Inside the Press Box: Corey Masisak

Storming the Crease is conducting a series of interviews with people who cover (or work for) the Caps and the NHL. You can find a link to the series archives on the right sidebar. Today's sixth installment: Washington Times Beat Writer Corey Masisak.

1. Describe the experience of your first year covering the Caps as the full-time beat writer. Did you feel pressure following in the footsteps of Dave Fay?

My first year on the beat was pretty incredible. It was both a grind and a blur. I think my experience covering football and basketball at Maryland for the school paper, or at least that month or so when the sports overlapped, helped me prepare for the sheer volume of stories I wrote more than anything. It was certainly a wild ride.

I absolutely felt pressure trying to take over the beat after Dave. When I filled in for him at the end of the 2006-07 season, I was just trying not to screw up and keep the seat warm for him. He helped me a great deal, which to me was a truly incredible feat considering what he was going through. It is something I'll never forget. I've heard a bunch of stories from reporters in other cities about their experiences with Dave, and to be honest, I can't get enough of them. He was truly a unique character, and I didn't even know him for that long.

2. During the season, you reviewed some of the cities you visited for the first time. What was your favorite and where else would you like to visit that you didn't get to this past season?

Man, picking a favorite city is tough. The list of ones I don't look forward to is much shorter than the ones I enjoyed. Montreal is probably the best, but New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale are all great. So were Nashville, Chicago and Columbus.

The two places I am looking forward to the most this season are Minneapolis and Dallas. Everyone raves about the Target Center, and I've never been to Texas. I'd love to see the western Canadian cities, but Calgary is a trip I'm probably not going to make because of financial constraints.

3. What other sports do you follow besides hockey?

When I was a kid, I was all about the four major sports. I still love baseball but I root for a team that is about to tie the record for most consecutive losing seasons by a pro franchise. I definitely love college football and college basketball, but pay less attention to the NFL than most (save for my current five-week tenure on the Redskins training camp beat, of course) and very little to the NBA.

I've realized over the past few years that I am drawn to stuff that doesn't receive as much attention as it should. I guess I'd call it the hockey complex, but I also enjoy keeping up with college hockey and college baseball.

4. Describe the process of deciding what goes on your blog vs. what goes in the paper.

I think my blog can serve two purposes. The first is obviously the timely news element, which has certainly made the life of any reporter with one more stressful and hectic. Tarik warned me about it, and it only took a few days to see what he was talking about.

The second is the part that I tend to enjoy more. My space in the paper is finite and often limited, so it allows me to put extra stuff from a story that didn't fit, or just some random thoughts/observations that wouldn't fit in a traditional story. The blog also allows me to analyze things more. You have to be careful and not go overboard, but doing something cool (at least to me) like comparing stats and salaries for comparable players to Mike Green is something that is tough to do in a newspaper but easy on the blog.

The tough part, and I think I'm not alone in this, is with quotes. I think at the beginning of the blog era, traditional reporters didn't want to put quotes that will appear in their stories the next day on the blog. But when we interview someone at 11 a.m., people are going to the important quotes on other non-newspaper blogs, or they're just going to watch the video on the team Web site. So I think I've definitely become more willing to just post quotes ASAP rather than trying to hold stuff.

5. What do you do during your quieter times?

You mean besides checking my phone and scouring the Internet for hockey-related news? I'm definitely a movie buff. I saw "Dark Knight" twice last weekend, and I am going to try to see "The Wackness" and my current Netflix movie ("Network") this weekend when I am not at Redskin Park.

I use to play video games, but I was sitting in my apartment one day after the Cup finals and realized that I had not turned my PlayStation on since before training camp. I did do a better job of reading books during the season, which is easy to do when you spend a lot of time in airports. I'm also a pretty big fan of sleep when I can find the time. Trying to become some semblance of a morning person was one of my biggest challenges this year.