This is why people hate Toronto and the way the media covers them.
Quote:
The netminder’s mask came off in the first period of Toronto’s 5-4 victory when he stopped a shot by Sam Reinhart. Stolarz appeared to shake his head before putting the mask back on and resuming play.
In the second period, he was elbowed in the head as Bennett - who was not penalized on the play - skated through the crease area. Stolarz immediately grabbed his head as he fell to the ice.
A few minutes later, during a television timeout, replays showed Stolarz leaning over the boards and vomiting into a bucket.
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That’s an excerpt from a Canadian Press article, and there’s a few things worth noting:
~ “mask came off… while stopping a shot…”
- The mask was literally knocked off by a point blank shot that hit him square in the head. It didn’t just happen to coincidentally fall off while he was making a routine save. This is blatantly “including all the facts” but in a way that makes you only care about the ones that align with the point of the article.
~ “elbowed in the head… while skating through the crease…”
- The side of Bennett’s forearm made contact with the side of Stolarz’s head while Bennett was in the crease battling for puck possession with a Leaf defenceman… but line above makes it sound like Bennett just laid him out with an elbow out of nowhere while skating through the crease and not even doing anything connected to playing hockey. As before, this is how they make you care about what they want you to care about.
~ “A few minutes later…”
- The announcers at the time were saying it was 10 minutes later. I haven’t looked at the replays to corroborate, but 10 minutes is not “a few.” It could have been “a few” gametime minutes, which would likely be 10 realtime minutes… which would still make “a few minutes” totally misleading… but it could also be the announcers were talking about 10 gametime minutes, which could be anywhere from 15-20 realtime minutes.
The point to all this, though, is the media is so focused on trying to get a player suspended that they’re literally ignoring the real story… why was Stolarz never assessed for head trauma? Neither the point blank shot to the head nor the incidentally-on-purpose-but-only-hard-enough-to-be-annoying contact from Bennett triggered any protocol whatsoever. He had to puke in a bucket way more than “a few minutes later” before anyone did anything.
That’s the real story. The way some (most?) of the media is trying to use what happened to Stolarz solely to get an advantage to help the Leafs win is absolutely… I can’t even think of the right word… ridiculous? atrocious? abhorrent? It’s certainly a mixture of irresponsible and unbecoming at the very least.
Anyway… if anyone is ever wondering which media outlets to trust more than others, just look at the coverage of things like this. Who’s asking the right questions vs who’s just trying to capitalize (either for themselves via clicks or for a third party via twisting the truth and focusing on the wrong things).
