LINUS OMARK, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THE MSM

So Wednesaday I had seen a tweet from Edmonton Oilers Player Linus Omark, saying that he was headed back to Sweden to play for his home Country in the World Championships. I responded to his tweet, telling him to prove the Oilers wrong about him and show them what they will be missing and to enjoy. I never expected that this would trigger a full day of debate, back lash and twitter furor.

If you clicked on the link above or have seen the tweet on the hub to the right of this article, you will see his response to me.

Omark wrote…“@realoilfan I live to show that the “two” are wrong. But I really hope edm let me have a chance in another nhl team”

I don’t know who Omark was referring to or who, when he mentioned the “two” but it was the second half of the tweet that most people paid attention to. Essentially without actually saying it, Omark baisically told me and the world that he wants out of Edmonton to explore other NHL opportunities.

While this is not earth shattering news as most pundits, MSM reporters and bloggers have been saying that he will not be back next year. This was the first time that Omark himself had made it known that he is willing and wanting to leave. This sparked a chain of events that I personally have not been a part of before.

The twitter mayhem ensued, with questions from my followers, retweets, and more well wishes and some negative comments to Omark. Then, the press conference yesterday with Steve Tambellini happened. A reporter asked him about it, and to my surprise he seemed ok with it, and proceeded to say that Omark could play on any NHL team’s power play. but as it turns out, just not the Oilers PP.

After that, during the first games of the play-offs that I was watching, more twitter debate and then one of my tweeps @yegbry sent me a picture of the tweet from Omark had made the 6:00 pm new on the local station of Global. See photo above. I also found out this morning that the tweet had made TSN’s Sports Centre. Another one of my tweeps @DYNASTYOIL forwarded the picture (below)

There is a reason I am telling you all of this, I am a little frustrated with the fact that some of the Sports media in this town and nationally (TSN) did not mention that Omark came out to me. When I use info I get from talk radio, twitter, or the internet, I was always credit the source. While I did not break the story by any standard, and Omark did put it out on his account for the world to see, the only reason that this happened was because he was responding to my comments to him. I will say that there were some people that did credit me, like Global news and Gene Principe from Sportsnet.

The other thing that kind of bugs me is the fact that when the media that did mention that the comments came ina conversation on twitter they referred to me as a fan, rather than a blogger. While the former is true, I am a fan, the latter is also true and I wonder if it was to avoid having traffic diverted from their sites to the ever-present Oilonwhyte.com

The other thing that I am curious about and will speculate on…is why Omark decided to air his discontent  on twitter to me and not through the MSM. I figure that it may be because I support him as a player and have been very vocal on twitter and here on this blog about how skilled I believe him to be. I have always been critical about my interpretation of the way Oilers management has mishandled his development. Maybe he felt more comfortable telling someone who supports him rather than a media that tries to roast him more often than not. Or maybe I just caught him at the right time, either way…he didn’t tell management, he didn’t tell the media, he told me and the world, via twitter.

Anyway, this story has since died down, and I really hope that Omark rips it up at the World Championships and proves to everyone that this is a player that Edmonton could have used here in this re-build.

GO Omark GO!

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