Matt Moulson's Family Affair

Hockey has always been a sport of pedigree and lineage; the Esposito boys, a gaggle of Sutters, the inseparable Sedin twins and many others, have made hockey the special sport it is.

Not a direct blood link, but Sean Backman, brother-in-law of Matt Moulson was signed yesterday to a 1-year, 2-way NHL/AHL deal. The 25-year-old forward is a Yale graduate and is listed at 5'8" tall. From first glance, you may wonder what Garth was thinking. But as Bridgeport Sound Tigers reporter Mike Fornabaio wrote, Jeff Hamilton didn't do so badly at similar stature.

But to me the real giggle is not that Matt Moulson is taking family lineage to the ice level, but also into the brave new world of social media.

Ah, we live in strange and wonderful times you and I. Never before could we view public figures chirping each other without the suggestive interpretations of a gossip reporter. Now we can sit on the sofa and read what stars, athletes and regular people have to say to each other just by following a Twitter stream.

Moulson has become a pro at it along with NY Islander Michael Grabner. The signing of @SBacks1 (Sean Backman's Twitter handle) has just guaranteed him thousands of new followers. But he's not alone in the Twitterverse. His brother Brett Backman (@BBacks16) loves to get into the act.

Not to be left out of the fray is @MoulsonDosTres, Chris Moulson, brother of - you guessed it -- Matt.

Now, the reason why I'm writing about this (other than it's August and I'm really pretty sick and tired of writing about political BS) is because we have never been given a window into the personalities of our players as we have today.

The TRUE personalities. From the exchanges we read between friends and brothers, who they really are comes through. True voice without the homogenized, pasteurized, scripted PR interviews produced for television.

No, this is raw and real and often funny as hell.

Of course there is always the dark side to social media, but when you use it intelligently, you can get around that.

I use it as the only way to get news faster than the speed of light. I find it funny when I'm sitting at the breakfast table and the big angry man will be reading Newsday and make a comment about a story he is reading as if it was a surprise to him. I have a hard time not snapping back "huh? Old news! We talked about that yesterday! Where were you?"

Well, where he was WASN'T on Twitter. But he was probably on Facebook. Weren't you 'droidboy'?