A little less than a year ago, I posted in the old blogspace about IM conversations with Eklund–and yes, I am still completely convinced that it was him.

I said my piece, I then declared a moratorium, and I let Eklund and his fanbois (including TSN’s Bob McKenzie) take their snide little potshots at me with impunity. I said nothing and allowed them to effectively call me a bald-faced liar, because I had said that I was done discussing Dwayne Klessel and would discuss him no further–and I am nothing if not a woman of my word.

I realize now that I made a serious mistake in allowing those indignities to go unchallenged, because in so doing I allowed Mr. Klessel’s twisted and warped perception to become a twisted and warped reality for far too many people–one individual even went so far as to make completely baseless comments about my mental stability…and deliberately told a bald-faced lie in the course of making those comments. I say that he deliberately told a lie, because even after I corrected him he refused to retcon his post or acknowledge that he was incorrect.

As for me? I am many things, but I am neither a liar nor am I “mentally disturbed”.

So why, you may ask, am I finally breaking my long silence with a post about Dwayne K. Klessel?

Read on.

In this thread on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s website, Mr. Klessel attempts to play himself off as an innocent party (with the help of an anonymous fanboi who winds up inadvertently putting the pre-emptive lie to one of Eklund’s later statements) and act as if he’s Bragi’s gift to hockey bloggers. Eric McErlain, Paul Kukla, and Da Chief all take their turns commenting–and Eklund dodges each and every last one of them.

As usual, Dwayne-o refuses to answer any questions, continues to insist that he’s “anonymous” even though his real identity has been uncovered more than a few times, and makes continued futile attempts to paint himself as the King of All New Hockey Media rather than a man who can’t keep a story straight if you put a gun to his head. He is grossly misleading the public, and that is something that I cannot abide.

I have returned, friends. I have returned.