Certainly, the right to privacy should be respected. Imagine the shame of Sergei Bobrovsky that his save percentage is out there. When Gustav Oloffson misses a practice that’s already more information than we need.
Careful what you wish for. Should it be Ray Shero’s true thoughts on Josh Harris, our guess is you would be tied up for hours. Citing privilege, we never will divulge who tipped us off two hours before the Flyers’ blockbuster trade for Wendel Young. It’s been only 32 years and a reporter always protects his sources. With the possible exception of Brian Burke, not everybody has to know everything.
But there have been zippier rationales than the NHLPA’s insistence the league zip it about Covid 19 absences. When Pavel Buchnevich leaves in the middle of a practice and the Rangers are not allowed to reassure anyone there have been no sudden symptoms, or Sidney Crosby, superstar, misses a day and we are left to entertain the worst possible thoughts, it is hard to understand who is being served. Not the buying public certainly as it decides–Sid? No Sid? – Whether it wants to spring for cable service to watch the upcoming tournament. It may not even be the best thing for the player, who has to endure the world wondering whether he is in intensive care.
Upper body, lower body, inner body, we just don’t know, all in the alleged interest of a privacy that a player to a large degree necessarily gives up when he signs on the dotted line to become rich and famous.
That doesn’t mean that every mole on every body part should always be public information. Personally we’ve thrived at three different tabloids while considering domestic issues, sexual preferences, wives, children, or relatives crazier than even Kelly McCrimmon for firing Gerard Gallant unfair game for public discourse without the cooperation of the athlete. To ethical journalists, this changes only when an arrest puts misconduct into the public domain.
Unless the player eventually chooses to tell his story, either to clear the conscience or to help others suffering the same plight, the exact nature of the addiction that led him to enter substance abuse treatment is not the public’s business. But the very fact that entry into the program is announced is an acknowledgement of the right of the public to know why a player has disappeared from a lineup.
The NHL is about to try to play. Availability of players to do so should remain in the public domain.
It was Oskar Lindblom’s decision alone to name the serious health problem that suddenly ended his season. Wisely, he did it to avoid speculation that only would have exacerbated what we was going through. The amount of detail was his call and should have been; our right to know did not extend beyond the disclosure that a good player was going to be out for the season.
The NHL is trying to resume in the midst of a surge of a highly communicable and deadly disease; the trickiest of endeavors no matter how painstaking are the league’s precautions. The success of this experiment is at least partly dependent on the public’s confidence in it, which in turn is dependent on accurate disclosure of information about the players’ health. As we are asked to trust the NHL for doing this safely, we have a right to know who has a groin pull and who is in quarantine or worse.
The Coronavirus not being venereal disease, there is no shame in contracting it, outside of the possibility the athlete ignored common sense advice by health officials to wear a mask in public. But well beyond the argument that nobody should be embarrassed, a more important case is to be made to limit speculation and all the misinformation that has been a factor in our nation’s ongoing failure to get the pandemic under control. Just as when relatives and friends are stricken, the infections of recognizable public figures brings the threat home, helping to raise awareness, which 140,000 deaths later still somehow remains lacking. Otherwise by now the cases would have dwindled to a few,
Jake Voracek chided reporters the other day for “panicking” about his missed day of practice. “You guys are making it sound like I’m dying or something,” he said before arguing for personal choice in disclosure. “All the cases every day that are diagnosed, do you know all the people and everything about them?” he asked. “No. If you guys want to ask me what happened, ask me. I will tell you. “
So they did and it turned out Voracek was held out because of an inconclusive test, until a follow up proved negative and made him good to go. In the meantime people’s imaginations had been left to run wild, which particularly in the age of Twitter, they will do.
All due respect for the privacy of ordinary Janes and Joes, we don’t know who was served by 14 hours of speculation about Voracek. He grew irritated by it, not unreasonably, and the league’s attempt to complete the season was not benefitted in any way.
On the principle of the violation of civil liberties, the baseball players fought drug testing for years until the union eventually decided the credibility of the sport and the players who chose to compete cleanly was paramount. With all the benefits of fortune and glory that professional athletes receive by agreeing to life in the fishbowl comes a reasonable forfeiture of privacy, more so than ever in a time when anybody could be transmitting something that makes others extremely sick.
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • 
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