Paul Bissonnette earns himself a Tweet deal
Unsigned NHL journeyman used social media to remind teams he was still available
As the son of a retired college professor, Paul Bissonnette, the rank-andfile forward with a superstar’s social media following, has developed an unusual online habit: “It’s kind of annoying to be around me when I’m tweeting.” He asks questions, aloud. “I’m always asking, ‘Is this spelled correctly? How do you spell this?’ ” he said with a chuckle on Monday. “My friends kind of roll their eyes.”
Bissonnette has built an audience of more than 726,000 users on Twitter, and as the NHL opened its free agent season on Friday, he reasserted his command of the medium.
At 31, he began the day without a contract, and without word from any team with any interest in signing him. So he decided to have some fun. “Phones fully charged,” he wrote. “Still no calls but It’s early.”
A little while later: “This is usually how it goes. All the big dogs go right away. Role players to follow. Not gonna panic. Stay the course.”
Three minutes later: “Just fired my agent.”
At one point, he wrote he had missed a call from a number in Pennsylvania, raising the notion the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins were calling. Instead, he wrote, it was only a telemarketer, but that they still had “a great conversation about what I could bring to the table.”
Bissonnette has logged 202 games in a National Hockey League uniform, mostly as an enforcer with the Phoenix Coyotes. When he saw that the role was being phased out of the game, he tried to adjust his playing style — he scored two of his seven career goals in his final season with the Coyotes — but he could not secure his spot.
He has spent the last two seasons in the American Hockey League, skating in the Los Angeles Kings’ farm system. Bissonnette appeared in 35 games with the Ontario Reign last season, and while he left under the impression they would invite him back, nothing had been confirmed as July 1 rolled around.
As his Twitter storm gained momentum, the team called his agent.
“I would honestly say the reason why I’m sure they reached out that afternoon, when I was tweeting, was because they saw my Twitter as a cry for help kind of thing,” he said.
“Like, ‘Oh f---, maybe we haven’t reached out to Biss yet.’ ”
Bissonnette announced his deal the following day — on Twitter, fittingly.
“I think when you treat the prospects well, and you’re a nice guy around the room, and you kind of establish that work ethic and attitude into the young guys, they like that,” he said.
“Because you can’t really teach that side of it.” He said he signed a one-year deal. “I don’t know how many years I got left,” he said. “I might try to start getting the media side of it going sooner than later.”
Bissonnette has dabbled as a television analyst before, and as his Twitter feed suggests, he is both comfortable and adept with an audience.
“From the start, it’s always been genuine,” he said. “Even lately, I hadn’t been active on it, because I just didn’t feel like it. During the season, I barely tweet anymore — I just go on to read articles.”
That approach can change with the calendar.
“Now it’s the off-season,” he said. “It’s a little less serious.”