Trade Everyone

Here's a shocker:

Bryan Murray has laughed off rumours of the Senators trading Jason Spezza to the Los Angeles Kings.

Blogging is a relatively new phenomenon but where's the quality control? The technology has opened doors to somewhat educated and intelligent people (such as James Mirtle , the dudes over at Sens Army, and many more) and allows a diversity of opinion and an alternative to traditional media.

On the other hand, it also allows anyone who has watched a total of ten hockey games in their life to stand on a soapbox and claim they have "inside information".

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How else can you describe a collection of people who believe that trading Spezza for a draft pick is: (a) reasonable, and (b) good for the team.

These are the same people who wanted to trade Daniel Alfredsson and everyone else on the team at one point or the other, rational thought and even basic logic be damned.

More and more, the blogging community is becoming more concerned with rumours, many of them fabricated, and worst of all, the rumours aren't even that good.

For a rumour to be enjoyable, it should have some basis in reality.

Why would Murray trade Jason Spezza for a draft pick? That would signal that the team is looking to rebuild and would also signal that players such as Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson would be available as well.

Toronto is a rebuilding team. Ottawa is not. You may have to have some history with the game to understand that.

Yet people on blogs and message boards continue to state with veracity that players such as Spezza and Andre Meszaros are completely expendable.

"Get rid of the bums."

The new generation of fans are more concerned with the intricacies of the CBA and the trade value of players like Spezza than they are with the game itself.

And here's another reason not to trust blogs for real factual information, including this one:

The hiring of the Ottawa Senators head coach.

Two different coaches were "guaranteed" to have been hired, first Bob Hartley (false) and then Peter DeBoer (false). Turns out the organization hired Craig Hartsburg who was never claimed as a frontrunner except by certain people in the established media.

The only people claiming that Hartley and DeBoer were "done deals" were a collection of blogs, one of which, Hockey Buzz, has attained a sort of semi-respectability in mainstream hockey reporting, despite having a writer, Kevin Lee, who first claimed that Ray Emery had been pulled off the ice on trade deadline day (false, Lee wasn't even at that practice) and that he had been traded to an unknown team (false). Lee was also the one who wrote the first article claiming that Bob Hartley had been hired (again, false).

When his "guarantee" turned out to be a flop, he went on a tirade against the next "guaranteed" new head coach in Peter DeBoer. Lee had the guts to claim that DeBoer would be a "disaster" for the club despite almost wall-to-wall opinion by real hockey people that DeBoer is one of the most talented coaches not in the NHL.

Perhaps the danger is not in reading these blogs (including mine) but looking for more than just opinion.

To me, the genius of blogs is that it allows schmucks like me and you to present our OPINION. Beware the blogger who feels he must scoop the next big story by claiming various rumours to be fact.

Don't get me wrong. Rumours are fun and will never go away. But the "blogging community" has become so aggressive in this manner that the fun seems to be gone.

To be honest, I'd rather get my trade rumours from respected analysts who have paid their dues in their profession and have real contacts and sources. When I read blogs, I read them for others opinion, whether I agree or not.

At least an opinion can never be wrong.