OTTAWA — Kyle Turris isn’t one to show his emotion very often, but the Ottawa Senators forward admits he was filled with anger because of a controversy involving the Globe and Mail newspaper this week.
The Tuesday edition of the paper ran a feature about Turris’ time playing overseas for Karpat Oulu in SM-liiga, the Finnish elite league. In the story, Turris had several harsh quotes which criticized his living conditions in Finland and made it appear as though he was thoroughly unhappy with his time overseas.
“I read it for the first time and I was extremely upset,” Turris told reporters on Thursday. “It put a very negative characterization of my experience over there. It was the opposite. It was a great experience and I’m very thankful I had the opportunity and it was lots of fun.”
Turris was criticized heavily on social media for appearing as an entitled hockey player who was complaining for not being given first-class treatment. In the Globe and Mail story, Turris was quoted as saying, “The food here is awful. On the road, we eat at truck stops. ABC truck stops. I’m not kidding. We file out of the bus and head off beside the highway for a buffet truck stop pregame meal. It’s ridiculous.”
The story became so controversial that Turris was forced to issue a statement on the Karpat Oulu team website on Wednesday, in which he called the article “inaccurate and untrue.”
On Thursday, he insisted that the Globe and Mail story did not fully illustrate his experience in Finland, as the story just dwelled on the negative aspects of his time with the club.
“It was just a mischaracterization of my experience. There were places that I didn’t like to eat, but at the same time there were places I loved,” Turris said. “Yeah, it was dark, but that’s the way it is there. But I enjoyed it. You find ways to adapt and that’s what I did. At the end of the day it was a great experience and I really enjoyed it.”
Turris said that as soon as he was done reading the article, he picked up the phone and called the general manager of his Karpat Oulu club team in Finland. The two spoke at length and the door remains open for Turris to return to the club in 2013.
“I called him right away after I read it. This isn’t the way I feel at all and he knew that,” he added. “For him reading it, he was upset but he knew the way we left things and how positive our talks were, that this wasn’t how I felt.”
