If you were a world renowned brain surgeon would you enjoy listening to a bunch of nobodys talk about medicine based on what they learned from Dr. Oz?
Can't imagine anyone from the inside giving two ***** about what goes on here.
Yikes, that seems a bit naive.
I read forums on the internet about the company/product I work on all the time. Not daily, but probably once every few weeks. Of course there's a lot of wrong information and crazy opinions, but so what? You're reading to gauge the public's perception, not to take orders from them. Sometimes it's as simple as you launched a feature and want to see if users like it enough to talk about it. Metrics and internal information can tell you a lot, but not everything.
Surprisingly, some players are brands, even. Not to the same extent as actors or musicians, but still, you can be certain that there are quite a few of them who carefully cultivate their image and want to track themselves. And then there are others who don't pay attention to their image, but are still curious to know how people think they're playing, for the exact same reasons I'm curious to know what people think of my work. It can be enjoyable after you do something good to read about it.
Besides, a lot of the topics on HFBoards have nothing to do with what players are experts in, e.g. trade rumors, salary cap, analytics, highlights and hype, business dealings, prospect info, etc. There's actual interesting information to be found here that they will have a hard time finding in their own circles. Frankly, your post makes me think you've never looked at the Business of Hockey, By The Numbers, or Prospect forums in your time here.
Overall though I think most players stick primarily to Twitter as far as online communities, but the die hards who spend the most time following what's going on around the game definitely come here. I guarantee it.
