Kostitsyn Drama, A Tale Of Overzealous Media
by Robert L on Feb 20, 2009 8:26 AM EST
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The Kostitsyn brothers's drama reminds me of a hybrid of Jose Theodore and Pavel Bure incidents from years past, with a Montreal hockey media twist.
Bure and some other Russian hockey players of that time, inconspicuoulsy befriended some Russians mafia types, and had to be placed along with their families under heavy protection for a time, due to an assortment of threats and suspiscions. The whole story was never revealed, but the NHL had to investigate every angle of the allegations in fear that other Russian players were involved. It was a money laundering, drug world infused tale, that thanfully went away soon enough.
As for Theodore, the story was quite localized. His stepfather had ties to the Montreal underworld, through gambling and casino associations. Theodore's half brothers were involved also, and large illegal cash transactions were taking place not long after the goalie signed a multi year contract that numbered close to $20 million. Sometime around then, Theo just happened to be snapped in a photo, harmlessly admiring the motorcycle belonging to a member of the Hell's Angels, or some assortment thereof.
Both players were guilty of nothing more than bad association.
In Theodore's case, family ties were the cause of his grief.
For Bure, it might have been the fact that he was a newly wealthy foreigner on North American soil that made him vulnerable. The story came and went without followup.
I find it awful hard not to fit the Kostitsyn brothers story somewhere in the middle of these two.
You have family. You have money, of course. You have the underworld. And now you have misconception.
And again, it looks as though the players dragged into it, could suffer nothing more than guilt by association.
The blender of all these ingredients, is your typical imflammatory french Montreal media, and the clown of a former coach that is Jean Perron.
This week, Perron and La Presse's Rejean Tremblay, took advantage of this brewing story that ran alongside a dreadful Habs losing run in order to make themselves look all knowing in regards to what's wrong with the Canadiens.
If you think that in all this, the Kostitsyn's were easily duped, bite your tongue.
The crew of former coach panelists on RDS's L' Antichambre were scooped up in the pre story - furor. The bunch at 110%, known for squawking over each other like pregnant chickens also got taken in. Yours truly is up until sunrise, disecting and trying to bring a perspective to it all.
Tremblay, likely one of Perron's so called credible sources, is the guiltiest of buffons involved. It is likely he who stirred the whole rats nest, thinking he was onto something when police and lawyers started calling him. I gather it goes with Tremblay's notion of self importance, that he took the crumbs of this story and ran with it.
The story emmanating from all this stink, tells that due to the brothers alleged contact with this Mangiola fellow, that their phone wires were tapped for information.
The police investigators, with no charges to lay on the Kostitsyn's based on the tapped lines, start turning over each and every stone. It leads them to Tremblay somehow, who, if one reads between the lines, has nothing for them.
It never crosses Tremblay's ego, that if investigators are scrapping his barrel bottom, then there isn't much to it.
Nonetheless, Tremblay emerges with what he thinks is a the scoop of a lifetime. His impulsiveness agitates all his media cronies into a frenzy, and it taints the Canadiens organization at the worst possible time in the process.
Not that he gives a crap!
If he is an acredited media journalist still, the Bell Centre ought to revoke his press pass.
Tremblay is also a well known Quebec separatist, whose favorite targets of admonishment within the Canadiens establishment are GM Gainey and captain Koivu. He has also been the main story writer behind the "Lance Et Compte" television series, a hockey melodrama that never veiled its capitalizating on the Habs and Nordiques heated rivalry of the day. Tremblay, named the Nordiques lookalike team in the series, "Le National", which was quite representative for what they stood for in his mind. He has a long history of championing french causes (players, coaches, and management) within the Canadiens scheme, for reasons having to do with his own mandate, and rarely the good of the team. You could call the guy all kinds of blaphemous terms - it wouldn't matter. He was exposed for what he is long ago, and is well supported and surrounded by like minds.
All this disruption in the Canadiens centennial season ought to give him a big hardon. Hopefully, for the Kostitsyn brothers, in the end, the whole story will contain nothing more than warnings for their gullible innocence.
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What is required for somebody in the mainstream media to lose their press credentials? If it turns out this isn’t enough (which is my guess at this point) then what is?
Credentials are issued by the team’s Press Relations department, so whatever that department deems unacceptable behavior or abuse of privileges would result in the press pass being revoked.
The big problem here is not Tremblay as much as the paper he works for. The offense would have to be enormous for the Canadiens to disenfranchise a La Presse journalist, no matter who he is. They wouldn’t want a ‘war’ with La Presse.
Tremblay knows that, and it makes him virtually immune to retribution from the club, so long as his editor backs him up – and if it sells copies, you can be sure they’ll back him up! Looking more and more like the Journal de Montréal…
Le Journal was never this low.
What I was getting at in regards to Tremblay, is that he seems to have quite an open agenda on harming the Canadiens image any way he can. Some might say he had help this time, but it is the history of the person and the entire body of his acts that I am referencing. His press pass for the Bell can be revoked, but that can’t stop him from writing about the team. The worst part is, on legal grounds and journalist ethics, he has crossed no lines.
With all due respect, Le Journal constantly is that low, and worst. Maybe not about the Canadiens, but in general. They’re brand of fabricating stories for the sake of sensationalism is low-rent journalism and exactly what Tremblay did right there.
As for Tremblay, I don’t think he gets his pass revoked for many reasons, but you’re right that whether he keeps his creds or not, he still can write what he wants about the team.
You’re also right that it appears to be his clear agenda to tarnish the team’s image. It infuriates me that our society tolerates (endorses?) animals like this.
Tip of the Iceberg
I really think this is just the beginning of what we are going to hear about. I am just speculating, but based on the reaction of the guys on l’Antichambre and the rest of the media that were supposedly ‘close’ to the story it implies that all was not revealed.
It makes sense that, in a city which loves its sports team so much, the police wouldn’t just come out and accuse the players of something they couldn’t prove. Instead, the poluce would announce they are going to question a few members.
Pure guess, but it may be that the thug in this story was supplying drugs and girls to Canadiens players through the Kostitsyns.
It is irresponsible for a media member to comment in public about aspects of a stroy (if they exist) that are not being released to the public.
It serves no purpose other than to make people speculate in the irresponsible manner that bigblind just did.
by PuckStopsHere on Feb 20, 2009 10:38 AM EST up reply actions
First of all, to say that I speculated in a irresponsible manner implies that I owe a responsibility in writing what I did. I am wirting a comment to an article – I am not an author for a paper or a website and I owe no responsibility to anyone for what I say.
Secondly, I prefaced everything by stating that I was speculating. I stand by what I said – I am making an educated guess based on what was reported by those close to the situation. We haven’t heard the last of the details of this story.
Bigblind, you have clearly jumped to a conclusion that is not supportable from available evidence. What you did is no different from what Rejean Tremblay did except that you do not command the same audience that he does.
Irresponsibly suggesting criminal wrongdoings when none have been shown – even if it is only on an internet message board – is the problem in this case. It is what you are involved in.
Whether or not you feel you owe a responsibility to behave in a mature responsible manner is up to you. On the internet many people do not. Many people will say things that they would never say in real life. They will behave in manners they never would consider in real life. If the name bigblind gets too tarnished on the internet it is really easy to retire it and pick a new name (if you even care about being credible).
The fact is this story is all sizzle and no steak. It was driven by speculation that turned out to be not substantiated. Upon seeing that there is no substantiation, you continue to speculate. It is your right to do so. You have the right to behave irresponsibly – -just as the Montreal mainstream media does. The rest of us have the right to weigh your irresponsibility when we consider anything else you comment upon on the internet.
by PuckStopsHere on Feb 20, 2009 1:06 PM EST up reply actions
While admonishing me as being ‘irresponsible’ and ‘immature’, I am not quite sure you got my point – either that or you don’t know the definition of ‘responsible’.
The fact that this is a message board and the fact that I am admitting I have no connection to the situation means I owe no responsibility to anyone or for anything I write. I was merely speculating on how things might unfold based on early reports by those connected to the situation. Why would anyone read what I wrote on a message board and assume it to be true? Why are you so up in arms for a nobody speculating on a message board?
I understand your resentment to those who are supposed to have journalistic integrity and whose musings reach a great audience, but why on earth are you bashing thousands of chat-roomers for fearing the worst when it is obvious that they are purely guessing as to what is going on behind the scenes? What are they responsible for when they post something on a website?
With all that being said, I hope you are right and nothing will come out of this story…
Pure, reckless speculation
The reactions of the boys on L’Antichambre could mean nothing at all. They were likely as caught up in the hype as everyone else. There was no police waiting at the airports and no charges laid on the players from all this investigation. If there was something on them, we’d have heard about it by now. As far as can be told, the players themselves haven’t even been questioned.
Tip of the iceberg?
I think it’s melting!
Journalists?
They all felt compelled to react to what whas happenning on 110%, where Richard Labbé was peddling today’s La Presse “Exclusive Report”. Media concurence at its finest.
As of Tremblay, you give him far to refined an agenda. Dude is in the business of scoops. If those guys being arrested by the police (and the whole police operation that act as a background to this story was a pretty big one, mind you) are in relations with public figures, well those public figures may very well see their names in the papers. It happened before, and will happen again, to hockey players, to politicians, to singers and actors and whatnot.
Tremblay didn’t do this; he was contacted, yes, but at the end of the day, it’s the editor, the papers that decide to go for it. More often then else, they do it because if they don’t, someone else will. That’s the way they see it anyways.
I, for one, have trouble being troubled about what was revealed today. If they blow away the Sens tomorrow, we won’t hear about it ever again.
Of course Tremblay was contacted and not vice versa, but did he sit on a non story?
He flamed it up for all it was worth!
I hear you. But at the end of the day, this is not Tremblay’s call. It’s La Presse’s sports sections call. They have an editorial process, they chose to print that stuff. In fact, the printed stuff is pretty mild. Even Tremblay isn’t that bad (he sounds like an annoying windbag when he carps about players being small business, but he is at his most vitriolic when criticizing the marketing side of the organisation; and as far as having a political agenda, he never delves in those “get rid of those europeans” meme we see all too often elsewhere).
The problem, here, is the concerted planting of innuendos by the media mongrels over the last few days; they all pounced, and at the center of it all last night, there was (what’s his name… voyons, chose, là… Richard Labbé, c’est ça!) a reporter from La Presse, fanning the flames on 110%. His very presence, his very actions, because he represented an established news outlet (heck, La Presse is older than the Habs, non?), lent credential to a whole bunch of rumor-mongering all over the place. Mark my word; as long as the ranting comes from Perron and talk-radio, it doesn’t matter. But as soon as the guy from La Presse says: “This is big! This is the shitstorm!”, well everybody goes with it full throttle. And they kept at it because it generated hits on the web site and sales of the paper this morning.
It saddens me, because there are some very interesting sports writers at La Presse (Mathias Brunet, whose blog is an instructive complement to his written work, comes to mind…).
Really, the habs will be fine, that doesn’t bother me; as I said, if they beat the sens tomorrow and win a few more in a row, all will be fine in habsland, and if not, well, it’ll be a rotten season, they’ll do what they have to do and they’ll get back at it next year; this is a young club with talent in the pipeline and boatloads of cash; they’ll be fine. What bothers me is that an important institution, not only for the city of Montréal, but also for Québec in general, just gave itself a black eye by letting some of its less, uh… ethically concerned elements run amok.
I think many, many people who read the papers, in general, sift trough the news quickly. The only part they will pay systematic attention to will be “soft” news, that is, arts, entertainment, sports. When they start laying eggs in those parts of the paper, the reading public keeps reading, but they make notice “these guys will bullshit me if it means they can make a quick buck this week”. And then, as serious, ethical and fair the public affairs reporting can be in that same paper, well it won’t matter, the brand is tainted.
This isn’t the kind of stuff that happens overnight, mind you. But La Presse should be careful. Once you step over the line, it’s tough to get that shiny reputation back.
And Free Agents want to come here why?
The media in the city goes out of it’s way to cause chaos and confusion and then bemoans the fact they cannot land anybody significant.
If I am a young player (and you cannot convince me that 20-25 year olds with millions in their pockets do not get into trouble with booze and girls in every city) why the hell would I want the headache of the media following me everywhere and looking to create chaos while dragging my name through the mud.
Why does Lecavalier need this? He has won a Cup, is a millionaire, does he really need his name dragged through the mud because the team is losing? Montreal has chased a lot of great players out of town in my lifetime.
Instead of a team struggle it becomes a media circus. We are not talking about a team run by John Ferguson jr. Who is better capable of handling the duties than a bilingual former captain with a Stanley Cup ring on his GM resume?
This season has become disgraceful and is creating apathy in me. I can’t even suffer through a frustrating losing streak without fans simplistic assesments blaming individuals, without the media speculating on non issues and creating drama about the party lifestyle of kids in their early twenties at the top of the world.
I want to watch hockey. The rest is BS.
Great minds think alike Robert.
Fools seldom differ though…
I completely agree with your stance on the recent media goings on.
On Perron: http://www.lionsinwinter.ca/2009/02/cancer-in-dressing-room-more-likely.html
and on the general mess: http://www.lionsinwinter.ca/2009/02/dont-believe-what-you-read-reporting-on.html
Should eb a fun weekend, eh? Good luck…
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