I almost drove off the road listening to Colin Cowherd during his ESPN radio show today. He basically blamed a “young,” “work cheap” crop of hockey writers as the reason for New York Rangers’ coach John Tortorella’s terse press conference last night.

Credit goes to the guys at Awfulannouncing.com for capturing the clip.

Here are some of the sound bites:

(Newspapers) are getting a lot of young, cheap people to cover hockey. It’s not like newspapers are sending their best people to cover hockey.

And…

Fox News doesn’t send Bill O’Reilly to a speedbump proposal in his hometown. He goes to a presidential election.

And..

Hockey doesn’t get the cream of the crop in our business…What do you think I’m giving the kid out of Fordham? The New York Islanders. He’s cheap, he’s bright, and his brother used to play hockey.

And finally..

The guy covering the Florida Panthers, he was at a floral show early in the week.

At that point, I’m yelling at the radio, which had to look pretty weird to the person in the car next to me.

Not to stereotype as Cowherd does, but this is what happens with somebody who grows up in the Northwest and doesn’t have a clue about hockey. In my hometown of Chicago and in Detroit, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, and other cities, they aren’t handing the hockey beat to some kid just off the bus.

As somebody who used to work for a major newspaper, I can tell you the beat is hugely important, and the hockey writers are well known among their passionate fan bases.

In Chicago, I was inspired to become a sportswriter in part because of the work Bob Verdi did as the Blackhawks writer for the Chicago Tribune in the 1970s. Verds set the bar high, and the current crop (old pals Tim Sassone, Chris Kuc, Jesse Rogers, Tim Cronin and the rest) are highly-respected members of the fraternity.

By the way, where is Cowherd basing his information? When was the last time he attended a hockey game or sat in the press box? At a Hartford Whalers game?

Before Cowherd goes into another rant about hockey, somebody should tell him the Whalers moved out of Hartford a long time ago.