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Internet-borne trade rumor destroyed by Kings beat reporter it was wrongly attributed to

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One of the unfortunate side effects of the summer starting to get a bit long for hockey fans is that while there’s no major news to keep us satiated, it makes many fans more open and susceptible to overreacting to any and all trade and signing rumors that appear on the Internet. With the use of Twitter becoming more prevalent amongst hockey fans (full disclosure: James and I both are on Twitter. Find James here. Find Joe here.) it can make the starting and spreading of insanely untrue rumors that much easier. Think of it like playing a game of “telephone” except the difference being that the message was wrong to start and wrong information spreads like wildfire from user to user.

Case in point, last night a wild tale about a potential trade between the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs started to make its way around, this time with a catch. The catch being that it was supposedly reported by a very reputable team reporter, in this case Rich Hammond of LA Kings Insider. While more Internet-savvy fans were wise enough to do a quick check on Rich’s site to see that he hadn’t reported on any such thing, some folks will take what’s said at face value and send word around faster than the Motaba virus in the movie “Outbreak.”

The fun part about life on the Internet is that you can never truly hide and people spreading false rumors that are wrongly attributed will end up being outed, scolded and buried for doing so (as Bob McKenzie and Greg Wyshynskii did). Also, the person who was wrong attributed will sound off about it on his own site.

Just had to mention that I was very heartened to come read the comments here tonight and see that not a single person fell for the online garbage that I was the “source” for some fictional trade report. Just goes to confirm what I already knew, that the readers of this blog are the best around! Thanks to Bob McKenzie and Greg Wyshynski as well for helping to set the record straight.

We know that there’s just about another month until training camp opens for NHL teams and we know that the Toronto Maple Leafs have a deadline to deal Tomas Kaberle before his no-trade clause kicks in again. We also know that the Los Angeles Kings would love to add another defensemen. All we ask is that you make sure to know who you’re hearing said rumors from, make sure it comes from a source that you trust and then go wild if it seems like it could, indeed, be true.

This PSA is probably a few months late at this point, but it never hurts to remind people in case you get swept away in thinking that somehow, someway the Kings would trade away the captain of their team for a guy with one year left on his contract and a guy who plays most of the year in the AHL because he’s only a fighter.