February 03, 2005
Who Is Eklund, And Why Is He Blogging?
I think it's about time that I weighed in alongside a number of fellow hockey bloggers about the blogger with the psuedonym of "Eklund," and his Web site, Hockey Rumors.
He's been in business for a couple of months now, and with a dearth of real information coming from official sources about the lockout and the progress of negotiations, it isn't a real surprise that he's been attracting some attention. And after writing just one post with the proviso that I didn't know if I could trust his material (here at Off Wing, I generally only link to, and comment on, public sources), I thought it was a good idea to get in contact wih him and see what he was about.
Last week, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with him (my caller ID came up with "Private" when he called, this after first suggesting a chat via MSN Messenger, and balking at my offer to call him), talking hockey and the lockout. I'll say this for him: If he's a liar and a fraud (and there are certainly some indications that's the case), he's trying his best to put on a good act. He told me that his motivation to start the blog was that he was fed up with coverage that was treating the lockout story like it was just another game, rather than a complex business negotiation.
One other thing: In terms of absolute traffic, he's managed to get bigger than most of the hockey-centric blogosphere, combined. According to some Google Ad stats that he provided me by email, over one eight-day period between January 21-28, Hockey Rumors got over 100,000 visits -- peaking at just over 21,000 visits just a week ago on January 27th. If you placed him in the NZ Bear Traffic ranking, this would put him in the top 30 of bloggers, worldwide, and make him a little bit bigger than Jeff Jarvis.
His figures say he earned a little more than forty bucks for his troubles. Eklund has claimed that the money he is making from his Google ads will be donated to Tsunami relief. When I asked what specific charity that might be, he couldn't give me a name.
Here's the profile he provided me: Eklund claims to be a Philadelphia native who left the town of his birth to attend McGill University in Montreal. After graduation, he thought better of going to grad school and instead took an internship with the Quebec Nordiques.
Eventually, that internship led to a full-time job with the NHL, where his tenure overlapped that of former President John Zielger and current Commissioner Gary Bettman (he made no mention of the tenure of former NHL President Gil Stein).
This period, Eklund claims, is how he began to develop his sources in Colorado, Detroit and St. Louis, as well as within the NHL central offices -- a place he claims to be in constant contact with via MSN Messenger. This led me next to ask how good his contacts inside the NHLPA were, in particular, whether or not he could help me get access to the NHLPA's secure Web site that the union leadership has been using to stay in touch with players.
Eklund said that no, he didn't, and that anyone who did would probably be subject to some sort of criminal prosecution. Which was odd, considering a number of members of the working press have had access for a while (something a reporter who declined to be identified confirmed for me), including just about everybody North of the lower 48.
Eklund said he was surprised that was the case. Draw your own conclusions.
What came next strained credulity even further. Eklund also claims that he left the NHL to write a book (apparently a fiction title) -- one that was so successful that he no longer has to work full time, and instead has worked on and off as a freelance hockey writer for what would be the last decade or so (something that I'm sure a lot of freelance hockey writers would laugh at).
As you might have guessed, he declined to name the book, but his claims of wild success in the publishing industry got me thinking: Traditionally, most fiction bestsellers (which are the only kind of books that generate the sort of cash you could retire on) inevitably draw some attention from Hollywood.
So I asked: Did anyone inquire about optioning your book for a movie script?
Eklund replied that no, that hadn't happened, but that a number of his friends who knew his secret identity said that his current gig at Hockey Rumors could serve as the basis for a movie. One about a blogger who started to write about events happening behind the scenes without any inside information, but gets himself into trouble when his musings turn out to be true.
Really? What a nice coincidence.
Though I promised that I would protect his anonymity if he identified himself, Eklund steadfastly refused to give me anymore information to see if his story checked out -- and that included referring me to anyone else inside the industry who might confim what he had to say.
So at the end of the day, here's what you have: A blog where the author won't identify himself, or his sources of information. He's got an admittedly interesting, or farcical, backstory, but one that nobody can confirm or deny.
Is that somebody you would trust?
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» Who is Eklund? from Hockey Pundits
I think Eklund is exaggerating his traffic. 33 links in Technorati? Hockey Pundits has more than that with nowhere near the traffic. Hopefully Eklund will post a public and free Sitemeter on his site to let us see for ourselves. Blogspot does have st... [Read More]
Tracked on February 3, 2005 06:48 PM
» Hockey Lockout from Kevin's blatherings
I haven't said anything here about the NHL lockout before, mostly because I haven't been posting here for very long, but also because I had somewhat lost interest, and because not much of anything has been happening. Over the last [Read More]
Tracked on February 3, 2005 11:12 PM
No one can confirm or deny anything he writes either until it's proved false throught he passage of time and no changes in the status quo.
Thank you, eric, for shining your journalistic light on the mystery and farce of Eklund.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 12:00 PM
I've been reading him pretty regularly for the past few weeks, but I take everything he says with a huge grain of salt.
He's no more credible in my mind than anonymous poster with no contact info on a message board.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 02:31 PM
I think I'll show this post to an upcoming class discussion, Eric. It's a fascinating read on blogging issues.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 03:30 PM
I have been talking hockey online since 1990, when I had to dial in my Mac classic to a BBS to read people's complaints about which player is better than the other.
Inevitably someone will say they have an inside source, post some juicy gossip, and then fade back into the usual chatter. I knew this was bogus after reading 3 or 4 posts, each started with "my source tells me that..."
I think this is just human nature.
More power to this guy for getting a lot of traffic, I hear the National Enquirer also is pretty popular.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 05:41 PM
Thanks for the info, very interesting. I'm not really surprised; the guy had the smell of troll on him.
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 11:15 PM
I've only been reading the posts linked to from other sites. I think Jes Golbez pretty much debunked Eklund a few days ago when he pointed out that there's no such show as "TSN Insiders" on TSN and there's no such radio station as WFAN in Toronto. With his readership as high as it is did he really think nobody from Canada would pick up on those obvious blunders?
Posted by:
at February 3, 2005 11:21 PM
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