TAMPA, Fla. – I freely admit one of the things I’m not that great at is the postgame interview. There is a trend in the sports writing business now to do away with the “game story” and replace them all with “How this happened” or “Why that happened” analytical-style pieces that are mostly all just the same boilerplate stuff as the tried and true newspaper game story of yore.
As much as sportswriters like to think they are reinventing the wheel with “Why/how this/that happened” pieces instead of the tried and true game story, they aren’t. They still are left standing there in the dressing room, trying to get words from athletes as to why or how something just happened in a game, when it’s either a) obvious to anyone who saw the game or b) nobody has any real idea.
I want to include the two postgame audio clips I did in the Avs locker room from last night’s 7-1 loss to Tampa Bay as to why/how most of them are awful and nobody learns anything new and they are just a form or drudgery for all involved.
A team loses a 7-1 game, and your job is to go up to the players on that team and – about five minutes after the final horn has sounded – ask the players why it happened. Most of the interviews are as awful as the two I have for you here, with Semyon Varlamov and Nikita Zadorov. To their credit, they answered my awful questions the best they could.
In my own defense, what was I supposed to ask? A team loses by six goals. There are no salient questions. The only one I should have asked is: what happened out there that went wrong? Instead, I tried to hem and haw and sound like I was concerned and sympathetic, and while I was trying to sound concerned and sympathetic, that’s not really what my job is – so the whole thing is kind of a charade.
I analyzed what I know went wrong in my “takeaways” piece from last night. The quotes from the players are usually just redundancy on to what everybody already knew. So, yes, the game story should rightfully be excised from the world. That said, the “why/how this happened” pieces about a game are also redundant.
I do want to hear from players after a game, and I do believe the vast majority of fans of their teams do too. That’s why we still go to the games and bring those things to you.
Feel free to offer suggestions of new ways to ask questions to players after a game. I’m dead serious. Win or lose, how should we ask different questions? The floor is yours. I doubt there will be any groundbreaking new solutions, but you never know.
In the meantime, here is the audio from my two brief interludes with Varly and Zads from last night:
Varlamov:
Zadorov:
0 Comments (7 conversations)
JDC15
It’s a delicate balance you guys have to tread w/earning the players trust so they answer questions with substance(truths) and not cliches (especially hockey players who are kings of the cliche) to asking the questions the fans want answers to. I don’t know how you even approach that after a game like that beyond avoiding asking questions that have obvious answers, we all know Tampa is super talented.
rozier24
Go in and shock the system a bit and be specific. Ask something like what was the best part of your game tonight that you hope to build on next time…etc.
jpwheels
As a listener, I’ve sometimes cringed at the questions asked.
And I’m not singling you out Dater. It gets done by everyone. And it’s a tough spot.
I agree with both JDC and rozier — ask questions that don’t lead to canned answers and look for something positive to come up with. Of course, that last bit usually leads to a question like “are there any positives you can take out of this loss?” And a canned answer is sure to follow.
I’m not so sure a majority of fans are interested in the answers to “what happened out there tonight?” because we usually get the same retreaded answers. And after watching the game, I think most fans have a good idea of what happened.
Sometimes, a player will give a little insight to something specific that did/didn’t happen or went right/wrong, but that kind of rare. Candid, insightful answers to standard questions are jewels. That’s why I really appreciate hearing Cole interviews. And EJ can be a good interview too.
Chris DeMott
Agreed, EJ had my favorite answer ever to perhaps one of the worst, yet constantly asked questions throughout sports. This time to a guy with a dislocated shoulder, “what can you do to stay healthy”… “Maybe I should drink more milk”.
mladen
The questions I hate are the “How do you feel” questions after a win etc.
ianmccarty
(Caveat: I have not yet listened to these clips, so apologies to AD if he already took this tactic)
Maybe it’s about the specificity of the questions. Like most things done at a high level, the outcome of a game is the sum of hundreds of tiny moments. Asking a player to aggregate their opinion on all of those moments is going to produce a limp, mushy answer.
As AD put in the observations, perhaps questions like “How do you reduce weak-side scoring chances on the PK?” rather than “What role did special teams have tonight?” One demands a specific, tactical answer (probably one they are already talking about in video sessions and practice), the other a canned summary of what we all saw.
jpwheels
100% agree, great example!
KCRybek
Just please ask a question. The worst is when reporters just ramble about something and expect the interviewee to pick up for them mid sentence.
jpwheels
Yep, this is too funny.
When it happens, you can just tell the guy is looking for something to answer but always end up stammering about being better and staying with the process.
Adrian Dater
AuthorGood suggestion. 99 times out of 100, though, the answers are going to be the same variation of “We’ve got to be better, we weren’t good enough” to even the most specific of questions like that.
Bob_W
I think that the players are too close to their own part of the game to answer general questions especially right after the game when fatigue and emotion are probably draining anything approaching true causes and insight from their heads. I learn the most from the coach’s post-game press conference but even then he has not yet reviewed the video or talked to all of his staff.