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Apologies

Earlier today, an article was posted on Die By The Blade that centered around an idea first proposed by John Vogl of the Buffalo News, and subsequently debated by other websites, such as Two In The Box (it was also mentioned by their Instigator podcast jointly produced with 3rd Man In), Pro Hockey Talk, and Puck Daddy among others, about whether or not Maxim Afinogenov deserves to be on the Sabres Alumni mural over other possible candidates.

The article in question, written and published by this author, did not give credit to any of those writers or sites for their ideas and discussions, which, despite all the best intentions to do so originally, amounts to little more in the written world than plagiarism. The article in question was immediately taken off of this site, and will not return.

Please consider this post my sincerest apology to those writers, and to our readers as well. No amount of fancy editing or updates can cover the fact that the post in question was originally published without the credit for its origin going to those who deserve it, especially Mr. Vogl and the Sabres Edge blog. It was an inexcusable mistake, and will not happen again.

I hope that anyone who has read Die By The Blade over the past three years that I’ve been writing would understand that in no way was it my aim to avoid giving credit where credit is due. I’ve spent six mornings a week for the past few years (at least, when hockey isn’t locked out) collecting as many Buffalo Sabres articles as possible, from both mainstream sources and blogs, for our Daily Links posts; in fact, Mr. Vogl’s article was one that we linked to on Wednesday morning. There is a great deal of quality Sabres writing out there, and I’ve happily pointed our readers to timely and well-written news, analysis, and opinion posts from the many different sites and voices that are writing about our favorite team because the Sabres online community is one that I have great respect for, and one that rightly deserves both credit and clicks for the work it produces.

It’s important to me that Die By The Blade remains transparent to you, the readers, and that means admitting when we’ve made a mistake. I hope that by doing so, we can begin to re-build the trust you have that this site is one that holds itself to a high standard of quality and honesty. There’s no excuse for publishing an article that leans heavily on the ideas of others without giving them proper credit, but hopefully Mr. Vogl, and all of you, can find some value in an apology for making that mistake.

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