SWX Sports - Shaun Rainey

[John K]

This is something that probably annoys me more than it should. On the SWX newscast Tuesday night, Griz fanboy Shaun Rainey provided some Cat-gris history, and mentioned that the last gris win in Bozeman was 2015, by a score of 54-13. The actual score was 54-35. It's bad enough to lose to them at home by 19 points, but it's not nearly as bad as losing by 41 points. It seems sorta ridiculous to get something like that wrong. I e-mailed the station manager and asked him to correct that error on a future newscast, and left a VM for Rainey, with the same request. To be fair, I think SWX generally does a pretty good job covering local sports, including both the Cats and gris. They provided great coverage of Cat-griz 1.0 in the week leading up to the regular season game, although the ratio of their content was probably about 75/25 in favor of the griz. I caught another factual error by Rainey back then, and it was also something not in the Cats' favor (coincidence?). Again, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I get a little sick of the pro-gris bias among most Montana media outlets, so I tend to get a bit overly aggravated by stuff like this, and it does seem odd that they would get something that simple wrong.

[CodyCat]

I’ve just accepted the gris bias in Montana media. It’s absurd but it is what it is.

[lutecat]

I get you. On one hand he is an aluminum of the griz j school. But in the other he is the sports director of all of Montana.

[RUACAT]

Shaun is just lazy researching facts. I remember when former gris kicker Dan Carpenter made the Pro Bowl and Shaun rushed to the airwaves to proclaim Dan as the only Montana-born player to make the Pro Bowl. I emailed him and said "Not only is Dan not the first player from Montana, he's not even the first player from Helena High". That distinction belongs to Pat Donovan, 4x Pro Bowl OL with the Dallas Cowboys.

[Clinton T]

I saw this too, John. I emailed the station as well. With how easy it is to do a quick Google search to confirm a score, he is either lazy (as someone else said) or passive-aggressive. Either way, not a good look and only reinforces the notion that he is an unobjective gris homer.

[coloradocat]

"It's just a simple mistake" that always goes in the same direction.

[KIX]

Rainey is a douchebag gris homer. I can stomach Kyle Hansen but he is slowly, but surely, trending in the same direction. Let's not venture into Speltz territory.

[TomCat88]

The Montana media on average (obviously not in outlets based in Bozeman) is normal when the Griz are down and MSU is up. Any other time they're focused on the Griz. It's nothing new and it was much worse in the 90s and 00s. It's mostly an unconscious/implicit bias and it originates from having more media members with UM backgrounds over MSU backgrounds. It's been on full blast this week. When you watch a podcast or news channel show, the discussion is split in terms of the amount of time spent discussing each team, but the discussion's tone is emphasized when UM is the subject. What can the Griz do to win? What areas do the Griz need to fix to win? Meanwhile, we're told MSU played one of its best games of the year vs UM and probably can't replicate that. And there are multiple other examples.

The narrative, IMO, is that Montana is a team on the rise, while MSU has shown chinks in its armor. It's been okay for UM to have a close game against UND, because UND is better than everyone thinks and might be the second-best team in the MVFC. It was okay against ISU, because it was a bad matchup for them. They don't mention MSU's win at NAU, which was No. 13 at the time, and was a win away for making the playoffs, along with wins over UC Davis and UM.

When MSU beat UC Davis, the comments were that there were only two "good" teams in the conference - UM and MSU. Teams that MSU beat were bad, teams UM nearly lost to were actually quite good or there was some kind of team development rationale that caused UM to let the other team back in the game or remain in the game until late.

The Griz have played well at home the past two weeks and that deserves to be discussed. I know, however, that if the roles were reversed, MSU wouldn't be getting the same treatment going into WGS. Can you imagine if UM had beaten MSU in Bozeman to get the homefield and MSU was going there to play, how the media would be portraying that? It would be, just like 1.0, all about homefield. How will Lamson handle the noise? I've only heard one person ask about how Ah Yat will handle the noise at MSU. But I gotta admit I've quit watching most sports news and podcasts.

I'm not saying I'm perfect and that I don't do the same thing (show unconscious/implicit bias), because I know I do and I make a conscious effort to block it out (I wrote a piece on Hauck that was about his struggles in Bozeman and I included all his successes not only in those games but outside of that game in an attempt to avoid being accused of being unfair/mean to him; I think it's perfectly understandable how and why he lost those games: MSU was good/better). There's just not many MSU grads involved with the media throughout the state compared to UM grads.

[aucat]

Whenever I see his face I turn the channel. Really sorry that KBZK in Bozeman lost Grace Lawrence. She really did a great job but got a job I believe in Salt Lake CIty.

I watched Bobcat Insider and was mildly surprised that Ty Gregorak made a mildly big deal about how hard it is to beat a team twice in one season. I loved Vigen's response. He pretty much dismissed it, while Ty tried to provide evidence. All I know is, would you rather be in the Griz' shoes or the Bobcats shoes? Imagine how we would feel if we had played UM at Bobcat Stadium and lost 31-28 and now had to go to Missoula.

I like the position that we are in. Sure we have to execute and get it done. But I think we will do it. Go Cats!

[WalkOn79]

I thought Rainman was a Californian? Isn't his only tie to UM is that he lives in Missoula now?

[RobertCats]

I thought Rainman was a Californian? Isn't his only tie to UM is that he lives in Missoula now?

He is from CA, grew up in a small town outside of San Diego. He came to Montana in 2007 and attended um got a degree in broadcast journalism I believe. Met a girl from Livingston at college and married her.

[Randy M Drivel]

I watched Bobcat Insider and was mildly surprised that Ty Gregorak made a mildly big deal about how hard it is to beat a team twice in one season. I loved Vigen's response. He pretty much dismissed it, while Ty tried to provide evidence. All I know is, would you rather be in the Griz' shoes or the Bobcats shoes? Imagine how we would feel if we had played UM at Bobcat Stadium and lost 31-28 and now had to go to Missoula.

It's so dumb. It's hard to beat good teams once, so yes, it's hard to beat good teams twice. But it implies that the loser of the first game somehow gained more from that loss than the winner, and thereby improves their chances in the rematch, and there's just not a shred of logic to that.

[WeedKillinCat]

He's Larry Frost 2.0. I know I'm dating myself!

[AFCAT]

I watched Bobcat Insider and was mildly surprised that Ty Gregorak made a mildly big deal about how hard it is to beat a team twice in one season. I loved Vigen's response. He pretty much dismissed it, while Ty tried to provide evidence. All I know is, would you rather be in the Griz' shoes or the Bobcats shoes? Imagine how we would feel if we had played UM at Bobcat Stadium and lost 31-28 and now had to go to Missoula.

It's so dumb. It's hard to beat good teams once, so yes, it's hard to beat good teams twice. But it implies that the loser of the first game somehow gained more from that loss than the winner, and thereby improves their chances in the rematch, and there's just not a shred of logic to that.

The past two teams the Cats have played twice in one season, Weber and Idaho, the Cats beat both times.

[John K]

I saw this too, John. I emailed the station as well. With how easy it is to do a quick Google search to confirm a score, he is either lazy (as someone else said) or passive-aggressive. Either way, not a good look and only reinforces the notion that he is an unobjective gris homer.

I'm gonna watch their newscast every night this week, and if he doesn't correct that information at some point before the game, they're both gonna hear from me again. I'm gonna say exactly what you said, that he was either just being lazy in researching his facts, or it was a pretty lame passive aggressive move on his part. Either way, it's an unacceptable error from a supposed professional TV journalist, especially if he declines to correct the error, after it was pointed out to him.

[AFCAT]

This is something that probably annoys me more than it should. On the SWX newscast Tuesday night, Griz fanboy Shaun Rainey provided some Cat-gris history, and mentioned that the last gris win in Bozeman was 2015, by a score of 54-13. The actual score was 54-35. It's bad enough to lose to them at home by 19 points, but it's not nearly as bad as losing by 41 points. It seems sorta ridiculous to get something like that wrong. I e-mailed the station manager and asked him to correct that error on a future newscast, and left a VM for Rainey, with the same request. To be fair, I think SWX generally does a pretty good job covering local sports, including both the Cats and gris. They provided great coverage of Cat-griz 1.0 in the week leading up to the regular season game, although the ratio of their content was probably about 75/25 in favor of the griz. I caught another factual error by Rainey back then, and it was also something not in the Cats' favor (coincidence?). Again, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I get a little sick of the pro-gris bias among most Montana media outlets, so I tend to get a bit overly aggravated by stuff like this, and it does seem odd that they would get something that simple wrong.

2015, "All Gas, no Brakes"...and absolutely no defense. The end of Rob Ash.

[rfischer94]

Rainey is a douchebag gris homer. I can stomach Kyle Hansen but he is slowly, but surely, trending in the same direction. Let's not venture into Speltz territory.

Who is Speltz?

[rfischer94]

The Montana media on average (obviously not in outlets based in Bozeman) is normal when the Griz are down and MSU is up. Any other time they're focused on the Griz. It's nothing new and it was much worse in the 90s and 00s. It's mostly an unconscious/implicit bias and it originates from having more media members with UM backgrounds over MSU backgrounds. It's been on full blast this week. When you watch a podcast or news channel show, the discussion is split in terms of the amount of time spent discussing each team, but the discussion's tone is emphasized when UM is the subject. What can the Griz do to win? What areas do the Griz need to fix to win? Meanwhile, we're told MSU played one of its best games of the year vs UM and probably can't replicate that. And there are multiple other examples.

The narrative, IMO, is that Montana is a team on the rise, while MSU has shown chinks in its armor. It's been okay for UM to have a close game against UND, because UND is better than everyone thinks and might be the second-best team in the MVFC. It was okay against ISU, because it was a bad matchup for them. They don't mention MSU's win at NAU, which was No. 13 at the time, and was a win away for making the playoffs, along with wins over UC Davis and UM.

When MSU beat UC Davis, the comments were that there were only two "good" teams in the conference - UM and MSU. Teams that MSU beat were bad, teams UM nearly lost to were actually quite good or there was some kind of team development rationale that caused UM to let the other team back in the game or remain in the game until late.

The Griz have played well at home the past two weeks and that deserves to be discussed. I know, however, that if the roles were reversed, MSU wouldn't be getting the same treatment going into WGS. Can you imagine if UM had beaten MSU in Bozeman to get the homefield and MSU was going there to play, how the media would be portraying that? It would be, just like 1.0, all about homefield. How will Lamson handle the noise? I've only heard one person ask about how Ah Yat will handle the noise at MSU. But I gotta admit I've quit watching most sports news and podcasts.

I'm not saying I'm perfect and that I don't do the same thing (show unconscious/implicit bias), because I know I do and I make a conscious effort to block it out (I wrote a piece on Hauck that was about his struggles in Bozeman and I included all his successes not only in those games but outside of that game in an attempt to avoid being accused of being unfair/mean to him; I think it's perfectly understandable how and why he lost those games: MSU was good/better). There's just not many MSU grads involved with the media throughout the state compared to UM grads.

This is thoughtful she fair. Thanks for sharing, Tom. Why do you think it gets worse when the gris are up? To me, it seems like gris people are willing to buy into anything that makes them believe they can "RTD."

[rfischer94]

I watched Bobcat Insider and was mildly surprised that Ty Gregorak made a mildly big deal about how hard it is to beat a team twice in one season. I loved Vigen's response. He pretty much dismissed it, while Ty tried to provide evidence. All I know is, would you rather be in the Griz' shoes or the Bobcats shoes? Imagine how we would feel if we had played UM at Bobcat Stadium and lost 31-28 and now had to go to Missoula.

It's so dumb. It's hard to beat good teams once, so yes, it's hard to beat good teams twice. But it implies that the loser of the first game somehow gained more from that loss than the winner, and thereby improves their chances in the rematch, and there's just not a shred of logic to that.

You know coaches -- they prefer to learn from a loss than a win!

[91catAlum]

Rainey is a douchebag gris homer. I can stomach Kyle Hansen but he is slowly, but surely, trending in the same direction. Let's not venture into Speltz territory.

Who is Speltz?

Bill Speltz, sports writer in MIssoula now who I believe used to be in Billings. Very pro-griz guy.