The Debunking Of A Rumor That Jeff Carter Put His Non-Hockey Stick In Scott Hartnell's Wife

There are plenty of good things about blogs and the fact that these days just about anybody can have their own website. But the downside of that is the one simple fact that pretty much every idiot can have their own website these days. And that's what happened to Jeff Carter and Scott Hartnell.

If you've been reading around by now, you know the story of the "rumor" spread by a web site (not actually a blog as the Philadelphia Inquirer will have you believe; it may be no good, but let's call a website that can be described as a poor ripoff of a website like CSN Philly here a website and let's not mis-categorize it just to fulfill our stereotypes of bloggers), called the thephillyfour.com a week ago where it's author Jerry Brennan, got a "story" from someone he claims to be a "reliable source" that told him that Jeff Carter had an affair with Scott Hartnell's wife. In not so nice terms, Carter banged his teammate's wife.

Now every person outside of Mr. Brennan has all agreed on one basic principle here. This is a false story. Now I'm not going to go on a long-winded explanation further shoving this story down the throat of Mr. Brennan, that would be useless.

Instead I will direct you to other sources such as Deadspin, and Puck Daddy, who interestingly enough, may have discovered Jerry Brennan's reliable source that, well, is quite laughable, for how interesting is it that Jerry Brennan was not the first person to break this story? Read the Puck Daddy article for more on that as I am too lazy to copy and paste all his screenshots on the ordeal.

The Flyers are in a tailspin now and there are some legitimate reports that there is some locker room friction within the team, however, this story is not the cause of it. Whenever a team is in an unwanted and unexpected tailspin, this stuff pops up all the time, but it brings up an interesting point that as people with our own websites and blogs, we must be careful of what we put out there for the entire world to access it if need be. Jerry Brennan was a lot like us, he's not a big-named guy in the Philly sports media world, not many people go to him for their Philly sports updates, but if you put out something like that that's controversial and the right person by some twist of chance lands on your page and picks it up and publishes it, then you are responsible for that piece even if you legitimately thought that there was no one alive that read your site. What started out as a class project has upset Hartnell and Carter so much that that they have stated that they are upset that someone would report such a thing.

My point is this: even if you are not a big name and even if you believe only 3 people read your blog regularly, be careful of what you put out there as you never know who else is reading. Everything I put on here I try to get from credible sources and if the story is questionnable, I search around for proof of it.

Now Jerry Brennan was a different situation, he received some "insider information" (although his insider information has come from a bogus gossip site as Puck Daddy points out). But even if it was actual information like the tip that I got earlier this year from someone my dad knows who knows Eagles President Joe Banner in the off-season that the Eagles were going to make a "big move", I keep it to myself and if I trust you enough to not say anything, I will tell you don't say anything but here is what I heard and move on with it. Knowing that it is insider information that may not be true is enough to get me to not start something and put me in the middle of something that I do not want to be in the middle of like poor Jerry Brennan is now.

Now what was that big move and did it happen? I don't know. It could have been the plan of drafting Maclin, it could have been the plan of trading for Jason Peters, it could have been that there was already a plan in place to pick up Michael Vick. But if I had reported that on this blog, and someone would have picked it up, there would have been a firestorm against me, and even with these things happening, I don't know, if I would have been vindicated as sure, I could say, look I was right, the big move was Mike Vick, surely, it had to have been. But then again, you could say, no, how could everyone have thought that out that early in advance. In other words, perception is not reality, reality is reality and the reality is I could have posted something with no hard evidence that would have never been fully proven right either inside of our little community or outside of it if a big name picked it up.

Like I said, every person in this day and age can have a website and a blog, just don't be an idiot with it or else dangerous things can happen. Jerry Brennan now knows that all too well.