Is this Rick Carpiniello story really an April Fools prank? Scoring help from a '20-year-old kid', 2nd round of the playoffs or a 'housecleaning', and the owner will speak to the media? No, I won't fall for this stuff again.
Rick Carpiniello / Rangers Report:
Scoring help is on the way! --
It pays to go to the rink early. When I got here I ran into a scout I know, who told me there’s this 20-year-old kid in Germany who somehow snuck under the radar and went undrafted and thus is a complete free agent. His name is Bernhard Holden.This next part has to be a put-on, right?
Anyway, this kid is like Malkin, some say he might be just as good, and only five NHL teams even know about him, and my source told me that the Rangers will announce they have won the sweepstakes (a cash payment to his German team for his release) and they will sign him today...
Also, the owner is here today and the rumor is he’s going to speak with the media for his annual late-season state-of-the-Rangers. And the word is that he’s going to lay it out on the table: Second round of the playoffs or there will be a housecleaning.Well, we're all living in the house that Slats re-built, but will he ever get kicked out of the house? Maybe if it's demolished or foreclosed.
Wow! Big, big stuff in Ranger-land today.
update: It worked. The NY Rangers blog was played -- ...Second Round or Bust:
...and how in the world is he going to clean house? Unless he's going to be buying players out or putting them on waivers, there is no chance he can move Drury, Gomez, Rozsival or Redden's contracts.
----
ICINGS: Next NHL Goon?
Hahaha! Thank's for sharing the pee-wee hockey link. I'm on my own in the office and having a miserable time of it. Was nice to have something to laugh at!
I think the Isles should sign him up. He's certainly determined.
I've got his crawl move in my repertoire of skillz.
Nice comment at Rangers Report: "So this “prospect” is really the lovechild of Bernhard Langer and Holden Caufield."
Amazingly embarassed I am. I actually kind of fell for Carp's story. I guess I always just want to believe.
Wow, I'm a sad case!!
It was a *very* good prank. I had to put a question mark on the post title, because it had an element of plausibility, so you couldn't be absolutely 100% certain.
The web traffic to the Ranger Pundit spiked on Wednesday by well over 200 hundred visitors. Most of these folks were coming here because they were searching Google for any news on this great new "Bernhard Holden" prospect and found us. So I think hundreds of people fell for it.
Stu Hackel at the NY Times had a great article on other great NHL April Fools pranks: The Master of Hockey’s April Foolers