Readers defend Jake Virtanen

After Canada lost in the quarter-finals of the World Junior Hockey Championship, fingers were pointing.

Sunday’s Province back-page headline said ‘Goatmedal winner’ with a photo of Canucks prospect Jake Virtanen, who struggled to find his form at the tournament in Helsinki.

Many Province readers felt it was too harsh on the 19-year-old. Here is a sampling of some of the letters we received by email (edited for clarity and brevity).

Humiliating

I have never written to any editor before but I was shocked to see you degrade and humiliate Jake Virtanen on the back page today.

Yes, he didn’t play as well as he hoped but neither did many other players who also took careless penalties. To single him out and plaster it all over for everyone to see is journalism at its worst.

I don’t know the boy, I am not a relative of his, I’m just a teacher who coaches and knows how damaging it is to single out a particular player when it is a team effort. Isn’t that what we try to teach our kids?!

— Delle Booth

A team game

Whoever created this back page obviously never played sports! Hockey is a team game — you win and lose as a team! You do not pick out and demonize one individual, particularly a 19-year-old who is giving his all for his country.

— Eric Dodds

Nerves on the world stage

Can you imagine the excitement, nervousness and every other emotion these young men must be feeling playing for Canada on the world stage? Jake Virtanen must be feeling absolutely terrible after this game and you people splash this derogatory headline in your paper?

Give your heads a shake and think before you go to print. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

— LeDrew Clarke

Bad defence and goaltending

The kid is only 19 years old, for God’s sake. He is a local boy who plays for the Canucks. Yes, he took some bad penalties that he would like to have back (and they weren’t all the greatest of calls) but to single him out in a splashy headline as responsible for the team’s loss, in an effort to sell a few extra copies of your second-rate paper, is disgusting.

Canada lost primarily because of its porous defence and weak goaltending. At least Botch’s column provided some balance.

— Jim Keegan

It was the Finn goalie

Give credit where credit is due: That second Finn goalie stood on his head. I hope Virtanen will learn a life lesson and go on to be the best player he can be.

— Pat Parkinson

Doom and gloom

Your back page so infuriated me that I had to read the column twice to realize maybe it wasn’t all negative. Thanks to Jim Benning for his calm, measured approach.

I suppose this is true of most media reporting these days: doom, gloom, etc. A little optimism and encouragement would go a long way. After all, aren’t we hoping that he will be one of our next great players? How can that happen with back pages like that?

Disgusting!

— Susan Maas