November 10, 2024

ANALYSIS: Corey Perry, social media and the reign of rumours

Corey Perry #CoreyPerry

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A days-long wildfire of online rumours about London hockey legend Corey Perry underscores social media’s growing role in amplifying gossip that often crowds out fact-based information, one academic says.

So intense was the speculation on Twitter and elsewhere involving Perry and a Chicago Blackhawks teammate’s family member that it forced the NHL club’s general manager to publicly speak out to refute a rumour, an unusual step in pro sports and elsewhere.

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“Rumours have always existed, and rumours have always percolated through social networks and through people’s interpersonal communication networks,” said Dwayne Winseck, a Carleton University communications professor who researches media and the internet.

“And that’s what we’re seeing right to the surface, made visible through social media. That’s what social media and the internet do. They make things visible that previously percolated throughout our everyday lives.”

Tuesday, Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said the matter “does not involve a player or their families. And anything that suggests otherwise, or anyone that suggests otherwise, is wildly inaccurate and frankly disgusting.”

That appeared to do little to ease doubters on social media over what hockey journalist Frank Seravalli has dubbed “the worst rumour ever.” ESPN is reporting the matter allegedly involves a team employee.

For Winseck, the situation illustrates how things in pro sports have changed. There were always internal controversies “and they always had an impact on the team but they were contained,” he said. “We had to be kind of an insider to understand or to have contact with these rumours.”

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Now the rumours, he added, “become public in ways that we didn’t see in the past” which forces people in situations like this to “engage in crisis communication strategies.”

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  • TIMELINE

    A 19-season NHL veteran, Perry, 38, signed a one-year, $4-million deal with also-ran Chicago this summer as a veteran player who could help mentor the team’s star rookie, Connor Bedard. Perry performed well on the ice, with nine points in 16 games.

    But last week he was suddenly scratched from a Nov. 22 game against Columbus, with his coach calling it an “organization decision.” The team later announced he’d be away from the club for the foreseeable future – as rumours caught fire, including on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    On Nov. 25, Perry’s agent, Pat Morris, issued a statement saying the veteran forward left the team “to attend to personal matters.” It did little to quell the growing rumour-mongering on social media.

    Perry is a potential Hockey Hall of Famer but he’s also disliked by many opposing team’s fanbases. Something serious is alleged to have occurred, and the Blackhawks franchise has drawn fire in the recent past for not being forthcoming with internal scandals. Those factors likely played a role in fanning the speculation.

    It reached a boiling point on Tuesday, when Davidson, the Blackhawks GM, took the unusual step of holding a press conference to offer few new details – except to make clear no player’s family members were involved in the matter.

    Seravalli was more blunt on his podcast, calling the rumour “f—ing bulls–t,” adding: “This is something that was perpetuated on social media. It is so far from the truth and so unfair.”

    Winseck sounds a note of caution on blaming it all on social media, however. While online forums and social media can “undermine what we know in life,” he said: “We would be foolish to allow that set of claims to commandeer the entire discussion as if somehow social media has unleashed a world of untruths and a lack of factuality that has overrun reality itself.”

    A sterling career at its end?

    Perry is among the winningest players in hockey history, with a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold and Hart Trophy as NHL MVP. Locally, he earned legend status after he led the Knights to the 2005 Memorial Cup victory on home ice. A Peterborough native, Perry now calls London home.

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    He has played 1,273 NHL games since 2005, collecting 892 points and 1,392 penalty minutes. He won the Stanley Cup with Anaheim in 2007 and reached the finals with three straight teams, Dallas, Montreal and Tampa, from 2020 to 2022. He has earned more than US$92 million in salary.

    In 2019, The Free Press reported that Perry and his family paid $7.25 million for a north London home in the Uplands area, north of Masonville, which at the time was believed to be the most ever paid for a single-family home in the city.

    bbaleeiro@postmedia.com

    pmaloney@postmedia.com

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