There`s an old anecdote in sports journalism about a reporter who submitted his story early when his team was being soundly defeated.
Then the team staged an impressive comeback, and instead of rewriting the whole piece, he called his desk:
“Listen, can you go through my copy? Everywhere I wrote `brutal,` could you please replace it with `inspiring`?”
You`d probably be surprised to see the drafts that don`t make it to the end of a game.
The parts that get written at 10:15 p.m. when the third period hasn`t even started yet, when us writers “bang out a few `graphs” for a game story we think we`ll file in a couple of hours. After the podium interviews and TV hits with Gene, when our poor editor is sitting by their laptop at 3 a.m. Eastern awaiting something resembling coherent prose.
Let`s rewind to Game 3 of the Edmonton-Los Angeles series.
The Oilers had given up 12 goals in losing Games 1 and 2. Their penalty kill had allowed five goals on ten opportunities, and aside from a flash of Connor McDavid brilliance in the third period of Game 1, the Kings had been in complete control of the series.
Tristan Blackwood