Rumors...legit or illegitimate

Time moves very slowly when the NHL is in hibernation, painfully slow. Finding news of any real substance is tough to do simply because there is nothing there, except the occasional story of the young scoring sensation who assaults a cabbie. This time of the year, this Minnesota Wild fans does enjoy laughing at the purple faithful while hoping that the team on the diamond is able to squeak into the post-season, but it's a barren desert as far as the NHL goes...unless you are into the rumors game.

I make the same mistake every off-season. I find what I deem to be the best rumor guy to follow and then I get discouraged when my favorite team is seldom mentioned. Time and time again, site after site, the same teams are written about as being involved in a franchise changing move, but never the Wild. It happened to me again late last week when the Wild were mentioned as 'leading the charge' in the Dany Healtley sweepstakes. So I began to wonder, where are these bloggers getting their info? Do they have legitimate or illegitimate sources? Are the articles in these blogs that I am reviewing and reading actually proven to be authentic or are they false in the end? To find the answers to some of my questions I picked one of the rumor guys I follow and did a search just to see what would pop up. The one man rumor generator that I picked is one that I follow daily, Eklund at HockeyBuzz.com. The reason for picking him was simple...he is of the anonymous kind who has a pretty big platform. First I thought it best to try and find out if I could learn more about Eklund and who he actually was. And there it was, on the first page of my search results, the site I had hoped was there, HockeyBuzzHogwash.com. My search was officially over.

The folks leading the charge at Hogwash appeared to be in the same situation I found myself in, wondering what to make of these rumors. The difference between them in me however, is that they actually went through the process of checking the rumors that were written at the Buzz against what actually became of the player and/or team that was mentioned. Fast-forward to the 'test results' that were compiled after digging through over a years worth of articles and rumors, Hogwash determined that Eklund was correct 3.1% of the time...or had good information 15 times compared to bad information 457 times. Not a very good score in my book...

Rumors are just that, rumors. By definition from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, rumors are:

a) talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source
b) a statement or report current without known authority for its truth

Now my disclaimer...I am not trying to undermine the information Eklund spews. I am sure that in his mind he is receiving and passing along the good stuff. Also understand that I only checked one rumor guy, and I did not do my own research, other than finding the hogwash site. But I suspect that their findings are correct, that this one rumor generator in particular at the Buzz, is full of it. I kind of knew it all along as I discovered very early on that what I was reading was portrayed as gospel one day and not even mentioned the next. And I should have seen the warning sign that read, 'For $20 you will not only support our ever growing server costs but get access...', but I ignored the pleas for money and remained a loyal (a cheap one) reader. I even heard an episode of the Buzzcast as this was written where Eklund had to take a call off-air because it was a 'source'...oh please!

In the end, my bad I guess because rumors are just that, rumors.

Calling all message board and/or fantasy freaks

My community was once one that was pretty active...not a ton of members, but the ones we had were there posting. Unfortunately after a few format changes, going from pro to college and back to pro has dwindled my active audience. Well the time has come to re-build the boards and get the Wild-Puck community going strong once again. So I invite all NHL fans, Wild or not, to check out the boards. If you are looking for a friendly place to post, look no further than Wild-Puck [Minnesota Wild Boards].

And in tune with the boards...our annual fantasy game is right around the corner. This will be our sixth annual event in an NHL fantasy league. During our previous 5 seasons, we have gone from using yahoo to our most recent league, ESPN...don't know what we will go with this year but it will once again be free. We have also ran the gamut as far as number of participants involved, as we played a league with as few as 9 participants up to one season where we had 20 (I would rather have more than less). And we accept all levels of abilities...from the rookie manager to the seasoned vet, all are welcome to join our no pressure league. At any rate, check back for updates on the who-why-whats, which will come in the very near future.