy. One thing that really bothered me yesterday was the lack of coverage that ESPN seemed to be giving to this matter.
Of course, I couldn’t watch SportsCenter, but numerous tweets said that the top story on the sports news show was Peyton Manning being ruled out for Sunday’s game. ESPN considered that breaking news. Funny, I knew he wasn’t playing in this game two weeks ago. Add to that the fact that their website hadn’t been updated with the story. It was buried on the sidebar on the NHL page, but nowhere to be found on the homepage.
Thrashing the Blues has a great breakdown of ESPN’s coverage.
The wake of an international tragedy like this is no time to start pointing fingers and telling people they are jerks. But, it is difficult to ignore the disregard ESPN showed to this story. I think it is an embarrassment that ESPN wasn’t able to lead SportsCenter and their website with this story. They are the “worldwide leader in sports” after all. Ironically, they had no trouble digging up cell phone video of the UConn basketball fight in China.
I lost most respect for ESPN a long time ago. I don’t expect their hockey coverage to be very good because they have no vested interest in the sport. But showing blatant disregard for a tragedy that has struck the global sports community is pretty pathetic.
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