Yes Botch was fan-centric - the "Canucks Twitter" fans.
He summed up the overall tone from "Canucks Twitter" aka negativity about every move and published it.
Yes he had great bits of brilliance sprinkled in to his work as well - I subscribed to the Athletic just for the Athletties.
He was funny, he used colloquial language, he posted screenshots of Tweets from during the game (I always aimed to try and make it into the Athletties).
But I also can't ignore the fact that, as someone above mentioned, he was 80% negative towards everything this team and management did, and 20% over blown positive with Petey and Boeser.
Sometimes media forget that they don't know as well as the actual people involved in hockey operations and coaching do. They've never played the game, they've never coached or managed at any level. They simply just don't know. Just like Travis Green wouldn't tell Bill Gates how to run Microsoft.
Yes part of journalism is to appropriately critique the team you are assigned to, but it's not to use your public persona on Social Media to create a cult like following of overly negative fanatics.
Just my opinion, and it may sound harsh, but if Botch was alive today (and God rest his soul, taken way too early) he would be blasting out so much negativity over the Myers signing (before seeing just how great he's been for us), blasting the Ferland signing, blasting Ferland's play, blasting Goldy and Baer being down in the minors, blasting Stecher's ice time, and disregarding Miller's top line play because we gave up a 1st round pick that may or may not equate to an NHL caliber player.
In the end, my opinion falls re: Botch at that he was extremely talented, and used his persona and skill to create this aura of negativity. You could see his talent in his writing, and I just wished I could've read some more positive pieces. It's a real shame that that opportunity was taken from us as I'm sure he'd struggle to find negativity when this team eventually became a cup contender.