Back on the 27th of January, I wrote a piece talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Canucks and their respective approaches to social media. My point was basically that the Canucks have been quick to embrace the digital world, while the Leafs have been slower to adapt.

Imagine my surprise when I was actually contacted by someone at the Leafs. Jonathan Sinden, formerly of Toronto’s 102.1 Edge radio station (”The IIIIIIIIIIINSIIIIIIIIIDE EDGE” guy) and currently the chap who operates the Leafs official Twitter account dropped me a line, arguing that I ‘may not have all the facts’ regarding the Leafs and social media. I mean, I’m ‘just’ some blogger: no formal affiliation with any sites and a really, really small fish in the hockey blogger pond. That someone at the Leafs would want to chat with me about my article was rather interesting, but cool.

So, after some e-mail exchanges, I was able to chat with Jonathan over the phone to get all the ‘facts and info’ regarding the Leafs and social media.

Only…that’s not quite what happened. I had a very nice conversation with Jonathan about social media in general and he’s a very nice guy. The Leafs do seem to have someone in place who is motivated and passionate about social media and really, that’s one of the most important things you need when you’re a corporate entity thinking about raising its profile on social media sites.

He’s also done a lot of good work with the Leafs: he countered my point about how the Leafs Twitter account ‘only’ has 6,000ish followers and the Tweet:follower ratio I talked about in my prior blog post, arguing that he feels it’s a good indication of how involved the Leafs are. Fair enough point. That, plus the fact that Jonathan actually contacted me regarding my blog post really painted the Leafs in a good light.

However, when I tried to direct things to specific questions regarding the Leafs and whatever information I may not possess, it got rather hard to get answers. I was concerned, for example, that I was wrong about details like when the Leafs Twitter account was started up (turns out it was in September of last year) or if the social media positions I speculated on were newly created ones (they were.) I was also keen on giving the Leafs their fair share and had some questions ready to ask regarding the Leafs and social media. I did get some information from Jonathan, but it was only after really steering the conversation away from social media in general.

I also did get some interesting tidbits about what the Leafs are doing online. For example, popular Leafs YouTuber Steve Dangles is apparently interning with the Leafs. Really cool move from the organization to reach out to fans like that. But I was told that I would probably be better off contacting someone else within the Leafs if I wanted to have an actual interview. I wasn’t necessarily, but hey, who am I to turn down a shot at having someone else validate this blog? Also, I wanted to be fair to the Leafs, especially if they were feeling slighted over my blog post, so there was that.

I was given a name and number to contact. I’m not 100%, but I believe the timing was off, as I called and left two messages with this person, the second resulting in a ‘I’ll be away from my office until…’ styled voicemail. Not deluding myself, I realized that hey, I am pretty small potatoes and someone working at the Leafs probably has bigger fish to fry. No sarcasm there, either: I have no illusions about where I sit in the scheme of things.

Anyway, last Thursday someone else at the Leafs contacted me, interested in having a chat with me. This wasn’t the same person as the name I was given, but the guy who called me apparently is more directly involved in the digital arm of all things Leafs, so he was better suited for my queries. Unfortunately, it came at a really bad time for me (I was in the midst of driving to a job interview) and couldn’t chat. I pulled over and we set up Friday afternoon for a quick chat.

Friday came and went and no phone call. As did Monday. Undeterred, I dropped Jonathan another email on Tuesday and got word back from this other guy. Sorry, meetings. Totally understandable, schedule conflicts are a fact of life. After a bit of e-mail tag, we arranged to chat 4PM EST on Thursday. It’s now Friday, the day after, and I hadn’t heard anything at all back from the Leafs and frankly, my patience is at an end.

Now, again, I understand that the folks at the Leafs are busy folks and that they have a TON of things going on. I’m in communication with a couple of folks over at the Canucks for some of the Fan Zone blogging and Live Blogging I do for the site and sometimes e-mails are missed or it takes some time to get back to me. I get that.

But what’s confusing to me is that the Leafs didn’t have to reach out and say anything to me. I’m a Canucks fan, for pete’s sake, so I’d imagine I’d be pretty low on their list. But if you’re going to reach out, then agree to sit down and have a conversation with me over a blog  post I made because I ‘may not have all the facts and info’ why would you not really try to tell me what facts I’ve got wrong? Why would you instead direct me to someone else and give me the run around? I can understand wanting to be approachable, but if you’re not really going to follow through, then what’s the point?

I wrote in my original blog post that the Leafs aren’t losing younger fans because of video games, but because there’s no real way to embrace the Leafs for those fans. One of the points I raised was that the Leafs have a strong online presence, but there’s no real focus on the fans, something which I felt wasn’t the case with the Canucks (as evidenced with, well, me, but also other high profile bloggers and Tweeters.) I still feel that this is the case after my encounter with MLSE, although I will say that after my chat with Jonathan, things seem to be headed in the right direction, but they’ve still got a ways to go.

That said, the Leafs are a far cry from the Edmonton Oilers, who seem to have a 1988 approach to the Internet (just as they seem to do with everything.) No, seriously. The Oilers are pretty bad when it comes to embracing change and are especially bad when it comes to dealing with bloggers.