Leafs Patriots "Unfriend" @DamoSpin Damien Cox

Even when the Internet is the new "vast wasteland" or "uncharted final frontier", many of it's users are trained in communications and use it to reach a mass audience. But sometimes there is a generation gap that gets revealed to show those people who are immature, but old enough to know better.

I can't keep up with a blog post that talks about one "twitter-bomb" scandal after another, but this one intrigues me as something worth commenting on. The popular Toronto-based hockey blog Pension Plan Puppets recently launched a campaign against Toronto Star columnist and TSN and Fan590 contributor Damien Cox. They claim that Damien's Twitter comments were too inflammatory as well as criticized the Toronto fans in attendance at a game against the division rival Boston Bruins for booing recent villain Zedeno Chara.

I would only have to side with the Puppets here. The argument, as I am trying to understand, that the long-suffering fans of Toronto want to be loyal to a team is their choice and theirs alone. They feel it is within their right to express themselves collectively and delete or "unfriend" Cox from their twitter and other social media accounts. The myriad of accusations by the Puppets claim that his trolling extends even across the country to other teams and fans.

Damien Cox, in short, is the epitome of all that is wrong with sports journalism. He holds the game in contempt, he sneers at its fans, he believes that he is the only truth teller in the business. The funny thing is that opposing fans have started to realize this.

I don't quite understand what Cox's strategy is with instigating fights with passionate hockey fans, especially fights with Toronto fans who are some of the most passionate in North America. As someone who presumably learned the rules to responsible journalism at some point in his life to be hired by a major news organization, he should know how to play it safer. Is his ego that large that he must make his name important?

Damien Cox's defense is that he is engaging in "fan interaction" and that "smart people don't enjoy pablum". He's only stirring the pot combating the bland with bold rhetoric.

Unfortunately, the Pension Plan Puppets are only giving Cox more attention he craves.

I have never networked with Mr. Cox and now I don't expect myself to. I've only heard of him when I listen to the Fan590 podcasts.

[Via: Pension Plan Puppets]