Troubling news today, dear reader, as word has fallen upon my ears of the sudden resignation of Buzz Hargrove as NHLPA ombudsman. It is tragic, to say the least, that such disgrace should befall a man, who just this past July, celebrated the 40th anniversary of one of the most historic moments in human history. For those readers who’s birth was streamed live on Facebook, or who received an iPhone for their 5th birthday, Buzz piloted the first manned mission to the moon, and was the second human being ever to set foot on the aforementioned ball of cheese.

Although Hargrove served only a short term as ombudsman, his impact was enormous. I have to take my source’s word for it, however, because I have no idea on God’s green earth what an ombudsman is. According to Wikipedia, which has made the right side of my brain entirely expendable, an ombudsman “is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests.”

Yes, the pieces are beginning to fall nicely into place for me now. As I am privy to the classified minutes of three secret closed door meetings that have taken place over the past 18 months, two of which were called to order by none other than Gary Bettman himself, I believe that there will never be a better time to leak the key details.

For those of you in doubt of my abilities to harvest such privileged information, here is a picture taken by my confidential informant using a pin-hole spy camera which was smuggled into one of these secret meetings inside a box of sugar pucks.

Photo by phloyd / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There is now no doubt in my mind, that ombudsman Buzz, was an inside man. A national hero and lover of all things extra-terrestrial, that Bettman personally recruited and meticulously groomed to pilot one final mission into the unknown. That mission, to push onto the unsuspecting NHLPA constituency, his plan to put an NHL expansion franchise on the moon.

Photo by arkku / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

We all know of at least one other individual who was very likely to have also come across this restricted information. I am of course talking about former head of the NHLPA, Paul Kelly. Who, as we all know, was unceremoniously forced out of his job after being caught hacking into the NHLPA mainframe computer to play an advanced copy of NHL 2k11. What is only now being exposed, however, is that while trying to locate and import an outdated roster with Jeremy Roenick on it, he stumbled across the blueprints for Moon Garden Alpha.

Photo by blogjim

So as you can see, dear reader, all is not always as it first appears.  Just as the moon orbits the earth, everything has come full circle.  Now that light has been shed on the dark dealings of these past months, and if there still good in this world, Paul Kelly will be reinstated as the head of the NHLPA. After all, he was only protecting the interests of his constituents! If there is one inalienable right that should never be denied a professional hockey player, it is to never suffer the indignity of playing hockey outside of North America, and especially not the moon, and never, ever, ever, Europe.