Through James Mirtle, I found new General Manager Garth Snow's open letter to New York Islanders fans where he pleads for patience and lays out some of his plans at the 50,000 foot level:
I understand that I need to earn your confidence and respect over time. Over the next few weeks, I want to hear from Islander fans. I've asked the team to set up an email address where you can send questions and I'll answer as many as I can on the site. (Don't worry; my days are long enough to manage the team and address your questions). Comments are encouraged, too. Let's communicate and let's get behind the Orange and Blue.I'll see you around Islanders Country.
Send your questions to askgarth-at-newyorkislanders.com. The Islanders are also promising that Snow will be answering questions on the team's Web site once a week through August -- and that's more often than Alan Hahn, the team's beat writer at Newsday, answers his own mailbag. Looks like he'll have to get cracking.
With Snow, that makes on GM and one owner -- Ted Leonsis of the Washington Capitals -- who are willing to answer questions from fans and answer them. I think it's great, and leads me to hope that others in the league might finally follow their lead and start interacting with fans on a daily basis.
UPDATE: Snow, in fact, has already gotten 1,000 emails, which he answers here. Bravo, Garth.
ANOTHER UPDATE: This is telling: I just did a quick Google News search, and nobody in the MSM -- other than Mirtle -- has picked up on this story yet. Very interesting.
And Ben Wright dropped off a comment below that Thrashers GM Don Waddell has been answering email for some time now, though he hasn't been publishing the answers. Thanks for the note, Ben.
Don Waddell has had a mailbag address for years. His responses haven’t been published on the Thrashers site. but he has responded to fans. It’s not that new of a concept.
Doug MacLean does a similar thing, although it isn’t exactly a “You e-mail me, I send an e-mail back/post my response somewhere” sort of deal. From around the start of the season up until the draft afterwards, he and Jeff Rimer (FSN Ohio’s play-by-play guy for the Jackets) do a one hour radio show where they’re taking e-mails and chatting with callers on the phones. MacLean is pretty good about being on during most shows, to the point of being on the air via telephone if he can’t be at the station and/or is travelling.
They do have online replays of the broadcasts though at the 1460 The Fan website, so I guess it sort of counts for posting up the response. :-p
Why would MSM pick up on this? It’s a PR move, not news. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice PR move, and I think it’s good the Islanders are doing this and interacting with the fans, but it’s nothing I’d expect to read about in Newsday or any of the other locals (outside of maybe a line or two in the “Notes” that you might see at the end of an article).
For all the Isles’ foibles, they’ve always been good about doing things like this and giving their fans a chance to have their say. As to why no one in the MSM picked it up: It’s hockey, and this is baseball/almost football season. Why are papers cutting back on puck coverage? Not enough people care, unfortunately.