Justin on the Hockey Buzz

[Dobber]

Not the best day for me. I won\'t get into all the other crap that landed on me today, but after all that (maybe I\'m just in a bad mood)...I get this ridiculous email:

So Justin, your goalie guy is now writing for Hockey Buzz?

While other writers are leaving there by the boatload, you decide to team up with a fraund site?

I have just lost tons of respect for your site and will go elsewhere for my fantasy stuff.

Yes, I am a long time member, writing this anonymously and want it that way.

I have also contacted others about what you have decided to do.

Some points on this:

1. It was written via a proxy email service, thereby not allowing me to reply. So I have to reply publicly. But maybe that\'s a good thing to set the record straight before others get a sour taste in their mouth.

2. Mr. Anonymous: Are you in the habit of losing tons of respect for people/sites without getting the correct facts? Wouldn\'t want to be your friend - you must go through a lot of them with that attitude.

3. By \"contacting others\" about what \"I have decided to do\", isn\'t that defamation of character? Since, after all, I didn\'t \"decide to do\" anything. This is the first I heard of one of my writers giving content to Hockey Buzz.

4. Wouldn\'t common sense dictate that, if I were to decide to share content with Hockey Buzz or any other site, that it would be myself first.... and one of my senior writers next? So you would see a Dobber article on there before anything else...followed by Bugg, followed by Angus. Justin, while a fantastic writer, is one of the newest (behind Stuart and Ryan).

5. Readers - don\'t blindside me with stuff like this. Please. All I ask of you is to give me the benefit of the doubt. If something angers you or seems very out of place, don\'t jump to conclusions - ask me about it first. I\'m very approachable. It\'s hurtful, to say the least.

For the record - no, I don\'t share content with Hockey Buzz. No, I didn\'t tell Justin to go ahead and give him an article. He is free to write for them, I won\'t stop him, but articles on DobberHockey can not be shared with Hockey Buzz.



I asked Justin about it and it sounds like he literally had never even heard of Eklund. Here is an excerpt of Justin\'s response to me:

I haven\'t \"partnered\" with HockeyBuzz at all. He emailed me a week ago and asked me if he could re-publish the story I wrote on the Kick-Plate Headache, which I wrote for my site only and never published on your site. He was friendly about it and doing me a favor and I agreed.

Then earlier today he asked if he could re-publish the #1-25 Prospects Rankings, which I did give him permission to do. He didn\'t get around to posting that Kick-Plate story and instead asked me about the Prospects #1-25, which I had no problem with. I never sent him any School of Content directly, only the KickPlate image from my site.

I\'m sorry that you received that e-mail but I had no idea this would upset your followers so much. I do not dabble in rumor sites and I don\'t keep up on who is popular and who is not. I just stick to goalie analysis.

If anyone thinks YOU had something to do with this, I would post something on the site right away. Or I can write something if you want. People need to realize that I didn\'t \"partner\" with anyone and I write school of block for your site and mine. People link to my columns from other sites ALL the time and just because Eklund asks permission to copy an article and I allow it, doesn\'t mean I\'ve jumped ship from here.

I got an anonymous e-mail just now that said \"You partnered with Eklund...bad move!!\"

I am blown away!!

To answer Justin\'s question - clearly, some people do. Regardless, I don\'t want to be involved and I don\'t want DobberHockey involved. I just want to do my thing and I would hope that my friends in this community would not only continue to support that, but would cut me some slack if something doesn\'t sit right.


Mr. Anonymous - I would appreciate an anonymous apology. You should give Justin one as well. And you shouldn\'t have assumed that Justin heard of Eklund before - trade rumor sites are the furthest thing from his interest.
B)

[GoalieGuild]

And to follow up on this ... I am not too happy about this anonymous person sending both of us e-mails either.

PLEASE PEOPLE. I have been beyond loyal to Dobber\'s website for over two years. I helped him get DobberNation radio show off the ground. I have brought endless analysis to the site and have tried to put more time into answering questions on these boards.

I do NOT pay attention to things like the rest of you do. I am here in Colorado, in my own world of goalie analysis. I have never been to Eklund\'s site before in my entire life until he kindly asked to publish Kick-Plate Headache a week ago.

If you want to lash out at me for allowing him to re-print a week-old article, please don\'t hide behind your computer and send anonymous e-mails...it\'s very weak sauce. Man up and e-mail me or call me to discuss. I am very approachable and love to hear from passionate hockey fans.

That being said, I have already stressed to Dobber I won\'t be giving anyone permission to print any more School of Block content, even if it\'s from two years ago.

It\'s not like I woke up this morning and all of a sudden chose to piss off Dobber and his readers intentionally. I already feel horrible that Dobber has to deal with this nonsense...but come on ... there\'s no need to pin this on Dobber. He had no idea what was going on ... and obviously neither did I.

Innocent mistake. Lesson learned. If you are going to hold this against ME, then blacklist TheGoalieGuild.com ... don\'t pin it on this site.

[smack]

Ah, I don\'t think cause of one *****, and that\'s what he is, a ***** for not saying who he/she is, cause what\'s goin\' to happen to them for you guys to worry or have to apologize. And don\'t worry about him contacting other people, he\'s anonymous, right? If he\'s actually followed your site for years as he\'s said, he would know that you would NEVER associate yourself with that garbage. What a moron.

Dobber, I don\'t blame you for wanting to distance yourself from that site (I don\'t want to insult people I don\'t know but the host of that site comes close). I read that site for the first time in over a year after seeing this just to see the comments on Justin\'s article and found it funny that the fist comment was \"This is plagerised from Dobber\". Goes to show who\'s the man. And just a heads up guys, Eklund notes that Justin will be doing unique stuff for the site in the future. Pretty sure that\'s bullshit.

Personally, I freakin\' hate that crap site and avoid it at all costs. But even if Justin did write some articles for them, who cares? It\'s his perogative. I think most \"Dobberites\" use this site primarily for fantasy purposes and when it comes to reading about goalies, he\'s the shit. Period. As long as he\'s writing it on dobberhockey, I\'ll be reading it.

Keep up the awesome work guys.

[Zorro]

Well said guys. You live and learn, right? Justin shake it off, we know where your loyalty is and you don\'t need to expalin yourself any more then you already have. The dobber\'ites who are here and have been here ask you for your advice every day and will keep reading your articles and respect every minute you spend on writing those amazing articles. Keep up the great work.

Mr. Anonymous, you need to grow a set of balls and give both Dobber and Justin a major apology. I might get in trouble for saying that but I think I have been here long enough to stick up for a member of the dobberhockey family. I just can\'t believe that it is any of the true dobber\'ites out there that has sent this email. This just doesn\'t seem like something a good/respectful person would say.

I want to punch Eklund in the groin.

Zorro.

[ridinryan44]

No need to worry fellas..... everyone knows where you come from and what your all about. Shitty someone took it to that level! I\'d be happy to see Dobber writing for Ek, and all the others as well, at least it would give his site a touch of integrity!

[ridinryan44]

GoalieGuild wrote:

Smack,

Thanks for understanding.

I think I know why this anonymous guy is upset. Probably because he has enjoys this site\'s exclusivity so much that he doesn\'t want anyone else seeing it.

SO that being said, I totally understand where the anonymous guy is coming from. And for that, I DO APOLOGIZE TO ALL OF YOU for this blunder!!!

I should have realized that regardless of what a few people think, posting School of Block elsewhere is unfair to you guys...even if it is a week old and I was blindsighted by it.

I already told Dobber everything that he needed to hear and he knows I wasn\'t trying to do anything on purpose.

I don\'t even care if this anonymous guy \"steps forward\" or reveals himself because ITS HONESTLY ALL SO STUPID. I\'m just blown away that the guy has such spite.

Shit man, don\'t apologize to anyone!!! You are free to post your writing wherever the eff you want to....the more places that do, the more people read your shit. Couldn\'t blame anyone for that. Whether it was an accident or not, either way you shouldn\'t feel a need to apologize. I\'ll read ya wherever I can find ya.

[angus]

I guess now would be a bad time to admit that I actually am E_lund.... :0

[Chicleteur]

angus wrote:

I guess now would be a bad time to admit that I actually am E_lund.... :0

Haha! I knew it was you! After all those posts about rumors...

Seriously, I just hate when these kind of things happen. Dobber and Justin, don\'t worry about this, we\'re still 100 (no 110)% behind you.

Mr. Anonymous, I\'ve no respect when people hide to say what they have to say! So please come out if you want to accuse or say anything!

[newper114]

umm so i am still fairly new to all these sites and the fantasy world, and this is actually a bit interesting.
I have one question: I dont read hockeybuzz but i use it for salary cap numbers. Is this not a good site to use? should i be using another site instead? someone in one of my leagues directed me to it and i do find the salary cap part pretty usefull..

thanxs guys. and yeah this guy is a moron.. who cares what he likes and doesnt. we all love dobber and i think i speak for most of us. WHO cares. this site is the best and most informative. we will use it and win our pools while this guy can go someplace else and lose his pools.

[Chuk]

I have no idea what could have upset Mr. Anonymous this much. There are thousands of sites out there on the internet that people are free to visit or ignore.

The fact that Justin was contacted and asked to provide a copy of an older article shows me 2 things:

1 - That someone at that site uses proper etiquette and respects other writers, because they took the time to ask for permission to post. (it is so easy just to copy things with no reference these days)

2 - That the information published on Dobber\'s and Justin\'s site has value not only to us as readers, but to other \"hosts\" that provide content. I see that as a compliment.

I know a lot of people on this site do not hold Hockey Buzz in high regard and Eklund gets used as a punchline quite often, but the reality is that it is a very popular fantasy hockey site. As Chuck Swirsky used to say \"that is why there is chocolate and vanilla\".

I also think it is important for Dobber and Justin to cooperate with people in the fantasy hockey community. This builds credibility, relationships and should also generate business and readers back to their sites. The fantasy hockey community is small enough that cooperation should be the standard especially when your competition approached you respectfully or asks for a favor. We never know when we might need a favor in return.

Bottom line is everyone is free to choose what sites to use and which ones to ignore. Just because you think it is a rumor does not mean it is not an entertaining read as well. Besides how many of us benefit when people we compete against in pools take advice form other sites as gospel, without checking with Dobber first.

Keep up the great work guys, don\'t let a disgruntled individual get you down. If someone wants to take a stand, but won\'t even attach their name, it probably is not that big of a deal and definitely not worth a response.





newper114 wrote:

umm so i am still fairly new to all these sites and the fantasy world, and this is actually a bit interesting.
I have one question: I dont read hockeybuzz but i use it for salary cap numbers. Is this not a good site to use? should i be using another site instead? someone in one of my leagues directed me to it and i do find the salary cap part pretty usefull..

The salary cap numbers on Hockey Buzz are actually from http://www.nhlscap.com/ which is done by a separate writer and originally hosted on that site. If you go directly to NHLScap you can see the notice when he moved the information to Hockey Buzz for hosting reasons.

I still think it is the best resource for salaries available. If you combine that with the tools that Dobber provides it should give you everything that you need.

[Dobber]

Actually, I don\'t have anything against Eklund, or Hockey Buzz. It\'s not my cup of tea, but it fills a niche. The thinking is that Eklund tends to throw a lot rumors at the wall hoping that the occasional one will stick and he can look good for breaking it. Whether that\'s true or not, I can\'t say because I really don\'t read anything on that site. I do know that he has a very solid and reputable stable of writers, such as Panacio, Strickland and Berger (and I guess Goldman!! :lol: )

I don\'t know why the site rubs some people the wrong way, but I have no interest in getting involved one way or the other and don\'t want my name tied to it in any way because of the controversy it would cause (and this little bruhaha proves the point). I will say that the venom is undeserved, and leave it that.

For salary cap stuff, I use nhlnumbers.com and am very happy with their format.

[ultrawhiteness]

this anonymous stuff has nothing to do with my lack of activity lately... just wanted the crew to know that.

[Dutch]

nobody cares about hockeybuzz crap anyway. I wouldn\'t worry about it too much.

Eklund and his garbage are for hilarious entertainment purposes only, because it\'s beyond ridiculously stupid the shit that he posts.

If you had to win a pool relying on hockeybuzz, you are in some deep shit...

[metaldude26]

Here\'s what I want to know. Where does this guy go for his hockey information now? He already hates hockeybuzz and now apparently he\'s boycotting Dobber. I haven\'t found any site on the net close to providing as good information as is provided here. I seriously doubt the guy is going to withhold access to that based on some previous grudge or silly principle. I\'m calling empty threat on this one. He\'ll be back, and most importantly so will everyone else, Justin, Dobber, the rest of the writers here, your reputations are still in tact.

Keep up the good work!

[Dobber]

Thanks for your support everyone