NEW YORK, NY – Over a month since the NHL revamped its website, it has been revealed by league sources that its popularity has declined significantly since removing its trademark terrible puns.

A league source today said that traffic to the site had dropped by approximately 50 per cent.

"Since we got rid of our puns, web traffic has taken a nosedive," the source said.

"A surprising number of people actually enjoyed reading the headers that our team of sixth graders came up with."

"It seemed that the less sense they made, the more positive feedback we'd get."

The source admitted that the downturn in traffic had surprisingly nothing to do with the barely functioning stats pages.

"Believe it or not, people are still visiting the site for our advanced stats and metrics."

Another insider revealed that a story published in The Elbow about a headline writer who celebrated using "Ain't It Swede?" for the hundredth time was the source of much inspiration in editorial meetings early in the season.

"That really got their creative juices flowing," the source said.

"When a group of eager kids see how much success a bad pun can get them, they all try extra hard to outdo each other and create the cheesiest pun possible. "

"I'd say they succeeded."