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This just infrom Chris Ryan of NJ.comandfromAndrew Gross of the Fire & Ice blog, word from Taylor Hall that he’s still not OK with being traded away from the Edmonton Oilers.

At first, Ryan and Gross both had Hall saying he felt “bitter resentment” towards the Oilers. As Ryan originally reported it: “Just the way everything went down, I still hold a bitter resentment towards them.”

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Hall added about the trade: “It was a whirlwind, but I think it’s going to be a day I look back on, and I think it’s going to be a really good thing for me.”

In a second and updated version of the story, Ryan corrected his mistake and reported the quote this way:“Just the way everything went down, I still hold a bit of resentment towards them.”

So “bit of,” not “bitter,” which is a major difference.

My take

Bitter resentment?! That’s strong. Bit of resentment. That sounds like the Taylor Hall I have listened to for years in interviews. Easy to see how reporters could make such a mistake. I’ve made similar errors listening to interviews. Once I talked to a guy who said he got into a lot of trouble when he was in the army, then explained, “I thought too much.” But I heard him saying, “I fought too much.” And that’s how I reported it, only to have him come back after the story was published and tell me I had got it wrong. I listened to that tape dozens of times and could not tell if he said “thought” or “fought,” but I took his word for it that he said “thought.” No doubt Hall said a “bit of resentment” here. Hall’s resentment,whether it’s bitter or a bit, still isn’t going away, nor is the very real and clearly bitter resentment that many of his biggest fans in Edmonton feel about the trade. They’re not even close to being over it and won’t be, I suspect, until the day Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli is fired. Why wouldn’t Hall be upset? He was playing on a team with Connor McDavid, with Jordan Eberle, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jesse Puljujarvi, a team that might well become a force in the NHL. He had put his all into that team for six years. The team was also moving into one of the coolest new building and training facilities in the NHL. Hall himself was also coming off a year where he played the best two-way hockey of his career. So who wouldn’t be ticked off? Who wouldn’t be full of bitter resentment? This trade may well have cost him a chance to win a few Stanley Cups, given the impact that players like McDavid have on NHL teams. That has got to hurt a bit.

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