Did Botchford have the right to report it? Yes. These comments were for 20 microphones/cameras, they are ON THE RECORD. The claims from Sharks PR staff that these are off the record are just false. If he didn't want them out there, he shouldn't have said it to that many people or he should have told them not to run with it after. Joe has to know better. He's got some blame here.
Should Botchford have rolled with it? I'll say no. Botchford's not in the business of making friends in the game, so I get that he wanted to go with something out there, something outside of the box. But I think he needed to use some common sense and realize that something like this will blow up and players around the league would catch wind of this and his relationships going forward would take a hit. Can he repair this? Sure, but not with his stance that he's got going right now.
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