Hello everyone, this is just a brief post to explain the general happenings behind the scenes so that everyone is on the same page during the upcoming months.
For starters, thank you. Thank you for your continued support of this site, regardless of if you come here for the writing, the banter in the comments, or to be a troll we take huge pride in the fact that we’ve been able to recreate a community of commenters on this site. The first time I ever posted on this site was a recap of a preseason game on September 29th, 2016… the post got 54 views. The first regular season gameday posted on this site in 2016 received 123 views. Last year during the post season things picked up and we started averaging around 900-1000 views per gameday/recap. This year things continued to grow, the recap of the Penguins game 6 loss received 2,010 views by unique users. That’s just nuts. So again, thank you to everyone. OGs to the site, new people, passerbys, all of you make this a better place and keep us going. Special “thank yous” to Lauriuu Bonzalez for covering the gamedays and recaps when my computer died despite being in Finland and possibly never sleeping. Also to Ungaba for arranging the tickets for the blog meetup, we should definitely do that again and who knows, maybe some friends from Jobberdy will come along too? Lets go for 50 people this year.
Offseason Schedule:
We are hoping to do approximately one post per week during the offseason. If the comments get out of control (>2000) then another post may be thrown up to keep Disqus from dying, we don’t want to pull a RMNB and crash every other day. SSG has a post or two lined up, and 66thDF will have his usual end of season statistics along with pre-draft coverage. If anyone out there wants to post something or has an idea for a post shoot us an email at penshockeyblog@gmail.com, don’t be scared, most reasonably stupid ideas are accepted. If something crazy happens to player X on a Thursday we most likely aren’t going to post about it because you’ve most likely already brought a link about it into the comments. We’ve never been, and never will be about “breaking news” and having information first. Our goal has always revolved around covering the Penguins in a free format where we don’t have to be politically correct in our wording.
Next Season:
I mentioned above that my first post was on September 29th, 2016 and my most recent recap was May 8th, 2018. That is a span of 586 calendar days. In that time frame this site has cranked out a ridiculous 485 posts (.827 posts/day which is a CF% of deeznutz). Of the 485 posts I have written 302 of them which thinking about it right now doesn’t even seem possible, though I’m sure Lady Rad will confirm. In order to save what is left of my sanity we have decided to open up the floor so to speak and invite others to share the gameday/recap writing experience. Ideally we could get two or possibly three more writers to go along with 66Df and myself and we would be able to form a schedule of sorts so the load wouldn’t be too heavy on anyone individually. If you’re interested, shoot us an email. Please understand that our fashion business did not take off so we can still only pay you in love and admiration. If you’re looking to take a few reps in a no pressure environment covering your favorite team then what do you have to lose?
Meanwhile
66DF should have a post coming up by the end of the week (which in 66DF world means between Thursday-Wednesday ;D ). The main group is going to continue to discuss any potential changes to the blog and where we would like to go with it. I will most likely have a few posts of poll questions like last year to get a feel for what you all want to see and not see. For me personally, I’m 15 weeks away from finishing my third year of medical school and have 3 shelf exams and 2 licensing exams in that time span so I will not be around too much in the comments. That being said I am always there in spirit and love all of you. Be good to each other, love thy neighbor, all that good shit and we will talk soon!
-Rad