The Best NHL Players to Follow on Twitter

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Half the reason hockey fans know who Paul Bissonnette is comes from his social media shenanigans. Bissonnette is a career fourth liner and his ability to poke fun at himself over this fact has generated a social media career far more popular than his job on the ice. Bissonette may have claimed the pinnacle of the NHL social media landscape with his ALS ice bucket challenge.

As for the rest of the NHL, which players are as fun as Bissonnette and deserve your follow?

@strombone1

Although his account isn’t officially verified to be him, everyone knows Roberto Luongo runs the extremely popular @strombone1 account. The veil of secrecy is kind of like when Micahel Jackson was on The Simpsons. We know who it is; they just never said anything officially.

As you will find out through this piece, self deprecating humour seems to be a key theme in creating a popular Twitter account for players and Luongo demonstrates that in spades.

It is no secret that Luongo is less than stellar when it comes to the shootout and his gab at the new rules voices popular displeasure over the skills competition and provides a comedic element. @strombone1 is probably the funniest NHL account in the Twitter-sphere.

@tseguinofficial

Tyler Seguin is kind of like the Johnny Manziel of the NHL and if there ever was a prime example of this comparison it would be Seguin’s social media exploits.

Seguin’s Twitter page is full of examples of a twenty two year old kid who is having as much fun as possible and why we should all be jealous of him.

Seguin posts links to his instagram account, which also features videos such as of him lying down and pretending to be a tee his friend hits a golf ball off of and more than a few pictures of him without his shirt. Plenty of other players from around the league also make cameo appearances.

While Luongo’s account is probably the funniest, Seguin’s may be the most enjoyable, especially for younger hockey fans.

@Hartsy43

The Columbus Blue Jackets’ winger began his #HartnellDown campaign while in Philadelphia, and he’s worth a follow because fans can enjoy poking fun at Hartnell all for a good cause.

#HartnellDown tracks how many times Hartnell falls down during a game and for each instance the winger donates money to a charity benefitting underprivileged children. Oh, and Hartenll also penned a children’s book about his time spent flailing around on the cold surface of NHL ice.

Within all the turmoil professional sports has seen of late, mainly in the NFL, Hartnell’s account is a great reminder that many of these players are also great role models, and we as fans should never forget that.

@grabs40

The only reassurance you need about whether or not to follow Michael Grabner is his Twitter profile picture. Just look at how awesome it is.

https://twitter.com/grabs40/status/499228641172406272

Between the expected tweets about golf and other events Grabner takes part in is his banter with fans and, more commonly, critics.

https://twitter.com/grabs40/status/504869944547606528

Don’t expect to troll Grabner without receiving any consequences.

@b_ryan9

The only reason you need to follow Bobby Ryan is for tweets like this:

https://twitter.com/b_ryan9/status/485151407176040448

Ryan’s account is something of a mix between Grabner’s and Seguin’s. Ryan doesn’t get into it with fans on the website, but will poke fun at others, like David Legwand, or himself, all while commenting on the goings on in the sporting world and his own life.

Twitter’s Best of the Rest: Honourable Mention

Without trying to sound too redundant, Eddie Lack has sort of taken the role of @strombone2 on the ice, as well as off it.

While Lack was back home in Sweden over the summer holidays, he started a segment called #swedishwordoftheday that were some of the most entertaining tweets of any account on Twitter.

The Lack-Luongo bromance ended way too soon.