Ken McKenna's sloppy reporting for HF

New York Islander Fan Central | 4/01/2008 05:47:00 PM | | |
Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio reported forward Peter MacArthur recently signed a straight ATO contract with Bridgeport, that is the only media source that has issued any release as to his contract status.

Updated:
As of Tuesday afternoon Mr Fornabaio responded in his blog he confirmed this morning from MacArthur he does not have a deal beyond the ATO. No inside info on my part, I asked in his blog, he responded and said he spoke to the player today.

Managing Editor Ken McKenna of Hockey's Future as usual jumped the gun and make an incorrect claim in the sporting news a few days ago that the Boston University product was in fact signed by the Isles, despite no other professional media outlet in North America confirming this here much less the Islanders themselves the last few days.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Seems little has changed in two years at HF in terms of poor coverage and why it's prospect information is something our fans should take with little more than a grain of salt if not outright avoid. I stumbled upon the article a few days ago in the Sporting News and suspected Ken McKenna got it wrong so I did not post it here without confirmation from a credible media source.

Sad that the sporting news provides Mr McKenna with any access but we all know the sporting news stopped covering hockey with professional writers long ago outside of rare Kara Yorio updates.

Alan Hahn used to have a weekly report for the Isles at the site.

This is not about the HF volunteers writers who when I was there always worked hard for the fans but the decisions at the top that only hurt the writers efforts during my time. When Holly Gunning was made staff editor things fell completely apart and our prospect page on the Isles site paid a heavy price.

Most of the quality writers stopped writing when she was named staff editor or she removed them for asking what he credentials were to be an editor? I just wanted no part of writing for her almost immediately and stopped writing.

When I started we had folks like Mark Fishel and the people running the site did a fantastic job. I had a great time and our page was updated the day someone was signed with full backgrounds. The folks at other sites like Russianprospects.com with
Eugene Belashchenko were great and provided updates as did most of the college teams who would always respond with e-mails from the AD office or the hockey staff.

The damage done between Mr McKenna with Holly Gunning as staff editor really hurt that site the final years I was there for prospect information with sporadic updates and rankings that were thrown together along with a prospect rating system that read like playing a game of battleship B4, C6 that made no sense. Who was I to tell people what Per Braxenholm's NHL potential was based on reading an article or looking at a stat line and maybe two quotes a year from the Isles?

Ken McKenna never figured out this is very real to some people. Frans Nielsen's relatives used to send me updates and were very nice about it.

This is why you have to get it right and do more than throw something together.

After I stopped writing the person who took my spot could not get a password to update the page for a full year.

Having written all that it could turn out that way in the end with MacArthur signing with New York after the season but to report someone is signed in the sporting news when clearly it is not correct is just poor research/journalism but the usual sloppy standard by Ken McKenna.