Good Evening Hockey Fans,
My name is Michael Lindenbaum and I created and run “The Xperience Hockey Talk”, aka TXHT, and I created TXHT with the purpose of being able to talk about the sport I love. At the same time I was working on creating TXHT the NWHL formed and I created a relationship with the league to add to my hockey coverage of not just the Washington Capitals and the NHL, but also Women’s Hockey for which I am a supporter of.
It is truth be said that this current offseason in the world of Women’s Hockey has been a very interesting one with the CWHL folding, to the #ForTheGame Movement, and now Free Agency Signings in the NWHL. However, there was something, or someone, that came out of nowhere and that was Mr. Mark Bishop and his new league the World Women’s Ice Hockey League, aka WWIHL.
With the WWIHL there was already intrigue with how it was buzzing on social media, and made me genuinely interested in the league just like everyone else was and wanted to speak with the person in charge. So I reached out and asked for an interview for which Mr. Bishop agreed to. I researched the entire WWIHL website so I could prepare thorough and detailed questions for Mr. Bishop to answer so we can get a better perspective of his league and his vision.
To Mr. Bishop’s credit, he took the time to give thorough and detailed answers to my questions, and there were questions I wondered if he was going comment on at all, so I definitely respect Mr. Bishop for taking the interview seriously and answering every question that I submitted to him.
When the article published at 9a EST on Wednesday May 22nd, 2019, we believed that we were doing the right thing, and then it took off on social media. It raised more questions and concerns that people wanted to know. In Mr. Bishop’s eyes he felt that he was being attacked for his vision of a Women’s Hockey league. We ourselves engaged with our readers and expressed our views. Mr. Bishop also viewed that as an attack.
Mr. Bishop requested at 714p EST the same day that the interview be deleted as he feels that we did this interview with the intentions of destroying him. I can clearly express our intentions was to not destroy Mr. Bishop or the WWIHL. Our intention was to give Mr. Bishop a platform to promote himself, the WWIHL, and to explain to us how he plans to make his league successful.
The views and opinions expressed by Mr. Bishop in the interview are his and his alone. Mr. Bishop emailed us his answers and we copy and pasted them into our article. Mr. Bishop’s views and opinions do not represent the views and opinions of TXHT or it’s parent company X75 Productions. While we respect the views and opinions that Mr. Bishop made in the interview, we do not agree with them.
It is with great sadness that we here at TXHT are announcing that we are pulling our interview with Mr. Bishop. We are saddened by this because we truly believed that this interview could open up more productive and constructive conversations on how we can grow the game of Women’s Hockey, but sadly it did not turn out the way we hoped.
In closing I just want to say that it is ok to agree to disagree. We are allowed to express our opinions, and should be allowed to freely. However, with expressing your opinion that does not remove you from taking criticism, but it is how you deal with that criticism that matters.
To Mr. Bishop and the WWIHL, we wish you the best in your future endeavors. TXHT will continue to cover the NWHL and is looking forward to the 2019-20 season to begin this fall.
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