In case the news didn't make it all the way to California, the Dallas Stars will now only have one beat writer (the esteemable Mike Heika) covering the team in two major DFW newspapers. Apparently, this isn't just a typical shot at hockey though: the cutdown will affect other major sports as well.

(At this point the Cowboys might have more coverage than every sport combined ... times three instead of two.)

Mirtle points to the great success of Mark Stepneski as one of the tettale reasons for this change (although he does do so in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion). This story is interesting in a few ways.

As a journalism major during my non-BoC time, it's been disturbing to watch the newspaper industry fold like an accordion during the last few years. There was always some writing on the wall: it's hard to forget the cricket chirping silence registered during an opinion writing class when I predicted that print newspapers would be gone in 20 years. Other aspiring journalists/lazy listless bastards did not appreciate my newspaper-to-railroad comparisons, either.

But under that layer of snark there was at least an undercurrent of sadness.

Anyway, I wonder how this drop in coverage will affect how the Stars interact with bloggers. While writing a term paper regarding blogging taking the place of mainstream hockey coverage* a couple years ago, I learned that the Stars organization was not yet interested in providing press passes to bloggers.

At this point, in this economy, how could any NHL team be foolish enough to look past such a cheap way to generate interest? While my job would make it difficult to go to every game, I would absolutely go to as many Stars games as possible if they adopted an Islanders/Capitals style blogger box system.

So who knows ... perhaps BoC will have a Stars press box presence one of these days. Might have to direct their attention away from state fornication cartoons, though ...

* In case you ever wondered how much of a hockey nerd I am ...