The computer has traded menace shoes for skates

Without stepping on anyone's toes or casting aspersions on anyone's professionalism, yesterday's theory that Sens Chirp is an elaborate con might only be slightly bonkers.

The site seems to have knocked one out of the park in terms of getting an Internet meme on to the printed page. The timeline on the Anze Kopitar three-way deal rumours, which Puck Daddy has termed "hilarious," after the jump.

From Sens Chirp: Monday, July 14, 11:55 p.m.

Seemed to be a pretty steady day on the rumour front. What started out as a Neil for Barker swap had escalated into a 3 team/10 player deal by late afternoon. By the evening it seemed as though things had cooled down. At this point its really difficult to gauge exactly where the deal stands. But much of the talk remains the same. Same teams (Chicago and Ottawa) with many of the same players being discussed( Barker, Neil, Vermette).

By today, it had morphed into this report from an Ottawa daily:

According to insiders, Ottawa would trade netminder Martin Gerber and defenceman Andrej Meszaros to Los Angeles, the Kings would move 20-year-old centre Anze Kopitar to Chicago and the Blackhawks would propel goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and either of young blueliners Brent Seabrook or Cam Barker to the Senators.

Puck Daddy has already taken care of the debunking. (nhlnumbers.com, which even by its own admission isn't 100% accurate, also has Khabibulin counting for $6.75-million salary cap hit next season. It's odd a team with a salary-cap crunch like the Sens do would add a goalie making that kind of money when it already has two acceptable options under contract, but this is just coming from someone who sharpened his skills on a blog.)

The dead giveaway that this was a trap came last night night, in a post that went online at 11:12 p.m. -- after most newspapers have their sports pages dones and only make changes to correct serious errors.

The longer this goes on the more I am convinced it wont be the blockbuster some are speculating.

Who would perpetrate such a ruse?

• Someone in the Sennies' sanctum sanctorum saying, "Jump, minions, jump?" by passing on rumours and seeing what gets reported by the local press?
• A jealous journo?
• An Eklund wannabe trolling the hardest of hard-core message boards, in the same manner some people drive out to the county dump on Sunday afternoon to look for discarded treasures?
• Some ivory-tower journalism prof, who should probably just sit the hell down and be grateful to not have to deal with the real world of deadlines, editors and competing media outlets -- trying to prove some very academic point about the risk or reporting rumours?

Honestly, this post is a little motivated by the worst disease in life, jealously -- of the evil genius behind Sens Chirp, not the newspaper guys with a bigger platform. He/she is getting a bang out of it.

Just commit these words from Lyle Richardson of Spector's Hockey and to heart. You'll probably live longer:

Don't get too wrapped around the axle over the rumours, just employ your common sense and remember that 99 percent of what gets reported never happens.

Hey, maybe something happens, but until it does, go on living your life.

Update: Kukla's Korner also delivered a smackdown:

"Regarding all the rumors involving Ottawa, yes we are aware that a well known hockey forum and a hockey entertainment site had posted both Jason Williams was a Senator and Chris Neal had been traded.

"Numerous emails from KK readers asked why we did not mention them and our response was they were not true. You may not realize it, but we do have a system of checks and balances at KK, we want to keep our readers informed of what has happened in the hockey world but will not post trades or signings that DID NOT happen."

The theory that it's someone's elaborate joke still holds!