Hockey fans take in NHL action between the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Wild in a 2021 game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.Rich Lam/Getty Images
The Vancouver Canucks have ignited a debate over the team’s control of media coverage after they removed a beat reporter from Rogers Arena and revoked his press pass during a game last week over a story he had written about a U.S.-based company owned by the team’s ownership group.
Trevor Beggs, who covers the Canucks for Daily Hive, was escorted from the arena during the first intermission of the team’s Thursday game, about three hours after the site published a story he had written about a Washington State vineyard owned by the Aquilini family, prominent Vancouver residents who own the Canucks.
The move alarmed journalists who cover the team, which some say has become more controlling as its on-ice performance has spiralled over the past two years.
“This is an unprecedented act,” said Patrick Johnston, the Vancouver Sun and Province columnist who is also chair of the Vancouver chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Mr. Beggs is not a member of the PHWA, but Mr. Johnston said he felt compelled to speak up because, “as a principle, I don’t think reporters who are behaving in a responsible manner should be immediately expelled from the building just because you don’t like a story.”
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Don Taylor, a long-time Canucks reporter, said on Monday that the harsh move was in line with the way the team has been treating people it deems too critical. “They’re bullies,” he said on Donnie & Dhali, the program he co-hosts with Rick Dhaliwal on Vancouver Island’s CHEK-TV. “It’s a bad look.”
He suggested that the team’s crackdown on Mr. Beggs had backfired by drawing attention to the very story they had criticized.
“I think it might be the only reporter who’s been kicked out mid-game before,” Mr. Beggs said on Friday’s episode of Locked On Canucks podcast, which he co-hosts.
The Daily Hive story leaned on reporting by Inlander, an independent news site based in Spokane, Wa., about Harvest Plus, a company that supplies migrant labour for farms, which was indicted last month with forging federal contracts that enticed Mexican workers to the state with false promises of good wages and working conditions.
Harvest Plus supplied Aquilini Vineyards, in Benton City, Wa., with workers in 2022, who laboured in unsafe conditions and were threatened by Harvest Plus managers, according to an indictment.
“Aquilini Vineyards was not charged in the indictment, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on whether Aquilini Vineyards faced investigation for its role in the alleged criminal abuse of migrant workers,” the story notes.
Daily Hive’s version of the story prominently played up Aquilini Vineyard’s connection to the Canucks, including the use of a photograph of Francesco Aquilini, the chair of the Canucks.
The site took down the article some time after Mr. Beggs was escorted from Rogers Arena. It did not publish an explanation of the decision to remove the piece or any acknowledgment that it had been removed.
In a statement e-mailed to The Globe and Mail on Monday afternoon by Victoria Ullrich, the director of communications for Canucks Sports and Entertainment, the team said the article “contains statements that are inaccurate, misleading and cause reputational and commercial harm. The strategic use of language and framing of the article are sensational and take flippant liberties, particularly with the inclusion of the Vancouver Canucks in the headline and in the photograph. It is unquestionably defamatory to accuse an individual by implication or insinuation of committing a criminal act.
“We view this matter as a marked departure from journalistic principles of fairness, honesty, objectivity and integrity, and we remain committed to supporting accurate and responsible coverage.”
Daily Hive editors did not return e-mailed requests for comment on the incident or the Canucks’ statement.
The Canucks added that its media access policy aims, “to ensure a professional working environment and the delivery of accurate, truthful, and timely information. Credentials are revoked if these standards are not met, and the credential referenced will not be reinstated. There was no negotiation or a condition to have the article retracted in order to keep the credential.”
Stephen Whyno, an Associated Press sports reporter who serves as president of the PHWA, said the incident highlighted the latitude that individual teams have over which members of the media they grant access.
“It’s troublesome, because of the precedent that it could set if teams decide that they’re the arbiters of what is fair journalism,” he said. “I hope it is not a trend.”