The Colorado Avalanche were the recent victims of an embarrassing Twitter gaffe when they announced to their 72,000 followers that there were two recent additions to team, only to have one of those players announce a signing to a different team less than an hour later, reports Yahoo.
The Avalanche released a tweet at 1 p.m. ET yesterday informing their fans that they had recently acquired players John Mitchell and Matt Carkner. The tweet reads:
“NEWS: The #Avs have come to terms with UFAs John Mitchell (formerly NYR) and Matt Carkner (formerly OTT). Official announcement to follow.”
Only a half hour after sending out this tweet, Bob McKenzie of TSN sent out his own tweet informing fans that he had just spoken with Carkner’s agent and nothing was official.
This tweet led to another by TSN’s Aaron Ward confirming that Carkner had actually signed a three-year deal with the New York Islander’s, not the Colorado Avalanche.
The tweet by the Avalanche was promptly removed, hoping to sweep the gaffe under the rug.
Matt Carkner went on to explain to NHL.com that confusion had led to the Avalanche mishap:
“It was pretty early on in the day and I don’t know if they were trying to exchange information for my address to make an official offer, and somewhere along the line someone must have confused Colorado, saying that maybe I accepted the deal,” Carkner told NHL.com.
“I never told anyone that, but things like this happen. We called Colorado and apologized right away. We didn’t mean to mislead them at all. It ended up a couple of hours later, I agreed to terms with the Islanders.”
Thankfully for the Avalanche, they did go on to sign Greg Zanon, P.A. Parenteau and Steve Downie as they hope those will prove to be better options than their missed opportunity.
What do you think of the Colorado Avalanche’s early announcement of the signing of Matt Carkner through their Twitter account ?
