Last week, I read this blog post by Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune about Gopher hockey. It touches on the loss of fans, fun and coverage by the local media.

The coverage part struck a chord, because I’ve had many conversations with friends in the business about the coverage of not only the Gophers, but several teams around college hockey.

It’s no secret that newspapers have suffered in recent years. They haven’t figured out how to make big profits from websites, where content is provided for free. Most newspapers have gone through layoffs. Many have watched open positions go unfilled. Reporters are being stretched thin.

So, papers have to prioritize coverage and know where to use their resources.

No college hockey fans have been hit as hard as those in the Big Ten and other big cities.

Instead of having Rachel Blount and Bruce Brothers competing on the Gopher beat, traveling on the road and kicking out features, neither local Twin Cities paper even staffs all home games now. The priority lands with the four professional sports teams. They have multiple writers dedicated to the Vikings, as that’s the big-ticket item. Gopher coverage has fallen off the map.

Instead of having longtime college hockey writer Andy Baggot on the Badger beat, coverage has fallen off there, too. Fortunately, Baggot still provides features on the UWBadgers.com site, but you don’t have him covering the league as a whole. He always had tons of insight there and was so good at writing big picture stories and breaking news. I miss those.

Instead of having longtime college hockey writer Neil Koepke devoting his time to the Michigan State hockey beat, the Lansing State Journal has Chris Solari covering everything Spartans. Obviously, the priorities are football and basketball, and he gets to hockey when he can. Like Baggot, Koepke still covers the Spartans on the team’s website, but it’s still different.

Instead of having Antoine Pitts covering the Wolverines, it’s a whole host of students and others. But it’s hard to track. I attended a Michigan game in November, where the starting goalie got hurt. For the next week or so, I tried to find information on the goalie’s injury, but couldn’t. He continued to be sidelined, but no buzz anywhere on the goalie’s status. It was so strange.

Instead of Mike Chambers kicking out several blog posts and articles a week on Denver, the Post has put him on the Colorado Avalanche beat, and the Pioneer beat has been largely neglected. With UND heading there this week, I clicked the link to the Pioneer blog on the Post site to see any recent news. Its most recent post was Nov. 17 (and that one was on the soccer team).

For those who enjoy reading about college hockey, it’s not a good trend.

Yes, I think the Big Ten movement has hurt some of those schools’ interest levels, but I tend to think that the holes in coverage has more to do with the ever-changing media.

In many places in the NCHC, hockey is still king — and that’s reflected in the coverage.

The Herald, Duluth News Tribune (Matt Wellens), St. Cloud Times (Mick Hatten), Omaha World Herald (Tony Boone) and Colorado Springs Gazette (Joe Paisley) are still investing greatly in their coverage. You still frequently see those writers on the road, and you still see great coverage of those squads. You not only read game stories, but you also get tremendous player profiles and features that allow you to get to know the stories behind the players. Same with many in the WCHA, like the Bemidji Pioneer (Jack Hittinger), Mankato Free Press (Shane Frederick), etc.

That brings me to my other thought on Reusse’s blog post.

He talks about how it’s just not as fun and you don’t have the colorful players anymore.

I think that the biggest problem is that it’s hard to learn the colorful personalities, because of how media relations has evolved. Media availability is very structured now. You have certain times you can talk to the players each week and that’s it. Often times, it’s in a press conference format, where you learn little about the athletes.

In the old days, writers would walk into the locker room, have time for one-on-one interviews with players and really get to know their personality over time. It’s not as easy to do that these days. It’s a huge challenge.

Is it that the players aren’t fun anymore and that they don’t have personality or is it that it’s harder to get to know those personalities? I tend to think the characters are still there, it’s just harder to get them to come out (especially when many are pressured to be bland and to make sure there’s nothing controversial about them).

I’m fortunate here. If I request one-on-one interviews, sports info directors Jayson Hajdu and Ross LaDue will make them happen. That’s the only hope of writing a deep, impactful story. Do you think I wrote our two most-read sports stories of 2015 (this and this) on press conference quotes? Absolutely not.

It’s also hard to find out about these back stories unless you spend lots of time around the team. You’re not just going to show up once a month, go to a presser and be able to write a fascinating story.

This is why you still see great personality profiles in many NCHC and WCHA papers. These writers are around the team enough to get to know some of those personalities and back stories. And this is why, in some of the larger circulation papers that cover pro teams, you may see game stories, but you rarely see terrific personality pieces like you used to.

That’s not to say that we are totally out of luck when it comes to Big Ten/Denver coverage in the future.

Even if those papers don’t invest in college hockey coverage like they used to, the evolution of blogs and Twitter has opened the door for others.

Andy Johnson, who covered Wisconsin, and Chris Dilks, who covers western college hockey, were the pioneers of non-traditional college hockey coverage. Dilks is still at it, though Johnson recently had to give it up as he’s rising in the hockey scouting world.

In Minneapolis, blogger Nate Wells (@gopherstate on Twitter) has become the guy to follow for Gopher coverage. His coverage has continually improved and now he’s even stringing stories for the Star Tribune from time to time. His following will continue to increase as he fills the void.

BGSUHockey.com has done an unbelievable job covering Bowling Green. Drew Evans and former beat writer Kevin Gordon have really put together something great there. I find myself looking at the Let’s Go DU blog for information on this weekend’s series. And I think the door is wide open for others to quickly gain big followings by accurately and professionally covering under-covered programs — many of which are not only followed by their fans, but also fans of opposing teams and rivals.

Coverage of college hockey is changing.

I miss the dedicated coverage by really great journalists at the Big Ten papers, for sure. But I believe the interest and the personalities are still there, even if the big-circulation papers aren’t like they used to be.