Soup Nazi’s Cousin

Besides the manipulative, threatening, coercive, behavior of The Scouting News against innocent children, this blog has never mentioned the other original source of inspiration behind the name choice.  When the Boycott began, Seinfeld was still producing new episodes.  One of his most popular and enduring creations was the “Soup Nazi.”  The character had  a product that was popular, and he mercilessly withheld it from anyone who dared to offend his delicate sensibilities.  As anyone who knows about Benny will attest, there is a comically tragic side to his egomania.  Understandably he resents being called a Nazi, and he doesn’t see the parallels of his own propaganda and persecution which were mainstays of the Third Reich.  He also apparently, never watched Seinfeld or is utterly unable to laugh at himself.  There are a couple of longer clips that can’t be embedded, but you can see them here.  The second is hillarious- “Soup Nazi – The Revenge.”  If Elaine were a hockey mom, she would definitely Boycott The Scouting News

 

 

And the Beat Goes On

We may never be able to shut The Scouting News down permanently, but as long as the Boycott is alive and Benny keeps leeching parents and kids, we know that we’re having an impact.  Over 25,000 visitors have checked out the boycott and we’ve seen their internet traffic and subscriptions take a dizzying dive.  The hockey world has become wise, and the Scouting Nazi has branched out into other sports in search of unsuspecting parents to prey upon their pride.  Pass on the word to parents with children in other sports – no one is safe.   Leave your stories and comments here as a warning to others.  Cancel your subscription, don’t renew, and don’t let these guys bully you.

Remember, the Boycott has nothing to do with content.  If the Scouting News wants to say that children are washed-up as Bantams or phenoms at  12-years-old, the merit of their argument does not concern the Boycott.  In fact, the Boycott supports the right of the Scouting News and any business to express itself, however ridiculous or pedantic we may find the content.  The Boycott continues for one reason only. Benny (aka Ron Holmes, aka The Scouting Nazi) has in the past targeted the children of parents who questioned his business model, complained about his service or disagreed publicly with him without apology.  He went so far as to call the coaches of these children and spread rumors and lies about their parents in a misguided attempt to protect the so-called reputation of his business.  He marginalized children and their parents, attempted to frighten and threaten them with power which he does not and has never had.  Pay this guy $200, shut your mouth, and even if your child is an average player, he’ll get a nice article written about him every year. Stop paying, disagree, or correct any of their questionable content, and you become a victim of stalking, slander, and defamation.

Scouting News Scam

Benny and the Scouting News count on the false belief of parents that children are selected for the best opportunities based on their parents’ behavior rather than their own talent and effort.  Parents who believe this are reluctant to challenge a self-professed expert.  Parents and players who have been through the system, however, will tell you that the Scouting News has no value other than personal entertainment.  Don’t Boycott the Scouting News because their articles are plagiarized or culled from submissions of middle-school children themselves.  Don’t Boycott the Scouting News because it’s filled with misspellings and poor grammar.  Don’t Boycott the Scouting News because it plainly lacks the veracity it claims to prove year after year.

Boycott the Scouting News because the person who runs it preys on the pride of parents, steals their money, and marginalizes them and their children if they raise so much as an eyebrow in disagreement.  Every cent you give them pays for childish vendettas and attempts at blacklisting.  Such behavior is contrary to everything good parents are hoping to gain for their children in competitive sports.

NHL Central Scouting Proves Point

The NHL Central Scouting Preliminary Rankings were released yesterday, and there were a few players listed who have been suspiciously absent from The Scouting News pages over the years.  How is it that a service which claims to know everything worth knowing about competitive youth hockey could perennially overlook any player good enough to be considered for the NHL draft by Central Scouting itself?  The answers are easy: 1) The Scouting News is not remotely related to any legitimate scouting or ranking organization; 2) The Scouting News purposely and systematically attempts to blacklist players whose parents have had disagreements with The Scouting News in the past.

No reputable scouting organization is perfect and depending on how deep you look, no two of them produce exactly the same ranking list.  These organizations may agree on the top 10, 25 or 30 players in a given year, but beyond that there is a lot of movement.  It’s one thing to leave a player off because you honestly don’t think he has the right stuff, but when every other leading (ie. legitimate) scout has a player ranked high enough to be drafted by the NHL and he’s missing from your list, well… let’s just say you’ve got a chip on your shoulder that completely undermines your integrity and credibility

Think about it, friends.  You’ve seen all of the claims the News makes about its predictions.  They scream about the accuracy and track record of knowing who will make it to the next level.  Every year they swindle more impressionable young families into paying to view  what they think will be objective or flattering articles about their player.  What they get is poorly worded, mispelled compilations of self-promotion submitted by players and parents themselves or gleaned and rehashed from myriad other web sites.  If that’s all there were to it, however, this Boycott would not exist.  If they want to peddle a poor product and people want to pay for it, we’d say “caveat emptor” and leave it at that.   The Scouting News crosses the line by aggressively marginalizing players of parents who so much as question their content.  By subscribing to The Scouting News, you are tacitly funding the attempted blacklisting of parents and the isolation of their innocent children from a game they love.  Is your ego really so enormous that it must be fed by a publication utterly lacking in integrity regardless of the cost to others?

Hockey is a team sport; which team are you on?  Join the Boycott!  Don’t give another cent to the Scouting Nazi, don’t renew your subscription, and don’t send them any stories or pictures of your children.  Until they post an apology to all hockey parents admitting their practice of blacklisting and marginalization, this Boycott will continue.

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).