Late April fools joke??

[GRZ 179]

This morning it got into the news that the Top 5 projected pick in the upcoming S66 draft RW - Mikko Aaltonen announced his retirement, which made most of the VHL/VHLM/Scouting department very confused, we reached out to the player to clear up the confusion. 

What was that Mikko?
"Haha, you see I originally had planned to send out these news to everyone on the 1st of April, to prank everyone... Thing is I got overloaded with work and trainings that I forgot about this idea.
Why did you suddenly feel like posting it now?
"At first I had talked about my close friends about this prank, they enjoyed the idea, however because I couldn't do it at the 1st, they made a bet with me, if I didn't score 50 goals in  this season I had to post it later.... and unfortunately I had to commit to the promise I made *laughs*."
You have no idea how much this was reported in, we almost published 5 whole pages about these sudden news and there even were some speculations about why you did it.
"Well, I'm sorry for all the "fake work" you guys had to go through, I didn't feel good when posting it, but honestly seeing how some people thought that I killed my career without a reason made me chuckle a bit and made me realize how many people actually believe in me, was a good motivation boost.. I promise no pranks in the future.... or at least of this caliber....