Former Oilers coach Craig MacTavish calls out local reporter
A former Edmonton Oilers coach took aim at a Sportsnet reporter Monday night.
Craig MacTavish, who served as the head coach of the Oilers between 2000 and 2009, appeared on the OilersNow radio show on 630 CHED hosted by Bob Stauffer.
The two were discussing the media pressure that comes with being a head coach in Edmonton, specifically mentioning how quickly former Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft fell out of favour.
This is when MacTavish started talking about his thoughts on the media scene in Edmonton, singling out Sportsnet’s Mark Spector.
“Everybody knows that the media has every right to criticize athletes and coaches,” MacTavish said. “The things that bother me about some of the criticism about coaches, and I’ll speak to Mark Spector’s article before Jay [Woodcroft] was fired.
“Mark is a bright guy; he’s a talented writer, we all know that, but he is always the guy that is going to recommend, as he did for me a few times as well; he’s always going to be the first guy to say the coach has to go.”
It appears that MacTavish is talking about an article Spector wrote following the Oilers’ loss to the San Jose Sharks last Thursday that called on the team to fire Woodcroft. While MacTavish is aware that head coaches in the NHL will draw criticism no matter what, he went on to say that he doesn’t always agree with how Spector goes about it.
“It’s fine that [Spector] has that opinion [of wanting the coach fired], but I think at times he goes overboard,” explained MacTavish. “When you say that if [the coach] is not fired tomorrow, the owner has absolutely quit on the season, to me, that is a ludicrous statement, and it goes over the boundaries of what’s respectful for people and even humanity.
“The coach should be afforded a certain amount of dignity.”
Such is life for an NHL coach playing in a hockey hotbed. The amount of pressure that professional hockey players feel while playing in Edmonton is sure to be more than they would see in areas such as Florida or California, where hockey takes a backseat to other major sports.
The Oilers have been no stranger to sparring with local media. Specifically, Leon Draisaitl has been known to challenge the media in availabilities, most recently last week following the loss in San Jose and, perhaps most infamously, the “pissy” incident in 2022 with Edmonton Journal reporter Jim Matheson.
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