Sunday night, the Buckeye State Hockey team got together for a roundtable discussion. The topic? Ryan Murray’s comments in the wake of the October 31 Blue Jackets loss against Winnipeg. His words have caused quite a stir among the fan community, and you can listen to them thanks to 97.1’s Lori Schmidt.
This is as emotional as I've heard Ryan Murray in a long time. Think he was stung by the crowd's reaction tonight: https://t.co/pDEL51UmgO
— Lori Schmidt (@LoriSchmidt) November 1, 2015
What do our writers think about the early season controversy? Let’s dive into the Buckeye State Chat!
Opening Thoughts
Matt: Murray couches his comments throughout the statement. “They have a point… we haven’t had a great record so far… it’s not that we don’t deserve them…”
Alison: He said directly, “We know we’re not good enough right now,” as well.
Matt: If you read the reaction from those who are upset, it’s about “We don’t need to hear the boos,” and his statement is not complete without the whole story. However emotional he is/was (and he sounds on the verge of tears), it’s a considered emotion, a thoughtful emotion.
The Coach: He goes out of his way to not say what he’s been accused of saying. It was incredibly personal, thoughtful, emotional, and nuanced. It’s the kind of statement we never see from athletes, and no wonder.
Alison: To be clear, I don’t think we – or Ryan Murray – are telling fans how to fan.
Jeremy: Fans can certainly do what they want regarding booing or cheering. I don’t think Murray is trying to tell people that. I don’t even think partial quotes (editors note: some portions of Murray’s comments have been tweeted, or paraphrased in tweets) read like he’s trying to tell people what to do. Just sounds like he’s saying “we don’t need to hear that – because we should be playing good enough that it doesn’t happen”
Matt: It’s a tricky balance. I want to remain loyal to the idea of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I also want to reserve the right to express displeasure (so long as I’m not hurting others around me). I don’t know where that balance is for everyone.
Defining Sports Fandom and Reactions
The Coach: It does bring up the quandary of sports fandom. What are we rooting for?
Jeremy: Good draft picks! (Ok, ok maybe not.)
Alison: I think this is an important question, Coach. Some Jackets fans understandably carry years and years of hopes dashed. The vast majority of this roster does not know that history… so it sways context for those two audiences.
Brett: Well obviously you’re rooting for the city, or at least the representation of whatever it is a sports team stands for.
Nick: I like underdogs.
Jeremy: That’s my thought, Brett. The city/state/province name being on the team – they’re representing your home, for most fans.
Matt: I want the team I’ve aligned with to win. And to hear Murray be that upset, I think he’s on the same page.
Alison: There is no doubt that these guys care about winning – a lot. As Murray said “we want to turn this around more than anybody.”
The Coach: There are a lot of reactions to booing, and Murray had the kind of reaction you should want players to have if you are booing.
Jeremy: The fans want to win, sure. I don’t think there’s a player in the room who doesn’t want to win just as much.
The Coach: Torts talked about having thick skin, but if that is how fans want players to react, booing is pointless.
Matt: It’s a rough spot. To be mad about booing can lead to perception that he’s anti-fan. To brush aside booing, I’m sure someone would suggest he doesn’t care enough.
The Coach: If you are booing, you want the players to be upset about it, want to change things, want to do what is necessary to get the fans back on their side. That’s how I took Murray’s feelings from his comments.
Jeremy: What do people expect players to say when asking that kind of question? Do they just expect them to validate the booing somehow? “Yeah good, we deserved it” or something? Because that’s pretty much what he said, is it not?
The Coach: I think the major problem was the use of the word “loyalty”. I think if he says “support” instead of “loyalty” and everything else stays the same, this is a non-issue.
Brett: Probably. Nothing is more loyal than the people still paying money for the current play.
The Coach: Loyalty is rightfully something of a trigger word for a fan base like the Jackets, who have been with this team for years of not always great hockey.
Matt: I think there’s maybe a disconnect at the “effort” thing, too. We’ve been told for however long that a hard-working team will be triumphant. He claims they aren’t being half-assed about things, and here they still are with a 2-10-0 record.
Sports PR and Context
Jeremy: A lot of the backlash was started because only one portion of the full quote was originally tweeted/posted, right?
Alison: I think with the frustration this fan base is feeling, it’s easy to latch onto a part of the text or audio, and it pervades your perception. We all do it – particularly when it’s something we care about a great deal. Murray talked on the subject for over a minute – that’s a lot of time.
The Coach: This is part of the Twitter age though. If it doesn’t fit in a tweet, the gist of it needs to be condensed into it. Leaves no room for nuance.
Alison: (Parsing his comments into a tweet), listening to him talk, was impossible in my opinion.
The Coach: It’s why players in all sports are schooled to give short, clipped answers that have no room for interpretation, no way to be taken out of context. I think next time Ryan Murray says nothing (or words that mean nothing). Is that better? Don’t we want to have this kind of look into how fans influence players, to know that these are actual people, not just sports-machines.
Matt: It’s why Sid Crosby (and recently Connor McDavid) are so boring off ice. And it’s a shame that we might lose honesty and genuine humanity if the PR backlash gets back to Murray.
Brett: There’s no way to print how close it sounded like Murray was to choking up. I think just that subtle emotion alone would reveal that he’s not trying to make an excuse or “return fire” at the fan base.
Murray’s Emotion and Intensity
The Coach: Alison, weren’t you there interviewing him when he made the statement? Did the emotion of the moment come across even more in person?
Alison: I was part of the scrum, yes. I thought Murray spoke very honestly and openly. The desire of how much these guys so much want to be better – winning, celebrating (for everyone – fans and players) – was pretty intense. And real.
Jeremy: I want to see guys go off the beaten path with their comments, to show how pissed they are at what’s happening. If they feel like crying, yelling, whatever, good. Get it out there. Show people that it means something to you.
Brett: I just want to say that I personally felt the swath of emotion fall over me during that (final four minute) power play. It was this final straw element to it all last night. Saad was just assaulted and these quick, helpless attempts just seemed to mirror the season so far. Literally there seemed to be zero point to even trying. And at 12 games in, that’s what this season feels like.
Matt: It’s an uncomfortable on-ice product right now, and to me there is some relief knowing that the CBJ players (or Murray at least with his public comments) refuse to be complacent about their standing. Whether that means anything, whether they can actually get the team in gear? That’s a different matter. It’s a long climb from the bottom.
Frustration and the Remaining Games
The Coach: Another perspective to this for Murray, is just what he has been through. This is a guy who has had a very frustrating professional career. This was the first time he was totally healthy for a full off-season. This has been a disheartening start to the season for the fans, but this is quite literally Ryan Murray’s life work. For this to go sideways like this, so quickly has to be immensely discouraging for him. That he has reacted this way makes me much more of a Ryan Murray fan that I had been previously. Which is saying a lot, as he already ranked among my favorite Jacket players.
Alison: Good point, Coach. The next step will be to see if he can be part of making this even better. Scott Hartnell, who has seen what it takes to go long into the off-season, acknowledged last night that this team is working hard but now they need to dig deeper. But that’s a different conversation I think…
Brett: They’d better learn to start digging deeper because that Ohio winter is on the horizon.
Matt: Hopefully they just start winning a bunch, and we leave all the boos in October. It’s not Halloween anymore, you guys.
Brett: ba-dum-pish
Alison: There it is…
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