Before YouTube, before the message boards and the Internet and all things digital and easy, there were guys like Nicky V. The pioneers. The old-school fight fans who devoted countless hours to recording and trading and compiling footage, going from icebox-sized VCRs in the 1970s to standing on the roof in the middle of 1990s ice storms, aiming dishes by hand. The guys who racked up $300 phone bills calling to Canada at 25 cents a minute, who scoured old Hockey News box scores for penalties, who developed sore thumbs from hitting RWD and FFWD over and over again. The guys — and let's be honest, they're all guys — who spent three months waiting for fight tapes from Philly, then tore open the UPS packages like snakebite victims fumbling for anti-venom.

— Patrick Hrubey, ESPN.com