With the Sixers’ Twitter burner account scandal finally coming to a merciful end on Thursday with Bryan Colangelo’s resignation from his President of Basketball Operations title, let’s have some fun and wonder aloud about their co-tenants in the Wells Fargo Center.
In the end it was Colangelo’s wife, Barbara Bottini, using the burner accounts to defend her husband and question several Sixers players, but for this exercise let’s leave family out and ask who in the Flyers organization would be most likely to utilize a burner account? I’ll share a few names and feel free to drop your best guesses in the comments.
Andrew MacDonald
I mean, there’s a really good chance that Bill Clement is just a human burner account for MacDonald right? Seemingly anything bad that the Flyers’ defenseman does (which is a lot), gets praise from the announcer. Heck, given Flyers coach Dave Hakstol’s penchant for sticking up for the veteran, there’s a chance he’d hop on to defend his player as well.
But the biggest reason that MacDonald himself would create a burner account is because he’s just fed up with being blamed for all things Flyers blue line related. He’s tired of all the fans who would never in their right mind turn down a 6-year, $30 million contract and would definitely log on to bash them. Look it’s not his fault he’s badly overpaid, he’s not the one who offered the contract.
Verdict: Very likely
Jakub Voracek
The Czech winger is no stranger to social media spats and has not only responded in kind to Twitter trolls in the past, but has also doled out some punishment to fans on his own without being provoked.
Love people who sitting at home,drinking beer or coke,scratching their balls and yelling ”shoot the puck u idiot”!!!#hugewin!
— Jakub Voracek (@jachobe) December 31, 2013
Thing about that is, the man does it from his own personal account. Voracek is unabashed on Twitter and doesn’t need to hide behind cloak and daggers in order to speak his mind. It’s refreshing, and a darn good time when it does happen.
But, given his affinity for throwing around more blocks than Joel Embiid, the thinking is that he might be sensitive enough to go rogue and continue to pick at his haters even after he’s blocked them from his personal account.
Verdict: Likely
Ron Hextall
The Flyers’ GM has always kept things pretty close to the vest since taking over for Paul Holmgren, but he’s also been pretty steadfast in maintaining his plan and vision for the team from the very beginning. With a notoriously tough fan base eager to parse every move, the last few years on the job could have a taxing effect on Hextall mentally.
Maybe Hextall’s comfort in his own vision for the team starts to wain just a bit and he takes to Twitter to see if the fans and media still share a positive view of the overall direction of things. He sees some of the good things involving the growth of the Flyers’ prospect pools to one of the very best in the league, but scoffs at the digs for signing Dale Weise and not turning things around quicker. Then he digs deeper to learn that (somehow) there’s still a portion of fans who think that he traded Brayden Schenn for Jori Lehtera straight-up. This causes the steady Flyers leader to tip over the edge and sends him to the reply button as he cranks out responses to inform and defend his own tenure a la Colangelo.
Verdict: Not likely
Claude Giroux
The captain is pretty active on social media and has proven to be pretty tough for rabid fans to rattle in the past. But, at the end of the season, Giroux noted how he thought the booing at the Wells Fargo Center did cause the team to press a bit more than usual.
Fresh off a career-year and sick of a small portion of fans claiming that he’s not the right captain to lead the Flyers, the normally reserved Giroux could snap and choose this platform to fire back at his detractors.
With a busy offseason that includes nuptials, now might not seem like the time for Giroux to go rouge and hit the haterade hard…but it also creates the perfect cover of an NHL star back on the map and too busy in his personal life to have time for this nonsense.
Verdict: Likely
Dave Hakstol
There’s a good chance that Dave Hakstol has a Twitter account just like Colangelo where he doesn’t tweet and just reads what others are saying. Though I’m sure it probably bothers him, there’s also just so few positive things being said about Dave Hakstol on Twitter that it doesn’t seem like something he’d be up for.
In fact, the most praise the Flyers coach gets is from verified NHL accounts in regards to college coaches making the jump to the NHL. And we all know that Dave doesn’t have the wherewithal to make the necessary adjustments to hack in and take over one of those high-profile accounts.
Verdict: Not likely
Ivan Provorov
The Flyers’ No. 1 defenseman was built to play the game. The 21-year-old has played far beyond his years since stepping into the Flyers’ opening night roster two years ago. He’s so good that sometimes you almost forget that he’s human. Since he might actually be a robot, there’s a good chance he could just like vaporize his detractors, but there simply aren’t any anyways.
Verdict: No shot
Wayne Simmonds
There’s a 100% chance that Simmer would put down the keyboard, show up at the trolls door and just open up a can of whoop ass.
you stay classy Scott. I wonder why you don’t show your face? #joke
— Wayne Simmonds (@Simmonds17) December 2, 2016
Verdict: No shot
So what do you think? If the Flyers have a rogue burner account user, who would it be, and why?
