Reporter responds to exchange with Draisaitl blowing up on social media

Veteran Edmonton sports reporter Jim Matheson knows that relationships between media and players can get a bit testy at times, but it seems to him that it is getting tougher for journalists to calm things down with the players than it used to be.

"It's not supposed to be an adversarial relationship between the media and the players," Postmedia writer Jim Matheson told Reid Wilkins of 630 CHED's Inside Sports radio program on Tuesday night. "I've been doing this a long time. I think I'm very fair at what I do."

Matheson is a successful reporter, and his career has even led him to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. After recently interviewing Leon Draisaitl at a post-practice media session where Matheson accused Draisaitl of being "pissy," Matheson found his name trending on Twitter.

"Obviously, something I've written or said has ticked him off, but I have no idea what that is," Matheson said.

It's probably more along the lines that the Oilers have been struggling heavily, and most players don't like to lose or answer questions about why they are losing. Matheson kept poking and prodding a sleeping bear, and it was destined for a blow up. Honestly, it's somewhat surprising that Draisaitl stayed as composed as he did.

Although, Matheson isn't just trying to leave everything behind. He knows that as a writer, he has written some things over the years that may be taken the wrong way. Matheson said that he understands if Draisaitl feels that he deserves an apology, and he has no problem offering one.

"I've written some things over the years where you've tossed off some gratuitous shot which seemed like a cheap shot at a player and then you go to bed at night and you sleep and you toss and turn and you get up in the morning and you say, 'That wasn't very nice of me,'" he said. "And then the next day at practice, you go up to a player and you say, 'I'm sorry, that wasn't a very nice thing to say,' and you can apologize and go on from there."

"But that's not the way it works now in today's NHL because with COVID, you don't get into the dressing room and so you can't sit beside a player and say, 'Look, have I done something to upset you?'"

The long-time journalist for the Oilers didn't think he was doing anything wrong, and he was just trying to make himself not look like a bad journalist.

"I thought I asked a couple of softball questions to start with," Matheson said.

"But Leon didn't want to answer the question, so he just said, 'Everything.' OK. I thought it was just a normal, 'Would you like to expand on that?' and he said, 'no.' And that's when I said, 'Look, I'm getting one word answers, so'"

"If I walk away and just take what he said, then I don't look very good, so I was just standing up for myself," he said.

globalnews.ca

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