Does this photo bum anyone else out?

Hey everybody, it’s that time again. The season is long over. So too are the playoffs and the finals, free agency season and development camp. Stretching out before us is the red waste we call August, the month where so hockey is unimportant you’d think you’re on Long Island.

Our Caps have signed their free agents. They’ve said goodbye to one coach and hired another coach– along with two assistants that make it feel like we time-warped back to ’98. A couple prospects have signed their entry-level contracts, and the Caps have renewed their vows with Hershey (a huge relief to us and SHoE). Elsewhere in the league, that drama with Parise, Nash, Weber, and Staal has played itself out. Almost all of our questions have been answered.

Almost.

It’s okay to post this picture anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

We still don’t know what will become of free agents Alex Semin and Mike Knuble. John Carlson has yet to sign a new contract as a restricted free agent (we’re confident that’ll happen soon). Shane Doan‘s uncertain status in Phoenix is unnerving GMs across the league, and who knows what moves will shake out after that decision. Trades are always possible.

And above all else there is collective bargaining. The NHL’s owners and labor have until the middle of September to agree to a deal or risk a lockout. No hockey this fall would mean no stupid jokes from us and no Joe Beninati JPEGs for you. That’s unacceptable.

We’ll cover those stories — and whatever mischief A.O. gets up to– as they develop, but basically we at RMNB will be spooling down for a month. Yeah, we’re hitting up the beach and grouting our bathrooms– but we are not abandoning you or this site. Just the opposite.  We’ve got a TON of stuff coming up. Here’s a taste:

• Site redesign. You can pretty much say goodbye to the Big Gray Thing, ’cause that’s going away. We’re giving the site a big makeover, including nifty new navigation and lots of pretty gadgets for you to click on while you’re supposed to be working.
• Creative Commons. Starting this Fall we will be releasing all our original content under a Creative Commons non-commercial, shake-alike license, which means you can remix it and repurpose it however you want. We’ll have more info on that later.
• Comments. We quietly upgraded our comments system to DISQUS this year, and it’s totally awesome; you don’t have to refresh the page to see new comments anymore. Plus we support images again, so go crazy with your photoshop. Best part is we can now nuke abusive comments from space. Take heed, entire Internet-connected population of Boston.
• Tons of new pages. Most of which I can’t tell you about now, but we’ll have some housekeeping stuff like real About Us and Authors pages, plus some convenient links to the best of RMNB through the years.
• Top Secret Project #1. Ian will not allow me to tell you about his baby, but it’s adorable and it’s funny and it’s a good resource that you will want to bookmark for future reference.
• Top Secret Project #2. Rachel and I have been working on a labor of love, something sort of novel in the hockey world that should make a few waves and even more laughs.

Sorry to be vague, but that’s just a taste of our Master Plan. We’ve got a lot of other cool ideas for next season, provided that there is a next season to have.  We’ve got some big ideas for our Twitter, we’re gonna put some exclusive stuff on Facebook, and maybe we’ll post some non-panda pictures on our Pinterest as soon as we figure out how Pinterest works.

I know this is all one big tease, but the point is this: COOL STUFF IS A-COMIN’.

For now, we’ll keep you posted on the big stories. This is indeed the hockey dead zone, but we’re not going anywhere– just the opposite. So while we’re doing work under the hood, I’d like to invite you to take over RMNB.

What do you want to read about over the next month?

What do you want to take a look back at?

What are you looking forward to?

And what do you want out of the next version of RMNB?

On behalf of everybody here, we appreciate your feedback. Thanks. Crash the net.