Hoisting the Cup and the Sun also rises

Enlarge Image

Former Brandon Wheat Kings great Ron Hextall, vice-president and assistant general manager of the L.A. Kings, hoists the Stanley Cup on Monday night in Los Angeles. (COPYRIGHT NHL VIA GETTY IMAGES)

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.

In the case of a photo of Ron Hextall, a picture is worth $265.

Yup, while we do subscribe to The Canadian Press photo service — which gains us access to shots from The Associated Press — there are times that we have to turn to photo agencies for images to offer our readers the best product possible.

In this case, Getty Images had a wonderful photo of former Brandon Wheat Kings great Ron Hextall — now vice-president and assistant general manager of the L.A. Kings — happily hoisting the Stanley Cup on Monday night in Los Angeles.

So after some careful thought — hey, $265 isn’t chump change for a photo — I gave sports editor James Shewaga permission to purchase a copy of the photo that you saw on Page B1 Wednesday and again here today (I want to make sure we get our money’s worth.)

We had more luck with a photo of another Brandon expatriate with the Cup, as Kings’ head equipment manager Darren Granger was able to supply us with a usable shot on his own.

I say the photo of Hextall — who was born in Brandon in 1964, the third and youngest child of Bryan and Fay Hextall — was well worth the money as it captured the sheer pride and joy the career hockey player must have felt after his team won the Stanley Cup for the first time.

"(Lifting the Cup) was real easy," Hextall told Brandon Sun hockey writer Rob Henderson on the phone Tuesday from Los Angeles. "They said (the Cup weighs) 35 pounds, I’m like ‘no way.’"

"It really is surreal," he continued. "… It had not quite sunk in at the time, but it was sure an exciting time."

As a Wheat King, Hextall was noted for his unpredicable and aggressive playing style. I recall seeing that first-hand as a rookie photographer for the Brandon Sun from behind the glass at the Keystone Centre during Hextall’s final year as a Wheat King in 1983-84.

As a former goalie myself in my teens, I will always remember Hextall as only the first NHL goaltender to actually score a goal.

(Hextall shot the puck into the opponent’s empty net in 1989, while in 1979 New York Islanders netminder Billy Smith was credited with a goal as he was the last man to touch the puck before an opposing player shot it into his own net by accident. There’s some Saturday morning sports trivia for you.)

As you read in the Sun this week, Hextall never got the chance to lift the Cup during his 13-year National Hockey League playing career, although he played in the Stanley Cup final twice, winning the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP in 1987 even though his Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Edmonton Oilers.

Anyhow, I think we did the right thing for our hometown hero — and for our readers — by purchasing the photo.

And it’s just another example of how someone actually has to pay for information content that can then be freely shared on the Internet.

While the mainstream media plays by the rules and shells out cash to help pay for the photographer who took the actual photo, we have no control of people stealing the image from our website and sharing it freely over the Internet.

YOU REALLY LIKE US

You might have seen larger versions of the clever star-shaped "flex-form" style ad in recent editions of the Brandon Sun.

Sales and marketing director Glen Parker thought it was high time we tooted our own horn as we’re one of the most-popular media outlets in a market our size in Canada.

I had previously shared those early numbers with you that showed how much of an impact this small daily newspaper has. The stats come courtesy of Newspaper Audience Databank Inc. (NADbank), which provides marketing information to assist in the buying and selling of daily newspaper advertising in Canada.

Recent numbers for this market show our print and online editions having a combined 88 per cent total weekly readership in Brandon alone, not taking into account our many rural readers in Westman. Those numbers are among the best in the country for a market our size.

And here’s a stat our retail advertisers should appreciate — 71 per cent of the households that read the Brandon Sun have an income of $50,000 or more.

I’ll take a poke at some media competition because when NADbank asked if people read the newspaper or listened to local radio the day before, way more folks said they had seen the Sun.

And we’re focusing even sharper on our ultimate goal to not only continue to be Westman’s most trusted and reliable media source, but also to be almost 100 per cent local content.

You’ll see on many days now the Sun can be completely full of local news and photos, except for a very few top wire stories in various sections.

Included in that local content is selected material — that has to be of interest, in our view, to Westman readers — from our sister media outlet, the Winnipeg Free Press.

This has been an exciting year in the Sun newsroom, as we’ve returned to full staffing levels. This allows us to cover more local stories than ever before.

We know in this day and age of instant information from across the world, engaged citizens want to know what’s really happening in their own community.

And that’s where the Sun shines.

So thanks to all of you, the 88 per cent of adult Brandonites who are regular readers of the Sun.

It would be really great if you helped us spread the word that in an industry that is seeing some newspapers writing their own obituaries, the Sun is alive and well.

END WITH A TWIST

The latest addition to the Sun editorial department staff is Kirsten Glowa.

Glowa was raised in Brandon and just graduated with a journalism degree from Mount Royal University in Calgary.

She’s working as a copy editor, on the team that takes all the stories and photos and puts them on the pages for you to read each day.

And here’s a neat twist to end the column with this week: Glowa’s father, Kelly, was a Brandon Wheat King who played on the same team for a while with Ron Hextall in the early ’80s.

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition June 16, 2012