The anime blog Sankaku Complex (NSFW - adult content and a favorite for most Puck Daddy readers, we're sure) had an interesting post over the weekend: That the NHL was partnering with Japanese studios like Kyoto Animation to "allow anime to be aired during intervals at games on television or at the arena, as well as the usual array of events and anime goods associated with such tie-ups."

And really, if the Sidney Crosby(notes) vs. Alex Ovechkin(notes) hype needed anything, it needed an anime featuring the two of them hurling fireballs at each other with dubbed voices, while a spike-haired Mike Milbury cackled from a mountain top ...

But our crap detector went off on this story (passed along by Puck Buddy Jim H.) when we discovered its source: The Bleacher Report, the much-maligned blogging site that's not exactly a paragon of factual accuracy (unless they're plagiarizing the facts from another site, of course). Furthermore, this quote from the original post, attributed to "the president of one team," didn't inspire much confidence:

"When the owners are the last to hear about the potential sale of their team, there's a problem. When fans are the last to hear about the possibility of their mascot being turned into a pink-haired girl, there's a problem."

As other anime sites picked up the story, the Bleacher Report post went bye-bye. Dave Finocchio, co-founder of BR and VP of content, posted the following on his site:

The information presented in a recent blog post, which speculated that the NHL is pondering an anime partnership, is completely fictional and the post was a misguided attempt at humor. We regret any and all potential harm that was caused to the NHL by the distribution of this article.

The NHL also confirmed with Anime Vice that the story was false.

So how did this happen? Simple: 4 days ago, the Bleacher Report posted a story with the headline "NHL: Mulling Anime Partnership, Nothing 'Set In Stone.' " And since BR is on Google News, it was presented as a news story headline instead of satire. Anime blogs picked it up, and now we're at the point of retractions and denials of what was a humor piece.

So the solution would seem simple: Get the Bleacher Report off of Google News as others have called for, or have BR label their news-reader headlines correctly as "satire." Or "plagiarism," which can also sometimes be accurate.