Welcome Peter DeB -- Wait, What? The Sun?? Aw Crap. Never Mind...

Ordinarily, the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch is a pretty solid read. He's plugged into the NHL rumour mill like no other Ottawa sports writer, and you can usually take what he says to the bank. Except, perhaps, today. Today, Good Ol' Bruce seems to have channeled his inner Steve Simmons and pulled a story straight out of his ass with a little help from an over enthusiastic Kitchener radio station:

Peter DeBoer could soon be moving to Ottawa as coach of the Senators. The coach of the Ontario Hockey League's Kitchener Rangers is in the Barbados today and believed to be meeting with Senators owner Eugene Melnyk to hammer out a deal to become the team's new head coach, the Sun has learned.

Well...not so much. No sooner had that story hit the series of tubes, the Sens were denying any hiring had taken place:

Sources tell TSN DeBoer's trip to the Barbados was simply a continuation of the interview process and DeBoer has not yet been offered the position of head coach. "I haven't hired anybody at this point in time," Senators GM Bryan Murray told The Canadian Press.

It's interesting to note (at least it is to me), that the original story that appeared on the Sun's website this morning said it was a done deal and that the announcement was "imminent". The reason I remember that is the sinking feeling I had while reading it in my cube, and, with no access to my pulpit, being powerless to stop it (I also suffer from delusions of grandeur in the morning, but that usually passes before lunch). That story is now gone, replaced with the "we're absolutely, almost without a doubt, rather confident this may, or may not happen. Maybe" quasi-retraction you see above.

All questions of journalistic integrity and a writer's premature expectoration aside (it happens to everybody Bruce...really), this delay gladdens my heart. Not because I have anything against Herr DeBoer (der Nederland... REPRESENT!) but because it means I still have a chance to sway The Bryan with our true choice:


Am I right people?? Am I? Hello? Is this thing on? Apparently those delusions have hung around a little longer than usual.

DeBoer meeting with Senators Owner [Ottawa Sun]
Senators still searching for next head coach [TSN]