Celebration has turned to scorn pretty quickly toward St. Louis Blues forward Alexander Steen on Saturday, the eve of his 1000th career NHL game.
According to several reports, including that of one Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press, Steen obliged to speak with media following the game in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba on the eve of his incredible milestone. However, at the conclusion of the game, a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets, St. Louis Blues PR pulled Steen's promised media availability, which didn't sit too well with everyone affected as they had all prepared questions for Steen, due to his commitment to meet.
The explanation provided at the time was that Steen did not want any additional attention on himself because of the milestone game, on a night which he was not particularly thrilled with his own individual performance. That may have been an acceptable response, had the city of Winnipeg and the Jets organization not honoured the hometown boy for his great achievement and had the Winnipeg native not promised to speak at the end of the contest.
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According to McIntyre, a colleague - Jason Bell - had been working on a feature piece on Steen, during which he had compiled comments from several key individuals surrounding Steen, including both head coaches for Saturday's game (Craig Berube and Paul Maurice). The feature was all but sunk when the focal point of the piece refused to speak.
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As professional hockey player, one of Steen's league/player's association mandated responsibilities is to meet with the media upon these types of requests, whether it be pre-game, during intermission or post-game. The exemption to this expectation seems to be to shelter younger players from the media spotlight until they are properly prepared for it. Since Steen is 35 years of age and is in the midst of his 12th NHL season, he is neither too young nor too inexperienced to take questions.
There has been no further comment on the matter as of yet from either the Blues organization or from Steen himself.
This is likely not the last we'll hear of the situation, as the media and fans in Winnipeg have been quite active on social media late Saturday and on Sunday morning, airing their distaste of the media availability snub on.
We will continue to monitor the situation and provide an update upon any further developments.
