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Paul Bissonnette’s off-hand remarks about Kovalchuk bring his Twitter account to an end

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There isn’t much to say about Paul Bissonnette’s on-ice game. He’s a minimum-wage plugger willing to do what he can to stick with an NHL team (he’s played limited minutes for the Pittsburgh Penguins and most recently last season with the Phoenix Coyotes). If it were just for hockey, he’d be a mere blip on the radar.

As an outspoken member of the Twitter community, though, Bissonnette will have his 15 minutes of infamy. He put his foot in his mouth in a big way over the Ilya Kovalchuk contract rejection last night. Although the message was recanted and deleted, Fear the Fin’s Ivan Makarov managed to pull a screen grab of Bissonnette’s comment. Here it is.

Jeff Marek reports that Bissonnette deactivated his Twitter account today. One must speculate if he was “gently encouraged” to do so by his agent/someone in the Coyotes front office/a league executive. It’s important to note, again, that the rugged player did apologize for his comments. Former player Justin Bourne looks at Bissonnette’s Twitter departure as a loss for anyone who wants hockey players to be a bit more candid toward the media and fans.

Bissonnette was the exact thing I always rail about - the league needs more of him. Blue collar, no rhodes scholar, uncensored. Thats hockey

Still, this is yet another cautionary tale about players/agents/writers thinking that they can delete their online mistakes. When it comes to controversial stories and comments, there are plenty of ways for people to hold you to your comments. From screen grabs like Makarov’s to Google’s cached copies of old blog entries, it’s becoming more and more difficult for entities to keep writing skeletons in the digital closet.

It’s a shame that outspoken players some may reasonably call “blowhards” keep getting their comeuppance, but if you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the Twitter kitchen (Twitchen?).