

Sam Pringle insisted on an alluring pose to accompany this interview.

With the preseason looming – interest in the launch of the 2011-12 NHL season is high in this particular hockey-crazed market. But in reality, the preseason is boring, and with no real hockey news to discuss – local newspaper writer Sam Pringle was at a loss. How can one produce content that will drive traffic, when there’s nothing of any consequence going on?

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“I thought about it long and hard while walking my dog” said the portly, denim clad Pringle, sitting cross legged in his Ikea furnished home-office and rubbing his beard thoughtfully, “but I just couldn’t come up with a fresh, or gripping angle.”

It’s a common problem that all levels of sports-writers face at this time of year. Sure there’s the odd injury status to update – but for the most part, fans know who is hurting, and when to expect them back. You can cover the cuts, but the players being re-assigned to their junior teams don’t have sexy names yet. Unless the player cut was a recent early round draft selection, and there are solid grounds to criticize the team’s general manager for the pick– a late September re-assignment isn’t going to get anyone’s blood pumping. Or at least, no one outside of that small group of die-hards who sometimes call Sam “a hack” in nasty little messages on twitter. “That only lasts until I block them,” he says chuckling.

Says Pringle “often times, I just dredge up a controversial non-issue that has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue for the last six months, and I cover it again!”

Luckily for Sam, in this particular hockey market there is a massively polarizing superstar, a promising, unproven youngster who needs more ice-time, an oft-injured prospect with a do-or-die opportunity over the next few weeks, and a head-coach whose job is secure, despite his relative unpopularity among fans.

“Put all of those factors together, and I can basically pull a controversial story out of thin air! The best part is that the fan-base is so restless – they’ll eat it up, and argue about it. It’s actually quite funny.”

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