I Came, I Blogged, I Left
Well - everyone else is blogging, so I thought I may as well join in and see what all the excitement is about.
I have actually wanted to start the Hersh blog for a while. The fact is that news in the hockey autograph and memorabilia industry is massively underreported and sadly inaccurate. The reasons for this are many, but the one true cause is the fact that no one privileged with “inside” information has the ability to be truly subjective in their reporting.
All journalists work for ad-driven periodicals and are unable to say anything that may offend an advertiser. So while Sports Collectors Digest (SCD), Beckett, and Canadian Sports Collector Magazine (CSC) are realistically the voices of the hobby, they are very soft spoken in their views. I, unfortunately, am no different than the rest of them.
Is anyone aware that a major player in this business was recently sued by a sports league for trademark infringement and counterfeiting? Of course no one is going to report it for fear that it may cost them advertising dollars down the road. I can’t be totally forthcoming either, since I do business with this company and wish to continue to do so.
Are they guilty until proven innocent? Of course not, but the two sides of the story will never play out in the press because no hobby journalists have the ability to report it in the first place. Freedom of the press? Not in this industry.
Is anyone aware that Dreams Inc., the mother company of Mounted Memories and the Field of Dreams chain of stores, was on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago until Jeff Rosenberg of Tri-Star Productions stepped in and saved the day? I called the editor of SCD and asked why he never reported this, and he responded that he did not feel it was newsworthy. Not newsworthy??? If Ford was on the verge of bankruptcy and GM bailed them out at the last minute with a huge cash influx, would that not be considered newsworthy? The fact is, portraying Field of Dreams or Mounted Memories in a negative light would not be beneficial to anyone. So this major news event went unreported.
I have stories that I would love to share, but unfortunately can not. Hockey players and industry personnel trust me with sensitive information, and it would not be in the interests of my long-term survival to make this knowledge public. But that does not mean a great book won’t be hitting the shelves in 2035 or so.
Regardless, I am going to write a regular blog and hope it becomes popular with collectors and fans. I sincerely hope to entertain, as my comedic prose has been known to cause a chuckle or two in the past. I will not be totally subjective in my reporting, and stories will obviously be slanted to my own self-interests. I will never claim otherwise, and readers should never think that they’re going to get Woodward and Bernstein (Borenstein?) out of this space. But I will be able to shed some light on current events and present stories from an interesting point of view, hopefully without angering too many people.
My first couple of reports are going to be doozies. Your thoughts will be appreciated.
(Hersh knows nothing about blogging. All writings are for entertainment purposes only. No one should take offense to anything that is written, and no one should confuse opinions with points of absolute fact. Hersh’s views are not necessarily the views of Frozen Pond Inc. (but probably are).