NHLer Denies He Cheated On Singer Tate McRae

You know the NHL is doing something right in the culture department when it has my full attention during Super Bowl week. 

Major drama unfolded this week when 20-year-old Columbus Blue Jackets center Cole Sillinger (never heard of him) fired up Instagram to set the record straight (sorta) over allegations he cheated on 20-year-old Canadian pop singer Tate McRae. 

And he set the record straight to a meme account. Talk about a move you never would've seen ten years ago. Welcome to the future. 

Anyway, meme site "Blind Ref Logic" took a shot at Sillinger over the weekend – it was NHL All-Star weekend – in a piece where the meme site alleged Sillinger dated out of his league (with the pop star) and then cheated on her, which jumpstarted her career and then she got invited to Toronto to perform at the all-star game before Sillinger made it to an all-star game. 

"All false my guy," Sillinger replied to the meme site. 

This is the best drama the NHL has given us in years – I'm not counting Evander Kane having his ex-wife kicked out of an arena; that was just sad. Sillinger-McRae is Grade A material. 

"Potentially the greatest fumble of a female in human history," the meme account alleged. 

Now the NHL has fans of the hockey guy going back-and-forth with the singer's fans. It's like a Taylor Swift breakup scenario for Canada. "She's nothing special lol went to Hs with her. If she's at all the same now guy dodged a bullet," one Instagram analyst wrote over the weekend. 

The war of words just kept going from there. 

"This post is so stupid. Leave them both alone. Have you seen the girls that hockey players score ? This girl is Mid and he probably already has a beautiful blonde keeping his bed warm at night. Anyways, who cares!!!!," Dark Romance Addict wrote back. 

Look, is this just pure stupidity? Yes. But as someone who traffics in this stuff, this is gold. We have two forces making the NHL interesting for a minute. Do I care about regular season NHL games? Of course not. I might throw on a game here and there to avoid the NBA like the plague, but I can't possibly care about the NHL until these baby faces start growing playoff beards. 

But now, if the Blue Jackets happen to be on, I'm going to key in on Sillinger to see how he's doing since this gossip hit the internet. Has he let this affect him? Does he have a chip on his shoulder that has him grinding his ass off for the last-place Blue Jackets? 

As for McRae, I'd never heard of her until this drama. Now she's on the radar, especially because she's been known to throw on hockey gear for Instagram photos.