Subscriptions Near Bottom?

If pageview trends are any indication of a site’s popularity, The Scouting News is finally nearing its deserved end. Pageviews are at an all time low, down 42% in the last 90 days thanks to the efforts of The Boycott!

Not since the fraudulently-premised site began have visitor numbers been so low. What’s changed? Absolutely nothing, and that’s precisely why the site is in such precipitous decline. Word has spread near and far of their predatory, vindictive practices. What’s new is the thousands of visitors to this site and internet forums who have found the courage to speak out in spite of the threats made by Ron “Benny” Holmes and The Scouting News. Attempts to make parents think he has the ability to hurt their children’s chances for success in hockey are finally being rejected because a critical mass of outrage and indignity has been reached. Thanks to all who have canceled their subscriptions. Thanks to every single one of you who are helping to spread the word about just how unscrupulously Ron Holmes behaves and how poorly regarded he truly is throughout the world of youth hockey. Keep spreading the word. Paste links to this site on every forum, email your friends, and especially warn parents with younger children who are new to this whole scam, The Scouting News preys on the love and pride of parents. It’s time to turn up the heat and finish them off for good. It’s amazing through all this, one man has stubbornly refused to hear the complaints of the public – that he has refused to apologize publicly and mend his ways. Until The Scouting News publicly apologizes for misrepresenting itself, erase their bookmark, don’t visit their site even out of curiosity, and don’t give them one thin dime. Way to go, hockey fans! You should be very proud of yourselves. The court of public opinion has convicted Ron Holmes, The Scouting Nazi. Just look at those teeny, tiny numbers in the bottom right corner. Let’s see if we can get them all the way down to zero.

Here are links to other sites where supporters gather:

• Network 54 92 ‘AAA’ GTHL
• Network 54 Sports R4U
• Network 54: “Credibility”
• Network 54: “Benny”
• Network 54: “From a Coach”
• Network 54: “Dangerous Game”
• SoCal Hockey Forums: “What’s the Point?”

Resource for Scouts or Brag Rag for Parents?

While The Scouting News claims to be a resource for scouts and coaches, its credibility is continually damaged by its own words and practices. The Boycott Forum recently called them on their “tip sheets” which they claim are compiled from calls for information by college, pro, and junior coaches. In the same article, they appeal to kids who want to be added to the list asking them to fill out a “free form.” If any player can submit himself to the list, how valuable can it really be to teams looking for the best players? This kind of semantic gymnastics is par for The Scouting News and fairly representative of the deceit employed in their business practices. Ever wonder how much of their revenue comes from scouting staffs vs players’ parents? You can bet its heavily lop-sided in favor of parents. If you want to pay to read online what you or your child has written, that’s certainly your prerogative, but if you think you’re paying to get scoop from legitimate decision-makers, you are mistaken. The Boycott takes issue with the Scouting News not because of its content, but precisely because of its persistent deceptive practices. Cancel your subscription now and don’t renew, even if they offer you 90 days free. The Boycott is working and people are getting the message that giving Ron “Benny” Holmes their money only supports fraudulent, predatory, and discriminatory business practices which do more to hurt kids than to help them.

Scouting News Trades on Violence

In a new low, The Scouting News used its anonymous “intel” arm, Network 54 to stir the pot regarding a recent row at a youth hockey game. If it weren’t enough to trade on the pride and hopes of parents and children re-selling them their very own recycled words, they are now fishing for dirt on the seamier side of the pond. Next they’ll be trolling for parents’ personal indiscretions. Welcome the Jerry Springer of hockey, Ron “Benny” Holmes (aka The Scouting News).

The Scouting News Launches Puppet Site

In a desperate attempt to save its sinking flag-ship, The Scouting News recently launched copy-cat site, icescouting.com. The new domain is registered anonymously and differs from the Scouting News only in that its scouts have names and photographs published. Or should I say its Scout (only one). While it would be unfair to comment on the legitimacy or credibility of the new site’s source, he is clearly not discriminating about the company he keeps. We urge “former WHL scout”, Sean Wilson, to distance himself as quickly and as far as possible from this new joint venture and its cowardly face, Ron Holmes. Perhaps if Wilson knew the lows to which Holmes stoops in the name of business, he would never have allowed his name and likeness to be associated. On the other hand, perhaps Wilson is associated with The Scouting News precisely because he was unsuccessful in prior ventures. You are judged by the company you keep, and Mr. Wilson, regrettably it is affecting your reputation and credibility very negatively. How do we know these two are in choots? When have you ever seen The Scouting News link to a competitive site? When have you ever seen them name a source? The sites use the same payment processor. They even use the same words, pictures, and articles. They want you to visit the new site. Why? Because the Boycott is working! The Scouting News revenue is spiraling beyond repair thanks to the Boycott. By setting up a figure-head and copy-cat site with a different name, they hope to continue their business of preying on the hopes, dreams, and pride of innocent parents and children by masquerading as a legitimate source of news for coaches and scouts. There is even, perhaps, redemptive value in that aim as long as there are those who knowingly buy into it. There is however, no excuse for the bullying and persecuting practiced by Ron Holmes.

Boycott The Scouting News and Boycott IceScouting.com! Boycott every other venture it spawns until The Scouting News can muster the integrity to publish an aplogy on its front page and in its Network 54 Forum. Aplogize for calling coaches to complain about parents who don’t agree with your articles, apologize for attempting to black-list deserving kids, apologize for spreading lies about others in internet forums, apologize for bullying and persecuting paying customers, and apologize for taking so long to apologize. Then, the Boycotts will be lifted.

Scouting News: Bogus Rumors Hurt

What’s the big deal if you’re only wrong 1% of the time? That’s one perspective, but when you spread rumors from trusted “inside sources” that players are drafted or committed and those rumors turn out to be false, credibility is damaged – not just yours but that of everyone associated with the story. The Scouting News commonly extols its accuracy while ignoring its (arguably comparative) errors as insignificant. Let me ask you this, “If you’re an aspiring athlete, and someone publishes something untrue about you that affects your future, how would you feel?” This is exactly why people who subscribe to and support The Scouting News should cancel their subscriptions immediately. Today, an announcement was made about a player based on unsubstantiated rumor. Now, that player who is completely without blame, will be linked by association with that deceit by some. Will he be overlooked by CHL scouts who believed he was committing to NCAA? Probably not but once rumors get going, they’re hard to stop.  Wake up and smell the coffee, people. Don’t subscribe, don’t renew, and don’t even read their teaser pages. Boycott The Scouting News and support our youth – support the Game!

Did The Scouting News start the rumor? We can’t say for sure, but they posted an article about NCAA commitments on their page today, they run the forum at Network 54, posted a message about Smith-Pelly there today, and as soon as someone called them on it and blamed them for starting the rumor, they deleted the message from the forum. It’s your call.

Scouting News Subscriptions Sag

The Scouting News is reaping the sour fruit of its misguided behavior. The Boycott has been more effective than we could have imagined. Their web site is down today, probably for lack of payment because as the graph below shows, their page views are down precipitously from the same time last year. No page views, no income – no income, no web site! Thanks to all of you who support this important grass-roots effort and let’s keep the heat on. Don’t support sites that prey on the pride and hopes of loving families, don’t pay for services which claim to increase your athlete’s visibility and success, and don’t support any business that manipulates children or their parents for financial gain. Athletes get what they earn on the playing field or ice – not based on what predatory disreputable services say about them. The graph below is not a fabrication, see for yourself.

The Scouting News Stalks Parents

The Scouting Nazi showed his hand recently. He creates newsgroups/forums and salts them with topics he thinks will generate discussion. Not a bad idea because it let’s him know where his suckers’ (I mean customers’) heads are. As the moderator, when he sees a topic take off with lots of comments, he sticks it on the front page of his publication as a teaser to get the same poor parents to pay money to read. That’s right, they’re reading some of the same stuff for free in the forums before it gets digested and regurgitated on pay-per-view. Expensive vomit is what it amounts too. Parents think they’re going to some innocuous forum to vent their feelings anonymously, but all they’re doing is feeding the hand that bites them (intentional). He publishes lists of kids from other publications like The Red Line Report which would amount to plagiarism and copyright infringement, but he deletes the names of kids whose parents have crossed him. That way, he can claim “originality” and when the ones he leaves off turn out to be the real deal, he conveniently cowers behind his claim that he’s 99% accurate. Baloney! He’s 99% accurate because he publishes children’s and parents’ accounts of themselves and leaves out the ones who know the truth. If he’d put them all in, he’d be 100% accurate, but what good would that be? Exactly, worthless as well. Be very suspicious of any forum you’re reading at http://www.network54.com, especially if it contains threads like “who’s the best…”, “top forwards….”, etc. Snake oil, anyone? If you don’t believe me, post a negative comment on any www.network54.com Hockey Forum and see what happens. Another hint: the forums he moderates don’t make IP addresses visible- that’s so you can’t easily prove it’s him (unless you know what to look for).

Propaganda Rises as Page-Views Plummet

The Scouting News offered up another juicy morsel of mediocrity this week with its article, “Free: Thoughts.” Thank goodness they were free, but calling that meandering propaganda “thoughts” is euphemistic at best. The article opens with,

“July has been our best month ever! Now let’s move forward with discussing The Scouting News’ focus for 2007-2008. Our goal is real simple: BE MORE SUCCESSFUL and BE NUMBER ONE! We will let others talk the talk, while we walk the walk.”

Hey, maybe we can suggest one or two more goals to shoot for. How about, “respect customers” and “act with integrity”? They’re finally letting others talk? Amazing! Actually, it took a Boycott to get the truth out. The “news” goes on to contradict itself, “…Despite the loss of revenue and traffic message boards created for The Scouting News we will stand by our decision.” Apparently the decision they’re sticking to is the one to be rude, arrogant, deceitful and to tick everyone off as much as humanly possible. So which is it, was July their best month ever? Or did “the message boards” cause a loss of revenue and traffic? Tell ya what my Boycott buddies, here’s the chart of his traffic. It’s publicly available data that I am not making up:

So, clearly, July was NOT their “best month ever.” Their “reach” is down 33% in the last three months and their internet traffic rank based on a combined measure of page views and users is dropping like a rock. Holmes goes on to say they’re going to build three new sites to swindle and bully even more unsuspecting victims. In other words, the Boycott has been so effective, he’s going to a new platform that will allow him even more autocratic control and power to persecute his customers. If your child is getting a good report from this fool, good for you, but your money is directly supporting cyber terrorism and you should stand up for your fellow hockey parents, coaches, and players and cancel your subscription, ask for a refund, and don’t renew until Holmes publishes an apology on his front page. It’s so simple. All he has to do is say that he finally understands that the boycott wasn’t about a disagreement with his content- rather it was about the obsessive manner he went about attacking and persecuting customers and others who disagreed with him, that he regrets that behavior, and that he promises not to do it again in the future. How hard it that? Instead, he’d rather dig his heels in and continue spreading lies, omitting truths, and asking you to take his word at every turn. That’s ok, this Boycott can easily and quickly be expanded to include any other sites he puts up, so we’ll just leave it here until we get our apology. So after all this, you still think the “news” is worth paying for? Did you notice who they left off the 92 list and have you asked yourself why? I seem to recall a recent first round WHL ’92 draftee who doesn’t even show in the top ten of Holmes’ latest and “most accurate” list. Again, although this Boycott is not about content, the content as well as the omissions tell the story of this man’s penchant for punishing others with whom he disagrees and they highlight the inescapable untruths he foists daily upon his victims. Don’t support him any more in any fashion. Tell us your story of how Holmes bullied or lied to you.

12 Days

Only 12 days ago, the Boycott blog did not exist. Today, I Googled “The Scouting News” and was humbled to see that the Boycott blog is third in the search order. Ironically, the only thing separating The Scouting News from the Boycott is the A-Train Hockey Vlog. At this point, I’m thinking it may actually be possible for the Boycott to become more popular than The Scouting News itself! That would be the utlimate testament to the power of freedom – the very freedom Ron Holmes seeks to limit. The Boycott couldn’t possibly survive on the effort of one person, so thanks to all of you who are checking out this site- who value freedom of expression and abhor censorship, persecution and bullying. Keep clicking, seaching, and sending this site to everyone you know in hockey. Has The Scouting News offended you? Tell the world your story here so that others can be spared the abuse you sufferred. Don’t subscribe and don’t renew. Don’t fund oppression, lies, and persecution of the innocent. Just click on “Join the Boycott” and leave a comment telling your story.

Boycott Gains Ground

Wow, the Boycott is really picking up steam. It’s amazing how quickly the new blog has risen to the top of the search engines. A couple of weeks ago, this site didn’t even exist. Have you Googled lately? This blog started 07/08 and by 07/11 it debuted in the 49th position on WordPress’s Growing Blogs of the Day. Today, the Boycott has over 1341 hits averaging 150 hits per day. That may not sound like a lot, but when you look at where the Boycott appears in the search engine orders, you can see that the Boycott is definitely gaining ground.

The Boycott only has four more spots to climb until it is challenging the main site itself. Soon it will be impossible for anyone to find the Scouting News without finding the Boycott blog as well, and that is our primary objective. Ultimately, this boycott seeks the removal of Ron Holmes, as the primary bully and persecutor of public dissent. We seek an end to this organization’s attempts to harm players and thereby the game of hockey itself through its own self-important dellusions. The Scouting News is marketed to parents as a scouting resource. The truth is that it is no more than a magic eight ball benifitted by an internet which puts the world at its plagiarising fingertips. Reject bullying, blacklisting, elitism, totalitarianism, fascism, nazism, and racism. Stand up for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association. Don’t give Ron Holmes another thin dime! Add your comments anonymously or using a pseudonym and rest assured your identity will be protected from the persecution of this stubborn, ego-maniacal man, and end his reign of terror.