Local papers struggling with Wings coverage

NHL free agency is about an hour away, yet you wouldn't know it looking at the websites of our local newspapers.

That is the sports section of DetNews.com as of 10:45 a.m. You'll notice there's not even a Red Wings headline in there, despite the fact the Wings figure to be major players in today's festivities. Apparently a feature on Darrelle Revis is more important.

There is new happening as we speak. The Wings have signed Patrick Eaves to a three-year deal for $1.2 million. Don't look for that on the Free Press or News websites, though, because you won't find it.


Here's what the Freep sports section looked like at 10:50 a.m., after the Eaves deal was done. That would have been a quick turnaround, so maybe the Freep twitter page could help me out. Um, nope. Not even a retweet of Craig Custance.

There's no real shame in getting beat to a story by a guy like Custance, who is as plugged in as any other, especially when it comes to the Red Wings. But neither paper of record has done anything remotely close to informing its readers of what's happening today.

We live in a digital age, and we're in a time of the year when there's not much going on in the world of sports. There should be enough manpower at a paper that sent two photographers to Jobbie Nooner to set up a live blog or some kind of updateable story that tells us when the Wings have re-signed a player, or when one of their main targets is wrapped up by a divisional foe.

We don't need front-page headlines on the website (although, both sites could manage that) or updates on what kind of coffee Ken Holland is drinking, but doing nothing is easily the worst course of action.

UPDATE: Ted Kulfan has a blog post about Eaves signing. The only reason I found this was because On The Wings tweeted it.