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Things aren’t always as they seem

Phil Kessel is one of those athletes who you’d believe any story about. Even though he’s a star-level player who has won two Stanley Cups, he keeps a very low public profile. (He’s only made eight Instagram posts in the past year and hasn’t tweeted since his sister Amanda won a gold medal at the 2018 Olympics.) So even when a Toronto columnist fabricates a story about Kessel’s loyalty to a particular hot dog vendor, it sounds reasonably plausible.

The same goes for this story about Kessel’s home theater. 

The reserved Kessel certainly seems like just the type of guy to kick back in an old chair and watch a movie on a massive screen all by himself.

The enigmatic former Penguins winger put the home on the market for $2.1 million after being traded to the Coyotes and the listing photos show the home in the middle of the moving process. Some rooms have been cleared out while others have valuable items like a jersey signed by all of his Cup-winning 2016 teammates, so it’s tough to tell whether the version of the theater in the photo is the one Kessel actually used. 

In reality, though, the real estate agent staging the house just put the chair in there to give a sense of how big the room is. 

“We just put in a single chair because we thought it would be cute,” listing agent Dave Tumpa told TheWrap. “And as far as the room itself goes, to give perspective to the size of the room.”

While the solitary chair is a work of fiction, one thing that’s very, very real is the autographed Mariah Carey poster in the theater. 

See? Kessel is a fascinating man. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.