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Eklund the Hockey Troll strikes again. Why are so many people suckered by that idiot?

I don't know how to explain the Eklund phenomenon exactly. I think its clear that he wants to build an internet hockey empire - except he is building it on a very unstable house of cards.

I assume he is not lying when he says he has all those somewhat famous hockey people to write for him - that would crumble far too quickly. I assume that the only way he would get them all on board is by paying them well. They must be paid well enough that any doubts about his integrity are forgotten for some more cash. Although I am not sure how much money you would pay somebody to infrequently contribute a short blog post. It must be enough to get their attention and to make them bother to be interested. I cannot see any other motivation - can you? They are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or because Eklund is a close personal friend - that much is clear. The only reason i have that makes any sense is money.

Which leads to the question where is the money coming from? Its obvious that there isn't enough cash to pay for it from the little fee he charges to be an insider or his crappy merchandise that he appears to be reselling. It seems clear to me that he has one or more "money marks" on board. People who are "investing" the cash to pay for this venture and will likely lose their shirts. Somehow he managed to draw thses people in. I have no idea where you get people stupid enough to do that - but it appears Eklund does. That is assuming, that Eklund is not financing things out of his own pocket (he's not that dumb - is he?).

He's now running a small business. Eklund's Hockey LLC. Would you work (even for a small period of time on the side of your real career) for a company that has an anonymous frontman with questionable credentials? Would Stan Fischler or Bob Foltman or Dan Russell? Apparently, the answer is yes they would. And they would do it in a place where their work doesn't even get typset properly (see the weird positions of carriage returns in Dan Russell for example). That just doesn't add up.

At some point the house of cards has to crumble. Eklund has as well known a group of writers as (for example) Sport Illustrated and there is no way he has the revenue that SI does.

Why hasn't it crumbled yet? I have no idea. Its amazing that it hasn't.

Very well said. I have nothing to add, but figured that the post needed more than just two comments to more accurately reflect how big a clown this guy is.

Eklund talked about meeting with investors on his blog once, I believe. So I guess he has some money marks financing this enterprise.

As well, he's represented by former NHLer and current lawyer/agent Tom Laidlaw, who is also the agent to a few current NHL players, including Bryan Berard, Daymond Langkow, Dallas Drake, and Brian Boucher.

I would NOT assume that he has actually lined up all these people, just because this sort of thing falls into the "oldest trick in the book" category. This sort of thing happens a lot.

If they are actually in the fold, I'm not sure how much blame I'd assign to them. Look at this way -- suppose you get a call from a producer from a radio show in a town far away from yours, asking if you can talk later that afternoon. Do you put him on hold and do a quick background check? Most likely not. You're only responsible for what you say. If you suddenly find yourself on some hack talk-radio show, well, you handle it.

Now if these guys are really in deep with Eklund in some new venture, that would reflect badly on them. But I think we need to wait a bit to make that judgment.

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