In Sept. 2009, the Los Angeles Kings weren’t happy with the level of coverage the team was receiving from local media, so they decided to create their own press corps.
Rich Hammond, who covered the Kings for the Los Angeles Daily News, was hired as the team’s own beat reporter – writing about the Kings and traveling with the team, while on their payroll. The goal was to make it an independent outlet – Hammond’s work wouldn’t be subject to any editing or approval from the team. It was akin to what the New York Islanders had with former VP of media relations Chris Botta, who is now with Sports Business Journal, before his NYI Point Blank gig ended due to a lack of sponsorship from the team.


http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...9548--nhl.html