Interesting Article on Eklund

[Sterling Archer]

Take it for what it's worth. I thought it summed up what many of us here have been saying for years.

http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2013/01/02/great-work-eklund/

http://kuklaskorner.com/hockey/comm...ot-good?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Click to read more...

 

[Beatnik]

His genious was to be the first of his kind, many people with information but no media contacts started sending him real infos after he became well knowed. At first his infos were terrible but with time he got real sources.

You have to give him credit, there is now tons of eklund wannabees in all sports.


I hate the guy though, he had an account here at first (when he was always wrong) and was very obnoxious. I also hate that he pretended for a long time to be someone important in hockey. He now admits that he had little to no NHL sources when he began.

 

[Frozenice]

. wrong thread.

 

[ThaDevilGirl]

They're blogs. Every person has their opinion. If some reputed journalists decided to praise Eklund, good on them.

 

[Whitesnake]

Totally agree with the article. As much as I'm concerned, the guy could even have a few entries in one or a couple of teams. Yet, he doesn't have them in all of them but that doesn't stop him for having all sorts of news about everybody for everything. Add it with those stupid E3, E4, and the 25% this guy goes there, 30% he goes there and so on....and when everything is proven wrong.....he can put it on the "Well, those are talks, and not every talk become a deal" EVEN after he had mentioned DONE DEAL.

But let's give him som praise...he has succeeded in his own way. Tons of fishes in the ocean....he just know what to say when to say it. Like a couple of other guys on the net who I won't mention, that are totally fraud for having REPEATADLY mentioned deals that they BROKE, yet, a simple research on Twitter proved day 1 deal after another, they had taken the news from people they were following and took that news as their own. It's not even that hard to find. I've mentioned that to people who worshiped them with proofs and they still believe them. So that's how cults exist.....

 

[Stjonnypopo]

I dislike how people are critical of Eklund. He writes about hockey, to a community of people who are interested in hockey. He obviously loves the sport and he's obviously pretty well connected too. Why can't everyone just take what he says with a grain of salt instead of whining about everything he does?

 

[Sterling Archer]

I dislike how people are critical of Eklund. He writes about hockey, to a community of people who are interested in hockey. He obviously loves the sport and he's obviously pretty well connected too. Why can't everyone just take what he says with a grain of salt instead of whining about everything he does?

I think people take issue with the fact he passes himself off as an expert with deep connections and has such a poor success rate. If he knew who he said he knew you'd expect him to have more accurate information but he doesn't. Imagine if Bobby Mac or Dregs came out and said the stuff he does and then backtrack. They'de be run out of television. So why should Ek get a free pass??

I see nothing wrong with calling out a guy who has a success rate of 3% if he's going to put himself out there and make these predictions that 97% of the time, don't come to fruition. Play by the sword, die by the sword.

 

[OneSharpMarble]

I dislike how people are critical of Eklund. He writes about hockey, to a community of people who are interested in hockey. He obviously loves the sport and he's obviously pretty well connected too. Why can't everyone just take what he says with a grain of salt instead of whining about everything he does?

He gets paid to lie, there will always be a natural hatred of people who succeed by conning the gullible.

 

[Whitesnake]

I dislike how people are critical of Eklund. He writes about hockey, to a community of people who are interested in hockey. He obviously loves the sport and he's obviously pretty well connected too. Why can't everyone just take what he says with a grain of salt instead of whining about everything he does?

But I have absolutely nothing against a guy who talks hockey and would talk about some of his "educated guesses" as far as trade talks and so on. But a guy who claims that those are facts and that everytime it doesn't happen, it's because this and that fell off at the last minute or that when he said "done deal", it actually meant only talks that rarely convert to something....I'm sorry that's too much. But in the end, I don't hate him that much....he found some people he could sell his things to. And others have done it as well and have their own crowd. Just mindboggling that it's so easy for them. That they don't even have to show a good record to still go on.

 

[Protest the Hero]

I dislike how people are critical of Eklund. He writes about hockey, to a community of people who are interested in hockey. He obviously loves the sport and he's obviously pretty well connected too. Why can't everyone just take what he says with a grain of salt instead of whining about everything he does?

Everyone should take it with a grain of salt, but obviously his stuff still gets posted here, and people get themselves excited over nothing. He makes money off lying to people, credit to him that he got it to work, doesn't make it any less slimy.

 

[Hackett]

There's another point to describe eklund's popularity, which isn't covered in this article.

Eklund came into being when fans were most vulnerable, and that was during the 2004/2005 lockout. He was the only person in the "media" who was persistently positive during the lockout. Consequently, people gravitated towards him as everyone was desperate for any hopeful news. It was masterful timing on his part to manipulate the fans and to grow a following.

The article is right that he has filled a niche. He's the National Inquirer of hockey. Most people know that the majority of his work is BS, but it sells.... it always has.

 

[MrNasty]

I can't believe that a reporter thought this was a worthy story...sounds like someone is either jealous or hates eklund so much he is infuriated that he got something right.

I like the fact that Dreger and Lebrun (two of the most renowned insiders) acknowledged the guy and gave him credit rather than simply complaing about him like many of the rest. I haven't visted Ek's site in over a year but I still don't see him as such a terrible person. I wonder if someone has compared his rumours with all the other sites that do the same thing to see their "accuracy percentage"does he really piss people off that much?

 

[Dominator13]

I don't follow him nor do I visit his website, but you know that the dude has atleast 1 or 2 legit sources. The problem is when he has nothing, he starts making up crap to continue having traffic and thus making more money by his sponsors.

 

[Whitesnake]

I don't follow him nor do I visit his website, but you know that the dude has atleast 1 or 2 legit sources. The problem is when he has nothing, he starts making up crap to continue having traffic and thus making more money by his sponsors.

That's my point.

 

[Stjonnypopo]

I go on his site somewhat regularly and I will agree that when there isn't anything going on his website is really boring, and you can tell he grasps at straws. I'm sure his sponsors want him to keep posting often so he has to post things that suck.

 

[sharks9]

The problem is that unlike most media sources, he has absolutely no filter and just spews out whatever rumours he hears.

He obviously does have SOME sources though, as seen the other day when he was the first to break the news of the NHL submitting a new offer.

 

[Sandvich]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1216203&highlight=eklund

 

[Roulin]

If someone lies to me sometimes and tells the truth at other times, I call that person a liar. Eklund is a liar. As Willis writes, getting something right doesn't excuse that fact that he obviously makes up stories.

The other problem as I see it - his blog invites criticism of all blogs. In fact, many hockey blogs are better written, more well reasoned and more thought provoking than much of the mainstream media. It's too bad that they all get a bad name because of one famous blog with a terrible writer who creates most of his stories.

 

[24Cups]

The problem is that unlike most media sources, he has absolutely no filter and just spews out whatever rumours he hears.

PJ Stock can attest to that. Repeating Stock's intentional fabrication of a rumour as "I've been hearing that too ..." never fails to give me a good laugh.

 

[Frankenheimer]

I see nothing wrong with calling out a guy who has a success rate of 3% if he's going to put himself out there and make these predictions that 97% of the time, don't come to fruition. Play by the sword, die by the sword.

I don't see how it would be possible to be more than 3% "right" under the best case scenario. For every actualized trade, there must be dozens of deals that are discussed in which GMS express "interest" in other players. If you report on all them and are only "right" when a deal is made, then nobody under any circumstances can be expected to predict futures trades remotely accurately. They are the outcome of lengthy processes and horse trading until both sides are more or less happy but which can blow up at any moment. How anyone could possibly model that process even with access to all the information at all times is unimaginable. Even GMS probably have little idea of what trades are going to happen other than "hey, id like to move this guy if the price is right."

All journalism and reporting depends on a certain level of trust that is independent of predicting future events. I also don't recall Eklund explicitly claiming what he does as predictions. He calls it reporting on what insiders are saying. Either he has that access or he doesn't, but being right on trades says very little about it. It's theoretically possible that everything he says is 100% accurate and yet would only call a tiny percentage of trades correctly.

I also don't doubt that GMS use the media to spread trial balloons, create interest, or use misdirection, which would add to the failure, again, while being 100% accurate in terms of reporting the actual information.

I'm not saying he's not a fraud, he probably is for a number of other reasons, but not because of the number of trades he calls.

 

[Sterling Archer]

I don't see how it would be possible to be more than 3% "right" under the best case scenario. For every actualized trade, there must be dozens of deals that are discussed in which GMS express "interest" in other players. If you report on all them and are only "right" when a deal is made, then nobody under any circumstances can be expected to predict futures trades remotely accurately. They are the outcome of lengthy processes and horse trading until both sides are more or less happy but which can blow up at any moment. How anyone could possibly model that process even with access to all the information at all times is unimaginable. Even GMS probably have little idea of what trades are going to happen other than "hey, id like to move this guy if the price is right."

All journalism and reporting depends on a certain level of trust that is independent of predicting future events. I also don't recall Eklund explicitly claiming what he does as predictions. He calls it reporting on what insiders are saying. Either he has that access or he doesn't, but being right on trades says very little about it. It's theoretically possible that everything he says is 100% accurate and yet would only call a tiny percentage of trades correctly.

I also don't doubt that GMS use the media to spread trial balloons, create interest, or use misdirection, which would add to the failure, again, while being 100% accurate in terms of reporting the actual information.

I'm not saying he's not a fraud, he probably is for a number of other reasons, but not because of the number of trades he calls.

Just about every “respected,†mainstream media personality has a better success rate than Eklund. This is for a variety of reasons mainly that they actually are connected and have legit league sources. Another reason is that they don’t make trades up, but rather comment on the ones they’re hearing could take place. Again, they don’t come out and say this will 100% happen and then backtrack when the trade doesn’t happen. They hear a deal could be in the works and they report that. No embellishment to try and sell more ad space but just the facts. Due to his sole reason d’etre, Ek must float these rumors from literally, any source. We’ve seen examples of this with trade rumors from this board being reported on his site. How anyone can claim he hears them from a reliable source is beyond me.

When the crux of your business is prognosticating player trades and movement and your accuracy rate is 3%, I think that should leave you to open criticism. When your success rate is less than what the average Joe could guess and you’re making money off the fact that you’re a professional it’s easy to see how this could lead to resentment as his pretext of being a professional is obviously fraudulent.

 

[Habs]

I totally forgot about Eklund until this article.