December 15, 2018
Brace Hemmelgarn/USA Today Sports Images
This is the Flyers' Chuck Fletcher, not Twitter's Chuck Fletcher.
There’s a guy named Chuck Fletcher who lives, according to his Twitter account, in New York. He is not the Philadelphia Flyers’ new general manager, Chuck Fletcher, but you wouldn’t know it from his Twitter mentions.
When the Flyers hired their new general manager, Chuck Fletcher — who we’ll call Flyers Fletcher — on Dec. 3, the Twitter user Chuck Fletcher — who we’ll call Twitter Fletcher — started receiving way more notifications than usual.
After all, Twitter Fletcher hadn’t tweeted since Jan. 11, except for one single direct reply four days before the hire.
All of a sudden, his Twitter account was abuzz. Sports fans, you see, like to tweet “at” coaches or front office execs when they’re displeased, even if the Twitter account is not the real person.
Everyone was welcoming Flyers Fletcher to Philadelphia — and asking him to fix their hockey team.
After 10 days, Twitter Fletcher decided he’d had enough:
I’m not the general manager of the flyers so please stop asking me to trade somebody!
— Chuck Fletcher (@chuckfletcher) December 13, 2018
Twitter Fletcher’s frustration is understandable. His phone was probably quite a mess at that point.
Four hours later, though, he’d warmed to the attention and joked about firing Dave Hakstol, the team’s vanilla ice cream cone of a head coach:
I’d like to unofficially announce that I’m letting Hakstol go. Several trades to be announced soon.
— Chuck Fletcher (@chuckfletcher) December 14, 2018
Pretty funny, Twitter Fletcher!
More jokes were made, and eventually we found out Twitter Fletcher actually used to live in Philadelphia:
Next time I’m in philly. How about McGlinchey's that was my neighborhood dive!
— Chuck Fletcher (@chuckfletcher) December 14, 2018
This has happened before, of course, perhaps most famously when Chip Kelly was the Eagles’ head coach.
The man who owns @ChipKelly and has dealt with a whole lot of online abuse had some advice for Twitter Fletcher:
Don't try to fight it. It's like overcorrecting when skidding in snow, go with the ride. It'll even out. https://t.co/XXsiWBrgdG
— chipkelly (@chipkelly) December 14, 2018
The Internet is a wild place.
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