My Fitbit says I walked around Columbus for 10 miles today, so this is going to be brief. But the timing really matters to me.
As I get older and things continue to change, what makes this site so beautiful is a very personal thing to me.
When I was in high school, I almost lost my mother to a genetic disease that she didn’t know she had. When I saw her at her worst, it gave me an understanding, for which I’m eternally grateful. That life is finite. And when we’re here, we have to do what we love, make the most of our friendships and opportunities, and never take a day for granted. For me, that was the lesson.
So when I reflect on the season ending, I just feel lucky to be able to wake up every day and be creative for you. Over the last few years, I have come to learn that I grew up with undiagnosed/untreated ADHD. And the way I coped with that as a kid was to sink into my hyperfocus and draw. I remember one day, when it felt like five minutes went by — I think like 8 or 9 hours actually did — and I drew this incredible Wayne Gretzky portrait with a ballpoint pen late into the night with music on. All that drawing got me into art school. And two decades later, I now have the opportunity to create and make stuff about the thing I love most: hockey.
So why am I talking about this? Every day when I check how many people have visited the site at a certain point, it’s almost always a predictable number. You guys tune in. Every day. It doesn’t matter if social media’s importance in driving traffic is crashing, it doesn’t matter if Google introduces a new AI summarized search result, it doesn’t matter how important or unimportant the news topics are (by the way, this season we banned on Disqus the phrase “slow news day”).
The best example is March. It was one of our most-read months in blog history, despite the team’s struggles and everything going on technology-wise outside of our control.
Like, technology has changed so much since we first started. And just like any athlete, every website has a shelf life, too, right? One day you’re breaking news about Russian meteors in the English language accidentally and everyone loves you, and the next day, there are AI Facebook pages, taking your photos and titles from articles, and reposting them as just a picture on their page, getting more likes, interaction, and algorithm push on the timeline than you — the actual person, who did all the work.
I can’t fix or control that, but I’ve learned I don’t need to. And it’s because of your dedication, your acceptance, your love of the team, your love for our — honestly, I think we’re like, really, really good at this now — but our type of writing, reporting, and presentation that no one else in hockey does.
What you guys do is power a bunch of kids’ dreams in adult bodies, and I just hope you know how powerful your click, your search, your email, your DM, your tweet, and your comments have been this season.
It’s beautiful to be able to do this. It’s beautiful to serve you. There will be nothing better I ever do in my life.
From the absolute bottom of my heart, thank you for season number 17.
We’ll try to do even better next year.
