Channel 4's Bob Lobel and Steve Burton just reported that Bruins rookie Phil Kessel has testicular cancer. Kessel was hospitalized earlier in the day but neither the Bruins nor Kessel and his family gave the reason. Several hours after the Bruins' announcement, ESPN.com reported that Kessel's health issues had nothing to do with anything "nefarious," largely in response to speculation that the rookie was battling drug or alcohol addiction.

Lobel is the first mainstream reporter to, apparently, confirm Kessel's condition. However, bostonrinkrats.com posted the same news several hours ago but the site was widely condemned (and perhaps threatened with legal action) and removed the claim from its site. Most sites and news organizations had held back from speculating publicly on Kessel's condition after the Bruins and the Kessel family asked for privacy.

It will be interesting to see, first, if Lobel is right about Kessel. Lobel has a track record for, well, for speaking out of his ass. Second, the reaction to Lobel's decision to go public with this news after the Kessel family asked for privacy should be intriguing. I can tell you that shortly after the Bruins' initial announcement Barstool had information from two solid NHL sources, one player and one league executive, that Kessel had testicular cancer (no doubt every other Boston sports media outlet had the same info) but we held off posting it because we just felt a little creepy doing so. The Kessel's may have well sought out Lobel. But I figured that we would play it safe (and our audience knows how hard that is for us) and wait for more information before posting anything.

So, should we have posted that Kessel had testicular cancer? Did we puss out?