from Jonathan Willis of The Cult of Hockey at the Edmonton Journal,

Eklund is a good example of the negative impact of the internet on news media. Hockey fans want news, and they want it all the time, particularly in the two areas he specializes in – lockout negotiations and player trades/signings. Before the internet, NHL fans had to settle for what they could get in the daily newspaper or in less frequently published magazines like The Hockey News. Under those conditions, a guy with a 1-in-33 accuracy rate never could have landed a job at a mainstream publication. He also would not have been afforded the luxury of writing under a pseudonym, particularly with such a miserable track record.

The internet and the constant demand for fresh news have changed the picture. Unfortunately, there is only so much legitimate news at any one time, and for the most part NHL teams don’t share their internal discussions with random, nameless people on the internet. The approach of Eklund and others like him has been straight-forward: they make stuff up to fill in the gaps.

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