meh. it’s “okay”, I guess.

I have to say that it’s a vast improvement. To have all these blogs in one place is gold. The interface is nice and the organized, automatically updating comments make discussion easier (even if editing posts would be a welcome addition).

Of course, the quality blogs and quality people make this place what it is. And it’s cool that everyone has the same name in different blogs and you have no anonymous commenters, so you get to know the users a bit. I believe it also brings a certain responsibility that leads to higher quality in conversation.

To sum it up, I’ve spent some time in different internet communities and I keep coming back to some, but I’ve never commented as much myself as in SBN. And that’s because there are great people to discuss with, and it’s convenient to do.

Season 2, eh? I guess we’ve got to go through the list and look for prime candidates for a sophmore slump.

Of course, it’s all about content.

For every ten sites that use excessive profanities and other off-colour remarks to generate their “traffic”, there’s a site like yours, Wysh (although commenters there are a different story), JP, or pretty much any SB Nation blog to provide fair and insightful commentary on the NHL.

If you blog it, they will come…..

SBNation rocks. The blogging tools are outstanding – quoting, linking, pictures all easy as pie and sharp looking to boot. I don’t know how I ever lived without threaded comments and the Z key, but I don’t have to any more.

If I could change one thing I’d add a short edit window to the comment feature so I could go back and fix minor (grammar, spelling, missing words) errors in my comments.

I was and still am a hockey neophyte after finding my way to SBN this past playoff season, but thanks to the uber-informed bloggers and commentariat, I am a much better informed hockey neophyte. I rewatched some of the playoff games on the NHL Network recently and was able to use my new knowledge to finally “see” the puck, to know the players and their positions, and actually understand more of what was going on in the game.

Thank you SBNation and blogger army!

First off, I think you have done an amazing job getting all 30 teams represented by the end of last season…some sites are better than others, of course, but I think they all are quality work.

It’s also a good thing that the various communities are so different, I think. My Blues are covered by St Louis Game TIme , which I know is not everybody’s cup of tea, but, like so many others, this was an existing community, which brought many of its old commenters, and that contributes to the cohesiveness of the hockey community in general, which is a world apart from other sports.

Finally, it’s James’ From the Rink that makes SB Hockey the best of all the sports that SBN covers…this is the place I come to first every single day, sometimes even before checking out SLGT (sorry, Brad!) because there is an overview of what’s going on in the sport that you can’t find very many places. For instance, the coverage of the Coyotes’ complicated situation has been second to none, IMO. The commenters here, for the most part, are the most intelligent and well informed of any sports site I come in contact with. I didn’t really follow hockey blogs before this, so I have no basis of comparison, but it would appear to have grown by leaps and bounds this past season, thanks to SBN and all the bloggers doing the good work and (hopefully) gaining a measure of respect.

Congrats on a successful year one, and here’s to even better things the second time around.

It’s been a fun run so far Mr. Mirtle and it’s only getting better. Thanks for all the hard work you put into it.

Keep up the terrific work!

I can’t believe that Blez got so much credit for getting you signed up James!

Sure, he’s in charge and did the heavy lifting with Jim but who has two thumbs and told Blez that he HAD to have you?

This guy!

including individual blogs for the Ducks and Kings

Bwa ha ha, then we can throw those BoC bums back on the street where they belong! :)

Kidding, of course — BoC is solidly behind this “Make it 30” completion movement. Hurry up and apply before Mirtle forces us to do it.

I think you’ve done a great job of recruiting established and responsible bloggers for SB Nation. Kudos to you for getting them all to jump onboard. I think the biggest thing you could do to improve things going forward it to find a way to help leverage your exposure (Yahoo, NHL.com) and turn it into more credentialed opportunities for your bloggers. They are dedicated and do great work—but it will always be hard ot stay original when your information has to come from second-hand sources.

I’ve been a smartass in the comments here, for the most part, but something I think might be worth experimenting with a little is the idea of group blogs, like BoC.

Sometimes it would be nice to know what’s going on in the Northwest and chat with some of the fans there, and of course friendly trashtalk, without having to go to All 5 NW blogs. There are also some good “Battle” blogs out there, including CA, and their format works really well.

Not really sure if that’s a route that would work with 2 team representations and all, but the sharks have two and both of them seem to do ok.

A French language Habs blog would be interesting. Love Robert’s blog, obviously, but it’d be interesting to compare the two.

I’m just waiting for you to get a real Thrashers blogger…

but seriously, the one thing I’d like to see are city hubs that link all the teams which share a geographical location. Some Atlanta area readers would probably jump from the Braves to the Falcons to the Thrashers to the Hawks to UGA/GT if we set something up to facilitate that sort of movement within the site.

Thanks for a great year, James. Keep up the great work!

With respect to jumping from Blogger to SBN, having done it myself, I have to say it’s been superb. The platform is excellent; the outreach we get couldn’t be better, and the commenters in general have been great. All this and no spam – something Google kind of needs to throw a bone in helping out for Blogger users, in my opinion.

In terms of coverage, it’d be cool if there was someone to handle minor league hockey and the various junior leagues. I think it would also be great if there was also an international hockey blog – focusing on one of Europe’s top leagues like in Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Russia.

As a Special One may say, “It’s fantastic!” (Likewise, he’d say, “Shut up, Puppets.”)