Here’s the text of Dreger’s recent “report” with my comments/interpretation in bold [I’m having a bit of formatting trouble with the quotations, so I put everything from the Dreger article in italics; Dreger italics, bold me]:
[begin Dreger:] The conversations surrounding Tampa Bay Lightning forward Vincent Lecavalier are likely to heat up as we get closer to July 1, when the no-trade clause on his contract kicks in. [TRANSLATION: something will happen in the future, but is not happening now.]
The two teams mentioned most [by ______? See, that would be important information to have, who is doing this mentioning; we do know who it’s not: the actual parties involved, who, after all, don’t do any public “mentioning” of potential future trades] when Lecavalier’s name comes up seem to be [“seem to be” means this sentence isn’t even true enough for him to use the word “are”] the Montreal Canadiens and Los Angeles Kings. With regards to the Kings, defenceman Jack Johnson is one of the players mentioned [again, mentioned by ______] as possibly [really high standard here, since everyone is “possibly” involved] being involved in any deal with Tampa. [A reasonable translation of that sentence would be, “people who aren’t involved in the situation think anything could possibly happen at any time.”]
I had an interesting chat with Barry Smith, who is the head coach of SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL – and he said Johnson’s father, Jack Johnson Sr., contacted St. Petersburg [Dreger does not say that Smith said JJ Sr. contacted him, but “St Petersburg,” presumably meaning the team, not the town. If Smith had talked to JJ Sr., Dreger would certainly have written that. I am fascinated by the possibility that Jack Johnson’s dad speaks Russian; alternatively, how exactly are we to believe this “contacting” took place? He saw someone in the hot-dog line prior to one of the games? He cold-called the GM of the team? The mayor? What?] prior to the World Hockey Championship to see if the team would have interest in signing his son to a one-year contract.
Smith said he would have interest in Johnson, [I can’t tell if the ambiguity here is intentional: who did Smith say this to? I’m guessing, to Dreger. But Dreger makes it sound like Smith said it to JJ Sr., whom he apparently didn’t really speak to] and believes he can make the defenceman a better player.
It is believed [although not by anyone in particular; is this what Smith said to Dreger? It is believed by whom?] there is some unhappiness from Johnson’s camp [which presumably consists of Johnson, his agent and his dad – but probably just his dad], as the young blueliner is a restricted free agent [note that this sentence actually says: “Because Johnson is a restricted free agent, he or someone he knows is unhappy.“] While Smith has not heard back from Jack Johnson Sr., it is a possibility. [“it” in this sentence refers to “some unhappiness in Johnson’s camp.” Therefore, the sentence actually says: “While Smith has no reason to believe Johnson is unhappy, it’s still possible that he’s unhappy, since (per above) anything could possibly happen at any time.”]
The speculation that continues to hover around Lecavalier and the Los Angeles Kings [speculation is a free-floating entity, apparently] really began just prior to the NHL’s trade deadline – there were some conversations between the Lightning and the Kings. [Here Dreger veers dangerously close to reporting an actual fact. My attention is piqued.]
How serious were the conversations? If you talk to both sides, they’ll say they weren’t very serious – but they always say that anyway. [I especially love the “they’ll say they weren’t serious” part. He’s actually anticipating in his own article that the people who are actually involved in the rumor he’s spreading will say it’s all b.s.. Actually, I especially-ESPECIALLY love the “if you talk to both sides” bit. If I talk to both sides? Shouldn’t he have done that?]
via TSN .