On Frozen Blog

Great news on Dave Fay, the Caps’ beat reporter for the Washington Times: he’s recovering well, and his colleagues expect him to begin writing again on hockey soon, likely in the form of some analysis pieces. Dave has been a fixture on the Caps’ beat for the Times really since its inception, in the early 1980s, but had he known that during his convalescence he’d be backed up on the beat by a staffer whose family hails from western Pennsylvania, and who to this day harbors a full-throated, unwavering allegiance to the Pens, I wonder if we might not have seen Fay attempt to blog from his hospital bed.
Certainly I have to chat with Nate Ewell about greater scrutiny of the credentialed.
I met the backup scribe, Corey Masisak, in the Verizon Center press lounge before Wednesday night’s game against San Jose, and his roots notwithstanding, I liked him. I asked to meet with him because a couple of weeks ago I thought that the novelty of his circumstances at the Times — stepping in at a moment’s notice, in the middle of the hockey season, to cover for an area legend fallen ill — suggested a novel story. I came away impressed by his handling of his beat-baptism-by-fire 2007; he is poised and composed and offers a quiet thoughtfulness that belies his youthful appearance.
His has been a fast rise in a nascent journalism career. He left Pennsylvania for the University of Maryland in 2000, drawn to College Park for the quality of its journalism program. He covered various Terrapin sports teams for the school’s well regarded Diamondback student newspaper. He’s been at the Times about three years, where he’s covered minor league baseball and Navy football. His selection to cover for Fay, however, wasn’t entirely related to the quality of his coverage on the other beats.
“In the [Times'] newsroom the editors knew I was the only one who liked hockey,” he told me, laughing.
“Of course it’s not the way you want to start an assignment,” he added.
Back in December, Masisak “shadowed” Fay on a Saturday night Flyers game at Verizon Center. “That was a huge help,” he said. But soon thereafter the beat became his, and while he’d been around the Nationals’ locker room a bit, this was going to be his first full-time assignment covering a pro sports team. He confessed to a serious case of fright.
“I remember doing nothing but intense research — constant reading — the first four nights after I got [the assignment]. Coming in in the middle of the season, I needed to learn names and faces, what the team had done . . . it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”
The Times, like so many other large print media outlets these days, has seriously scaled back its staffing on team road trips. Masisak, who traveled frequently on the road with Terrapin teams, knows well the value of being seen day in, day out by the athletes he’s covering. Recently, at an LA Kings practice at Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Masisack was the only beat reporter present.
“It makes a difference,” he noted. “When you get to work with guys every day, you’re certainly going to develop relationships.”
Masisak’s work covering Navy football made him a bit apprehensive initially about moving to a pro sports beat. “You don’t get higher quality [individuals] than those guys in Annapolis,” he said. But working with hockey players, he soon found that “character” athletes could be found in NHL rinks as well.
“Everybody in hockey is so nice,” he told me. “I was working on piece about Eric Staal, and he gave me his parents’ phone number up in Thunder Bay [Ontario]. I got a hold of his mom, and after talking to her she had Eric’s dad ring me later. This is what it’s like among players, coaches, managers, and their families across the league.”