This is bigger than hockey.

The Vancouver Canucks revoked reporter Trevor Beggs' press credentials and physically removed him from a game this week after he published a story about team ownership being named in a federal indictment.

Read that again. A professional sports team kicked out a credentialed journalist for doing his job.

According to Awful Announcing, Beggs — who has covered the Canucks for Daily Hive Vancouver since 2019 and co-hosts the Locked On Canucks Podcast — was removed from Rogers Arena after reporting on a business owned by the Aquilini family being named in a U.S. federal indictment.

Let me be crystal clear: This is a dangerous precedent for press freedom in sports.

Team owners don't get to control the narrative by punishing journalists who report unflattering truths. That's not how a free press works. That's not how democracy works.

Beggs didn't make anything up. He didn't editorialize. He reported on a federal indictment — a matter of public record. And for that, the Canucks decided he was no longer welcome.

This isn't about hockey. This is about transparency, accountability, and whether teams can bully reporters into silence.

The answer should be no. But the Canucks just sent a message to every journalist who covers them: Report on ownership's legal troubles, and you'll lose access.

That's chilling.

Beggs has covered the Canucks for five years. He's not some tabloid reporter looking for cheap clicks. He's a professional doing his job. And his job sometimes includes reporting on things ownership doesn't want publicized.

Too bad. That's part of being a public figure who owns a professional sports franchise. You don't get to pick and choose which stories get told.