Who's the logical choice when you need to interview someone from the Red Sox about their World Series win? Eric Gagne of course! (Source: AP)

So I’m watching post-coverage celebration of my beloved Red Sox’s second World Series in four years and amidst the champagne showerings, trophy presentations, Jonathon Papelbon and David Ortiz’s acts of exuberance I see the most bizarre and irrelevant interview. The Red Sox’s playoff success was littered with clutch performers and contributors and an on-field interview with anyone from the two super rookies Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedoria to the pitching staff of Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling, Dice-K, Jon Lester to Big Papi, Manny Ramirez or World Series MVP Mike Lowell would have been a more appropriate choice than Sportsnet’s decision to leadoff their Red Sox post-game coverage with an interview with Eric Frickin’ Gagne! I get that Gagne is Canadian but when you interview someone who’s impact on the Red Sox winning the World Series is about as miniscule as the chances that ABC will ever have an open bar at a “Lost” cast party something needs to change.

To put into perspective how far the former great reliever has fallen from grace, the Red Sox only trusted Gagne in post-season games in which the team either had a big lead or was getting blown out. It was basically a 6.5 +/- point spread that would determine if the French-Canadian would work mop up duty. Boston would have preferred to see Hideki Okajima’s arm fall off before they put Gagne into a meaningful spot. If you think I’m exaggerating take a look at Gagne’s ungodly numbers (regular season + post-season with the Sox: 22.1 innings pitched, 30 hits given up, 17 runs surrendered, three blown saves and a Joe Borowski-esque ERA. I’m convinced that prior to getting traded to the Sox, Gagne worked out some sort of arrangement with the Yankees where if he pitched as poorly as humanly possible for Boston that New York would agree to offer him a big free agent offer to take over the closer reigns from Mariano Rivera.

The choice of interviewing Eric Gagne and asking him questions about how it felt to win a World Series for a team that he almost single-handedly derailed when they acquired him mid-season was just idiotic. If they were looking for a Canadian angle I would have preferred to see Sportsnet seek out interviews with former Blue Jay Eric Hinske or better yet ex-Jay Bobby Kielty whose home run in the 8th ended up being the winning run.

This issue with Gagne just speaks to the bigger one I have with Canadian content (Cancon). I understand that Canadian sports stations are always grappling with the issue of incorporating enough Canadian content but there needs to be some sort of newsworthy element to justify the inclusion of Cancon. 

I don’t mean to come across as only bashing the contributions of having Cancon as a regular part of our media diet. For instance earlier this week it came to my attention through media coverage that hundreds of Saskatchewan Rough Riders’ fans were lining up for the CFL club’s first home playoff game in nearly 20 years. I’m not sure how something like a nearly 20-year absence happens in an 8-team league. I mean 6 out of 8 teams make the playoffs each year and to have your last home playoff game occur in 1988 is absolutely mind-boggling.

One thing that often happens when the emphasis is on too much Cancon is a blinder effect, where every other potential story is secondary and irrelevant to the reporting of how the Canadian angle played out. The perfect example of this was the immortalization of Mike Weir at the most recent President’s Cup tournament that was played in Montreal earlier this fall. If you had only followed the President’s Cup tourney in isolation from the coverage of the last day it would be easy to mistakenly surmise that Mike Weir and the International team capped off a stirring comeback to win the tournament. On the heels of triumphant and improbable heroics of Weir is his match-play victory over the World’s number one golfer, Tiger Woods.  It would be easy to make that mistake because of the exuberance in the coverage of the Canadian angle. For that one glinting moment Steve Nash had serious competition for the mantle of ‘Canadian Jesus”. Truth be told, Mike Weir beat Tiger Woods in a match that had no bearing on the final result of the tournament.

The President’s Cup and the Ryder Cup are the only occasions where golfers are asked to remove themselves from an individual me-against-the-field mindset and buy into the notion of a team concept. So why was one irrelevant (in terms of the team play angle) match-play victory held up to such a virtuous light and instantly immortalized as a defining Canadian sporting achievement? The reason is simple, I think a lot of people wanted to see Mike Weir succeed. Ever since his Masters victory and subsequent sponsorship deals and high-profile clothing line launch people have been pining to see him justify their faith in his abilities and until this performance their faith had been steadily dwindling.

If you examine Weir’s victory from an absolutely objective and unapologetic angle I think there is no way Mike Weir beats Tiger Woods in a one game match-play event where the President’s Cup is on the line. There is no other athlete in professional sports that is more focused, clutch and able to absolutely bury his opponents when something meaningful is on the line. The President’s Cup had virtually already been decided in the Americans favour by the time that Weir’s impressive victory occurred. Simply put, Weir had a lot more to gain from that victory than Tiger did. Weir was trying to justify his controversial inclusion on the team and a victory against the world’s best would quash all the doubters. But if the two squads were all square and the Weir-Woods match-up was the culminating event you can be guaranteed that Woods would have played a lot better. Just look at Weir’s comment about beating Tiger; “Woods didn’t have his best day and I had my best day. That’s the way you’re going to beat the best player.”

I think deep down people know that if the Woods-Weir match was being played for something more than pride that the tables would have been turned. Weir’s victory was a nice story but the Canadian media’s coverage went overboard in glorifying the victory just to put an excessive positive spin on a story.

I’m all for preserving our Canadian sports and bringing attention to our athletes with a continued dedication to delivering Cancon but not when it undermines the true story and spirit of a sporting event. Eric Gagne being interviewed about his contributions to the Red Sox World Series victory is a bad example of Cancon at work and it’s these types of stories that undermine the sports intelligence of the average Canadian fan.