Arizona Coyotes are far from doing well in NHL, as the team may well be synonymous with unstable leadership and shaky results. Still, the lack of achievements on ice is not the reason not to study the team’s media coverage, as it might reveal interesting patterns. While traditional and in-house media are preoccupied with management shifts and changes, the athletes’ personal media rarely touch on anything except for the team’s successes, and fans in the citizen media generally remain pessimistic.
One large cluster of media coverage is the news on Coyotes’ management and leadership. In his article for USA Today, Somers (2020) discussed the recent announcement of Bill Armstrong as the team’s new general manager. While the tone of the piece was neutral and polite, as befits traditional media, it also highlighted that Armstrong did not occupy the position of a general manager before (Sommers, 2020). Hence, as far as Sommers (2020) is concerned, hiring Armstrong may well be a desperate move on the part of the team’s ownership. According to Romero (2020), who covered the same event for AZ Central, such pessimism is not necessarily warranted. Quoting Armstrong himself, Romero (2020) pointed out that the new general manager already won three championships in three different positions and has plentiful experience in the field as well as a rigorous work ethic. As for the non-traditional media, Covering Armstrong’s arrival on Coyotes’ official website, Kinkopf’s (2020b) article is an example of the optimism typical for in-house media when covering their team. Thus, differences in tone notwithstanding, management changes seem to generate much of the news surrounding Coyotes lately.
Another common article type is an analysis of the team’s past performance, which can be uneven bordering on downright weak. Once again, Kinkopf (2020a) tried to set an optimistic tone with his recalling of the events for Coyotes’ official website. While not shying away from the season’s pitfalls, Kinkopf (2020a) focused on the season’s positive moments, such as the Coyotes’ victory over Winnipeg Jets in October, doubly important as the team’s first triumph in Winnipeg. However, fans in the citizen media are not eager to share this optimism, and their analyses border on being downbeat. In his account for Howlin’ Hockey, Thompson (2020) admitted that the last season was a wild ride for the fans, but emphasized that, for all its “hopeful highs,” there also were “dismal lows” (para. 1). Detroit.Dave.84 (2019) approached the topic from another in his fan post and posited that the ownership does not run the Coyotes’ effectively, opining that the team’s prospects are bleak. To summarize, this second thematic cluster demonstrates notable differences in attitude, which will be discussed later.
Finally, it is also worth noting that the team members in their personal media rarely, if ever, comment on the Coyotes’ performance. As a rule, athletes only publish a post related to their team’s games after a success they feel a personal connection to. One example is Darcy Kuemper (2019), the team’s goaltender, celebrating the Coyotes’ victory against Chicago Blackhawks on December 8, 2019. Another similar case is Annti Raanta’s (2020) post on the team’s victory over the Edmonton Oilers on February 4, 2020. Yet the majority of the news in the athletes’ accounts is unrelated to the team’s performance, and it is clear that team members refrain from writing on the topic save for an occasional victory celebration.
The most notable similarity between different types of media evident from this analysis is the recognition of the Coyotes’ troubled situation. Even the in-house media, which are bound to be optimistic and positive, still recognize the low points of the recent season, as in Kinkopf’s (2020a) article. Traditional media are blunter, with Somers (2020) even wondering why “someone would desire to be the Coyotes general manager” (para. 1). The fans do not try to hide their disappointment either, evident in Thompson’s (2020) reference to the team’s “dismal lows” (para. 2). The main thing to learn about the Coyotes from the media coverage is that the team is undoubtedly in trouble.
As for the differences, those in tone are the most notable between the media types. In-house media try to remain unfailingly positive, with Kinkopf (2020b) stressing the potential of the new management. The athletes’ personal media are also positive when they touch on the team’s performance, but both Kuemper (2019) and Raanta (2020) do it extremely rarely. Traditional media are generally more reserved when discussing the same topic: for instance, Sommers’s (2020) tone is neutral, bit recognizably pessimistic. The fans’ perception of their teams in citizen media tends to be negative, evidenced both by Thompson’s (2020) evaluations and Detroit.Dave.84’s (2019) dire prognosis. Apparently, another thing to learn is the fact that the media not bound by official and legally binding links to a poorly performing team will not try to portray the things better than they are.
To summarize, analysis of Arizona Coyotes’ media coverage reveals notable differences between the media types, but also some thematic consistencies. Most of the sources recognize that the team’s performance is unstable, necessitating better organization and management. The tone remains the primary difference: while in-house and personal media try their best to stay positive, traditional and citizen media range from cool neutrality to downright pessimism.
References
Detroit.Dave.84 (2019). The lost decade of Coyote hockey: Can hockey survive in AZ? Five for Howling. Web.
Kinkopf, A. (2020). 2019-20: A look back at the season’s most memorable moments. Official Arizona Coyotes Website. Web.
Kinkopf, A. (2020). ‘This guy’s a winner’: Coyotes welcome GM Armstrong. Official Arizona Coyotes Website. Web.
Kuemper, D. [@dkuemps35]. (2019). Great team win tonight. Let’s go! [Tweet]. Twitter. Web.
Raanta, A. [@Araanta31]. (2020). Great win in front of a great crowd [Tweet]. Twitter. Web.
Romero, J. M. (2020). New Arizona Coyotes GM Armstrong promises culture change in opening remarks. AZ Central. Web.
Somers, K. (2020). Arizona Coyotes new GM Bill Armstrong must teach ownership how an NHL team should operate. USA Today. Web.
Thompson, S. (2020). Arizona Coyotes provided wild ride for fans. Howlin’ Hockey. Web.