I first stumbled across The Eklund Phenomenon on the Hockey’s Future message boards — a wonderful place where North American and international hockey fans can bridge geographic and language gaps to talk about how much they friggin' hate Gary Bettman.

As the NHL lockout continued to the point of obstinate folly, information that went beyond owners’ and players’ talking points became a highly sought commodity; anything that resembled positive news from behind the closed doors of NHL meetings spread through the online hockey community like the flu at a nursing home.

That’s where this Eklund character emerged, coming forward with information so optimistic he made Bill Clinton look like Andy Rooney by comparison. His site, hockeyrumors.blogspot.com, featured news that no one — not the Canadian media, American media, ESPN or the usual hockey news haunts — had published. A Pennsylvania-based blogger going by the anonymous moniker "Eklund," (as in former Flyer Pelle Eklund), his blog was advertised as "rumors involving the world of hockey and the NHL from an insider of 20 years." (We’ll get to that "insider of 20 years" part a bit later on.)

Over the last three months, Eklund claims his blog has reached incredible traffic levels, including over 65,000 visits during one day in February. He has assembled a cadre of acolytes who vehemently defend his reporting and believe that, yes Virginia, there really is going to be a hockey season. (Eklund’s latest claim is a March 1 start date). What started as a random voice in the crowded cacophony of D.I.Y. sports journalism suddenly has become something between a guilty pleasure and a must-read for news-starved hockey fans. Not only that — his blog has crept into the hockey media’s lockout conversation, with information he’s posted getting picked up by radio stations and, in one case, by respected hockey writer Alan Hahn of New York Newsday. (Although even Hahn couldn’t bring himself to actually cite something called "Hockeyrumors.blogspot.com" as a source.)

But as his flock has grown, so have the wolves circling Eklund. Critics have slammed him as a fraud, as a rumormonger, and as a pawn for either the players or the owners. Links to his blog have been banned from the Hockey’s Future boards, as each time someone posted an Eklund rumor as fact, the next 25-or-so posts would be vicious attacks on the information and the source. At least two parody sites have been created, mocking the "insider of 20 years" for an occasional lapse in journalistic fundamentals and a consistently urgent tone that suggests a marriage of Matt Drudge and Redford-as-Woodward in All the President’s Men. (Sample Eklund prose: "I am going to New York tomorrow to talk to some player agents and contacts to try and best confirm some crazy rumors that came through today...Get on them. They work for you.")

Within the last two weeks, Eklund has come out of his shell to give a few interviews; one to Insidehockey.com and one to Eric McErlain, a popular sports blogger who runs Offwingopinion.com. One interview could be safely called a puff piece; the other began prodding the Eklund balloon with some fairly sharp needles.

On Sunday, another blogger on a site called Ordinary Least Square pummeled the Eklund blog like Hillary Swank hitting the heavy bag in Million Dollar Baby, exposing each Eklund-penned news item and prediction that never came to pass.

Why all the Eklund backlash? Why has an anonymous fan-turned-"hockey insider" been given the Dan Rather treatment?

The Devil is in the details…or lack thereof.

THE BLOG

The first post in Eklund’s archive, which stretches back to November 2004, is a great case study in why this blogger has become a lightning rod for many lockout news junkies.

"The season will begin mid January," Eklund reported. "The players over in Europe have already been informed of this."

Well, mid-January came and went, the players who were in Europe are still in Europe, and most of the NHL’s 30 arenas still have that Motley Crue reunion tour booked where there should be regular season hockey.

And then the next post, on Nov. 10: "My sources say that any moment now Bettman will announce a date that a deal needs to be made by in order to salvage the season. All my sources agree that the date is somewhere around December 10th."

And then this report: "The rumor that really has some of us jumping this afternoon is that a few of the NHL teams are considering forming a mini tournament of their own to play this spring. This is how it would apparently go down. The season would be cancelled, but the NHL would have a pay-per-view charity tournament in the spring that would include 8 teams...Toronto, Philly, Tampa, Detroit, Colorado, and the Canucks..."

And then this report, under the header "Drop Dead Date. December 15^th," in which Eklund states that: "Bettman will announce it, if he hasn't yet. I got the word last night. It is all about posturing."

At this point, you might be thinking that Eklund has hit the bull’s-eye about as often as Ray Charles in an Olympic archery competition. I’ll say this for Eklund: There does, in fact, seem to be someone named Bob Goodenow involved with the NHLPA.

So score one for The Insider.

His pathetic hit-to-miss ratio is quickly explained away by his supporters through carefully filtered (through registration) comments on his blog and in a chat room Eklund hosts to discuss the latest scuttlebutt. There’s the common defense that the nature of the negotiations turns what seems to be solid information in the morning into incorrect news by the evening. Eklund’s site, they say, is a rumor site; hence, Eklund is simply the conduit for any and all snippets of information sent to him by a litany of player, agent and NHL sources. Don’t shoot the messenger, they say…especially when that messenger seems to be one of the only ones steadfastly refusing to give up on the NHL’s 2004-05 season.

But who is this messenger? Is he a self-aggrandizing poster on a Philadelphia Flyers message board, as was suggested on a Hockey’s Future board thread? Is he a hockey journalist trying to leak information he couldn’t print because of the sensitivity of his sources? Is he an agent? Is he a maverick owner? Is he actually Pelle Eklund himself?

McErlain was the first to pierce Eklund’s façade, in an interview with the blogger on Offwingopinion.com:

Here's the profile he provided me: Eklund claims to be a Philadelphia native who left the town of his birth to attend McGill University in Montreal. After graduation, he thought better of going to grad school and instead took an internship with the Quebec Nordiques.

Eventually, that internship led to a full-time job with the NHL, where his tenure overlapped that of former President John Zielger and current Commissioner Gary Bettman (he made no mention of the tenure of former NHL President Gil Stein).

This period, Eklund claims, is how he began to develop his sources in Colorado, Detroit and St. Louis, as well as within the NHL central offices -- a place he claims to be in constant contact with via MSN Messenger. This led me next to ask how good his contacts inside the NHLPA were, in particular, whether or not he could help me get access to the NHLPA's secure Web site that the union leadership has been using to stay in touch with players.

Eklund said that no, he didn't, and that anyone who did would probably be subject to some sort of criminal prosecution. Which was odd, considering a number of members of the working press have had access for a while (something a reporter who declined to be identified confirmed for me), including just about everybody North of the lower 48.

Eklund said he was surprised that was the case. Draw your own conclusions.

Then there was this strange admission from Eklund to McErlain:

Eklund also claims that he left the NHL to write a book (apparently a fiction title) -- one that was so successful that he no longer has to work full time, and instead has worked on and off as a freelance hockey writer for what would be the last decade or so (something that I'm sure a lot of freelance hockey writers would laugh at).

McErlain has also reported what he’s heard as far as how Eklund is getting his information. For example, an agent leaks information — solid or faulty — to another "source," which passes that info to Eklund to be posted on the blog.

In his Inside Hockey interview, Eklund was asked about his anonymity and spoke about his sources:

INSIDE HOCKEY: Why have you chosen to operate anonymously? Don't you already have a place where your voice can be heard?

EKLUND: My sources ask me to keep this anonymous. There is a lot of secrecy going on about this lockout. It is all part of the posturing, with gag orders on all sides. My sources know, due to the nature of my blog, that it is a safe place to get the news out for them. They know there is great skepticism about my legitimacy, and we use that to our advantage as we get the positive news to starving fans. In my regular columns, they wouldn't be so free-lipped. They tell me to "tell 'Eklund.'"

THE BACKLASH

Every populist movement is bound to spawn a backlash, and Eklund’s blog crusade is no exception.

First, there was "Pelle Ekland's Hocky Ruemors," a mercilessly funny satire of Eklund’s frantic "insider" tone and shaky information. Or, as the blog states, "An insidor of 47 years brings news of reumers from the NHL."

Sample prose: "I'm going to Taco Bell in West Banana, Nevada, so don't slit your wrists if you don't read a post from me in the next five minutes. I know I'm your lifeline but you'll be ok."

Then there’s The Anti-Eklund, a less satirical and more critical look at the Eklund blog. Recently, it reveled in the fact that an article Eklund claimed to "be submitting to every newspaper, media outlet, and hockey team in North America" hasn’t, to this point, set the world on fire:

"Well, its been over a week and we're still waiting for that vaunted piece of literary genius from our dear fraud Eklund. I suppose he's hoping that by claiming a North American wide conspiracy to shut him up, that his lemmings will forget about it."

But the most damaging critic of Eklund’s HockeyRumors blog appeared this Sunday in the form of Ordinary Least Square, a sports-and-the-kitchen-sink blog that dissected many of the major claims in Eklund’s blog, including these passages (Eklund in italics, OLS in beautiful Verdana):

Jan 27: "just got word about new proposal from NHL. My source says, ‘This will absolutely be over by Saturday. Posturing is over. These talks are final talks. Immense pressure coming from big teams. Players are going to have hard time turning down offer. Word is they already know what it is, are holding vote on website as we speak. It won't go past weekend. Not a chance.’ Source said [same or different source?], ‘This is where we'll see what those inside have said all along. PA will accept cap and get on with this.’"

Never happened, not one bit. Over a week later, PA still adamant against cap. NHL proposal, when made public, showed no influence of big-team pressure, was exactly what cap hawks have demanded.

Further: "I don't buy leaks that NHL proposed no revenue sharing. Goes against everything they've said they wanted. Individual salary caps, I don't get it. If leaks are true then owners solely interested in destroying league."

Eklund deluded himself with own rumors on individual caps (opposite of his last report) and own misconception that NHL wants revenue sharing (almost totally opposes it). Only at this late date does it dawn on him what everyone already knows of NHL’s true intent. Even here he overreacts -- NHL wants to destroy this season and PA, not league. Apparent ignorance of owners’ well-known distaste for revenue sharing betrays credibility of his claim to be reporter and credibility of sources.

So is Eklund a fraud, a pawn, a sinner or a saint? Does the fact that the information his sources provides rarely amounts to anything but innuendo indicate that his sources are faulty or, dare we speculate, invented? Do we too quickly dismiss him because he’s writing a blog rather than some blowhard hockey column on Sportsnet.ca? Or do his inconsistencies and seemingly impenetrable resume set off our crap detectors like Charles Lane checking the Jukt Micronics website from Stephen Glass’s "Hack Heaven" article? What will the critics say if, in the end, some of the more debatable points in his reporting actually come to pass?

Are we looking at the birth of a Drudge on Ice, or a curious footnote to history if and when the NHL returns?

I honestly don’t know…but I’ll see what my inside sources have to say and get right back to you…

Greg Wyshynski is the features editor for SportsFanMagazine.com. Read his column, The Jester’s Quart, every Friday.