Soundin' Off

Five years ago today, in a little corner of our Web site, a “new experiment in supplemental hockey coverage” appeared, topped with a quote from a dead TV show.

Today, Futurama’s back, and we’re somehow still here (albeit in a different little corner of our Web site).

Five full years of this thing, better than a post a day (not in the summer, of course) on 417 games that counted and around 20 that didn’t. Things didn’t always go as planned, and the style evolved, and the blog evolved, and the world evolved (“Do what in 140 characters? Give me a break“), but I’d like to think this is still a good place to hang out and talk hockey, or highways, or TV, or linguistics, or the New Haven Nighthawks (because, still, somebody’s got to; why not us?)

I had begun following blogs in the couple of years leading up to 2005, stuff like Scott Koenig’s L.T. Smash milblog and of course Eric McErlain’s Off Wing Opinion. The idea kind of crept into my head, as it crept into a lot of others’ heads around that time, that something like that could actually supplement coverage without going too far into opinion. I tried it out myself in 2004-05 in a private Blogger blog, which convinced me it’d work. (You should see the rants in there.*) Got home from Vacation 2005 with the conviction to go for it, and found that Rene Morgan, then in charge of our Web staff, was starting up staff blogs. What timing. Thanks, Rene.

(And thanks for the classic logo, too)

We broke the thing twice (I still don’t think it was me, but whatever), we got redesigned without notice a time or two (which in at least one case, I’ll swear to the end, caused the breakage), we moved from “forum.” to “blog.” last year, and you guys have stuck it out. Cannot thank you enough.

*-But you won’t.