Now the play-offs are finished and the cold and cruel realisation kicks in that it’s all over until August, this is when I’m reminded how much I dislike the off season.
Not for the lack of action (not forgetting a very exciting World Championship campaign) or the routine I have with work now changes for the next few months. In fact I’m actually looking forward to having some time to myself.
But it’s the endless threads of nonsense we’ll get on social media and “those in the know” will forever trying to outdo “those in the know”.
It’s an online p****** contest that gets more and more boring where those who openly speculate (not a bad thing) about players coming back or being signed turns into contributions from the “well, I heard” brigade.
Over time you get to realise who the masters of fiction are and instead of adding anything of substance, they either make stuff up or are peddling a myth created by someone else.
To that end, there are others with loose lips that know people within their clubs that are feeding them information. Whether you think it’s right that for them to betray a confidence to make them seem the king of Twitter is for you to decide.
Manchester Storm’s Matt Ginn is one player already signed for next season (PHOTO: Mark Ferriss)
Having worked with the Elite League media for the last couple of seasons, my colleague and I were fed information from the clubs ahead of time, which was useful in helping us do our jobs. We never betrayed a confidence and that was important to us.
However one club had leaks quite badly that they stopped telling us anything, as though we and the others on their media list were to blame.
But the point is, healthy debate about who’s coming and going is most definitely a good thing. Clubs may be happy to drip feed this info in an attempt to whip up a minor frenzy for when the signing announcement is made. For that, that’s a good thing.
Talking about the sport should always be encouraged and more and more people should be doing it.
However, making signing stories up without any real substance other than you heard from a pal, who heard it from another pal, who used to know someone on Facebook with a passing acquaintance with the individual in question is nonsensical.
So let’s enjoy a sensible summer of news and enjoyment of the teams that are being built in anticipation of the new season, which right now seems very far away. We can but hope.
Finally, to those writing PRs and signing stories for their respective websites, re-signing and resigning are two very different things. Please make sure you use the hyphen.
