As a football (soccer) fan, I can tell you that the biggest difference between football media coverage and hockey media coverage is that everyone knows football is just a game and acts accordingly. The players and coaches do their job, get interviewed, say ridiculous things, everyone laughs at them and the world moves on.

In hockey, players' responses are pre-scripted to hell and back. Either the media coaching they receive borders on reprogramming or they genuinely are the dullest people on earth. (I'm inclined to believe the former.) It's weird because there's a lot more money in football and more people watch it, so you would assume football clubs would put more effort into controlling their image than their hockey counterparts. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. As I said, NHL teams are way more intense about ~controlling the message~ and don't let their players say anything remotely controversial, which results in far less spontaneity and human drama.

I do suspect the media contribute to the problem, though. When Prust said the 5K fine he paid for spearing Marchand in the balls was the best 5K he'd ever spent, everyone got on his back. Sure, it's an asshole thing to say, but guess what? Now I know Prust is an asshole and will be on the lookout for more pearls of wisdom from him. Browbeating him into remorseful silence makes following hockey less entertaining for me, the fan, not more. And I genuinely feel some journalists don't realise this and think it's their job to moralise when players do/say embarrassing things. Like, no! Your job is to give them more rope to hang themselves with!

Anyway. Sorry for the rant. Hope it got my point across...