A recent article published by ESPN and written by noted hockey writer Greg Wyshynski caused a bit of a stir around the women’s hockey community. His article and interview with NWHL founder and commissioner Dani Rylan offered a look into the current situation from the league’s standpoint, and also served as a way for the league and Dani to respond to recent questions regarding the future of the league.
In this post I’ll be breaking down the various aspects of this article, analyzing it, and giving grades based on the different aspects of it.
The Title
‘We’re not going anywhere’: NWHL’s Dani Rylan bullish on league’s future
The title of the article starts off with a clear declaration from Dani Rylan about the future of the league, and creates a bold title that will grab attention. As mentioned in my previous posts, much has been written on the future of the NWHL and a title like this is meant to create controversy. There is a ‘click bait’ aspect to this headline, although the article does explain in detail the comment made by Rylan unlike most articles I would consider ‘click bait.’ The title is a bit shocking but also persuasive in getting someone to click through to read it.
Title Grade: B
The Sources, Links, and Supporting Details
The article has numerous sources and links to other relevant articles about this issue. There are also direct quotes from players and other people, including NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, that add to the context and depth of the article. These quotes help to establish the articles credibility as well as drive home the differing points of view that are outlined.
You can also see that Greg Wyshynski did an excellent job researching this article by the types of details he included to help create context. One part that that stuck out to me was when he was discussing the financial issues with the league, as well as the NHL’s reluctance to support the NWHL, and linked to articles about NHL owners and teams separating themselves from NWHL teams. While these details weren’t the central theme of the topic, they helped the reader have more background information and supported the claims being made in the article.
Details Grade: A
The Interview
The way the interview is structured in the article is done in a less traditional way (unlike how The Athletic (pay walled) and The Hockey News handled their interviews with Dani Rylan), and instead decided to have the interview as part of the narrative of the story. I like this method as it allows the article to flow better and gives the reader context and background to Rylan’s quotes.
It does however create bias in the story as the author is able to have the quotes feed into his narrative in the article. There also isn’t any clear question and answer pattern, and we never see any quotes or exact text of the questions the author is asking. It’s difficult to gain the full picture and understand what questions Rylan is answering and it’s easy to manipulate the meaning of her answers.
In this sense it is difficult to assess Wyshynski’s interview and to detect if he asked the right questions or if there was anything else he could have dug into further. While he seems to have been able to get very candid and honest answers from Rylan, the format of the interview doesn’t allow the reader to know if there was information left on the table.
Interview Grade: C+
Bias and Opinion
To me, there is a clear agenda based on the quotes from Rylan used and the narrative of the story being told. It definitely appears that the author was looking to expose the bitterness of Rylan towards the players that chose to sit out from playing, and to show her attempt to paint the players in a negative light. I don’t feel that the author feels the same way about the players, but was definitely interested in feeding into the bitterness a bit. Now, Rylan didn’t need to give such candid answers and didn’t need to show how agitated she was, but as noted before it’s hard to see the full context of her answers since we never actually see the questions asked.
Bias Grade: D
Overall Analysis
While I think there are some definite holes in this article and a clear agenda being sold, I still did find myself genuinely riveted by this article. This is obviously what the author was hoping for by putting out this rather juicy article into an already contentious situation. It’s pretty clear this was a shot from one side to another and the author was more than happy to be the messenger. The rather blunt and honest answers from Rylan and the players help to show this contrast and the author gives a lot of background details to give the story more drama.
I do think that there is a lot of merit behind the story though. There was clearly a lot of research and time put into this piece, and the author has a very clear understanding of the situation and is able to break it down well for readers.
Overall Grade: B-
