With one of everyone's favorite hockey blogs, Hockeybird, deciding to take a powder because of the lockout, plenty of folks are asking what sort of future hockey blogging has. Here's Tom Benjamin:
While I haven't been doing this for years, I am left wondering what on earth I'll have to talk about once people get tired of the recriminations and finger pointing. I'm also grateful for the response from the readers. I get some really thoughtful comments, great emails (and even the not so great emails.) Despite the fact that there is no hockey - or perhaps because of it - blog readership has climbed pretty steadily over the past year and a half.What happens to the hockey blogs, and more specifically, what happens to this hockey blog if the season is well and truly gone?
And from the bucolic campus of Ryerson University, here's James Mirtle:
So, I have a question to pose to the many online hockey pundits that frequent here: does the end of the NHL season mean the end of hockey blogging for this year?How are things going to be affected? Are people going to still be interested?
How about this: We don't have anything to worry about.
I started blogging at the Route 7 Dispatch back in June 2001. Off Wing, which just passed its 3rd birthday a couple of weeks back, made its debut on February 10, 2002.
And back then, there wasn't exactly a clamor for hockey blogging. Don't believe me? Then take a look at this Sitemeter graph on monthly traffic at Off Wing between March 2002 and April 2003. The line is flat at the start because I didn't post the Sitemeter code until sometime in April 2002.
Not exactly encouraging at first, is it? As a matter of fact, it seemed like it was just me and the crickets in the not-so-distant past (and of course, my old pals at Puck Hog).
And, as for a lack of action translating into a lack of readership, take a look at this graph that tracks visitors on a monthly basis over the last 12 months.
The worst month of year was June, which of course, coincided with the Stanley Cup Finals. The best month was March, when Todd Bertuzzi attacked Steve Moore up in Vancouver. The second best month was November, when folks flocked to the Web to find video of both the brawl in Detroit, as well as the Terrell Owens/Nicolette Sheridan video.
Sure, not all of that related to hockey, but sports is sports, and if you build it, they will come. Perhaps not in very great numbers at first, but come they will, as long as you keep coming back too.
So all my buddies in the hockey blogging frat shouldn't fret. I know that in Blog space, eight months seems like a long time, but it really isn't. And if worse comes to worse, just drop out until the league announces its return. Don't worry, the fans will find you.
Who knew anything in downtown Toronto could be described as bucolic!
My traffic has also increased exponentially since I started the site in mid-December, so it’s not as if I’m worried it will dry up entirely. I’m merely throwing the question out there so that some of my more-esteemed blogging colleagues can better answer it.