too dumb to play with themselves issue one billion

I am on record as liking and respecting the hell out of Adrian Dater. I think he's among the best beat writers in the business, and his opinions are usually interesting and well-argued. He's got skin thin enough to block me on Twitter, but that's no big deal: I'm a redhead myself, and I know from temper. Anyway, I'm glad he's my primary conduit for Avs information.

All that said, there are in this 240-word piece "David Quinn takes Boston University coaching Job three separate claims that I want to talk about for a second (all presented verbatim):

• I knew this a couple days ago, but couldn’t say anything. Oh well, I kept my promise to my source. Which is a poor answer to the question: why be a reporter and grant sources their wish not to publish things in the paper? Well, it’s a long story, but it happens sometimes. Let’s move on...
• Avs policy is not to have assistant coaches talk with the media at all. Hey, it’s their policy, and I don’t have a problem following it.
• Guy Boucher? I think his availability is intriguing right now. I think there’s a chance he could be the next Avs coach. But that’s all: just a chance. Nothing is immediately imminent.

So what the hell is journalism?

• Talking to people and not telling anybody what they say
• Not talking to people that somebody doesn't want you to talk to
• Heavy hinting and speculation masked as opinion—or maybe this is a journalist being used to float a trial balloon by somebody in the institution he's supposed to investigating...

It's all pretty gross. And, as I've said before, since there's so little at stake with professional sports—it's not like we're being fed a series of bad reasons to spend trillions of dollars invading Iraq, we're just trying to figure out if it's a goalie's groin or hip that's hurt, and how badly—there is absolutely no reason not to do it right. Go ahead, protect your sources. Seems reasonable. But could you at least act like it bugs you that you're being told who you can and who you can not talk to?

—Collision, who literally nobody wants to talk to anyway