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The Sporting News pulls the plug on its hockey-centric blog ‘The Grinder’

There’s no denying that the hockey blogosphere - and any other platform featuring hockey writers - can be a competitive place. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, especially when it encourages certain people to falsify rumors - or even worse - claim that they got a scoop that originated from somewhere else. Other times, it results in a beautiful chain reaction in which creative types push each other to crank out work of increasing quality; in those cases the readers are the truest winners.

With that thought in mind, I’d like to sadly pass along a note that The Sporting News decided to shut down many of its blogging endeavors, which includes their “The Grinder” hockey blog.

To me, the thing that made that blog stand out was the work of Craig Custance. He would often find a different angle - or provide further illumination - upon a big-ticket news item while also pumping out that material in a timely fashion.

While there is little doubt that blogs are changing the way hockey fans get their news, analysis and snark, bigger media companies must experiment with the medium. Perhaps The Sporting News will come back with a similar effort in the future, but right now, it’s sad to see a solid blog bite the dust.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed Pro Hockey Talk so far. I think I can speak for Joe Yerdon when I say that we hope to cover the NHL in a unique and comprehensive way for a long time to come.