State of the Blog 2016: The New Old Guard

We forgot to take a photo together this summer. Just run with it. (Photoshop by Matthew Henderson, original JD by @roiereuben)

We’re officially in the half of 2015/16 that has the later year. Poetic, I know. Those who were betting on catastrophe have received just enough of a teaser to keep confidence in their beliefs while those who just want to see the Canucks win and don’t care about the nuances may have seen some reasons for happiness last night. It’s a fresh start if you will.

Speaking of fresh starts, we need to have a talk about the website. 

In a sense, I was in the right place at the right time when showed up in Vancouver this summer. It was the end of a cross-country trip with Five Hole For Food, and things at Canucks Army were at a bit of a crossroads. Rhys was extremely passionate about the site, as he showed by putting out by writing some of the best work we’ve seen on any hockey outlet in the past several years. But as the summer was progressing, he seemed ready to put his focuses elsewhere; given the things that he’s up to now, it was a fair choice.

Thom was doing his usual bounce between the two cities as well, meaning all three of us were in the same town at once. Suddenly, an opportunity arose, if I wanted it, make a transition to me being the new overseer of Canucks Army. 

There are few opportunities that I’ve had in my life that I’ve met with as much initial nervousness. I grew up watching the Canucks and caring for them just as much as a certain team from the City that East Coast Bias built. I was the pre-schooler who idolized Pavel Bure before he idolized his parents. I was the kid who’s first email address was a tribute to Markus Naslund. I was the young man who stood in silence outside Maple Leaf Square, thousands of kilometres away from the action, staring blankly at the big screen for a solid half hour after Game 7 in 2011, wearing a black Skate jersey with a long sleeve shirt under it to hide the fact that the arms were short.

But due to the sink or swim nature of Toronto, my work at that point was almost entirely Leafs-centric. Suddenly, there was an opportunity to run the most important and influential Canucks platform around; one that was rapidly rising as one of the best sources of critical thinking in the entire hockey world. Ultimately, there was no way I could pass that up. I said yes, asked Drance for patience while I figured out how to best approach running this site, and asked Rhys to stay on as a writer. Rhys was hired by the Giants almost immediately afterwards. Win some, lose some.

Fast forward to five months later, and the site has blossomed into something that is both entirely the same as before, yet completely different. 

We’ve maintained an emphasis on prospect and player development analysis, despite losing three of our most revered writers in Rhys, Josh, and Money Puck to teams that felt their work could give them a competitive edge. The day the latter two left was super nerve-wracking, not knowing how we could replace them, but the existing staff has stepped up huge, and we’ve added a bunch of talent to fill in their shoes. Even beyond that shakeup last month, we’ve added nearly half of our present staff over the back half of 2015, and they’re keeping the old guard from getting too comfortable with some stellar work.

At the same time, we’ve added an emphasis on keeping you up to date with the goings on in town; not only has Canucks Army become a site that you can get great analysis from, but also one where you can get near-immediate reflections on the latest news. We’ve upped our social media presence from “our Twitter account auto-tweets things” to one of hot takes and instant replays. We’ve got a consistent schedule in place to get you familiar updates on any given day of the week. For example, there were times where editing Josh’s Blackfish reports felt like torture (Ryan is much lower maintenance, sorry Josh), but it was always worth it, just so that every Thursday, you knew how Carl Neill did on Carl Neill in the prior week. We also doubled down on the comment section; turning it from a war-zone to something that resembles legitimate discourse.

Overall, it’s been a great few months. But, it’s time shake things up a bit.

Effective immediately, I’m stepping down from the Managing Editor role at Canucks Army. I’ve accepted a senior position within the Nation Network; one that involves me reaching my arms a little bit further across the platform. It’s an exciting new opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, and I’m incredibly excited to get started.

Thom and I felt that it was important to stay internal and stay local when appointing the new editor. People were understandably concerned about me coming in as someone with just one prior article on the site, especially when they saw my location and my previous work. Thankfully, we felt like we had a more than suitable successor within the site, and that person is JD Burke.

JD, of course, is a local boy, and more importantly, has put out some fantastic work over the past 23 months that he’s been a member of the staff. Whether it’s a recap, an analysis piece, a retrospective, or even his recent forays into podcasting, his posts have been nothing but entertainment; I was a fan long before I was a boss. Moreover, our favourite Jerk has been my right-hand man for the past few months, helping out in moments where I had real-world things to take care of, and constantly asking questions about the behind-the-scenes work. It’s become very apparent that this type of role is up his alley, and I have total confidence in him.

As well, we’re going to shift around the “faces” behind our social platforms. Matthew Henderson and Grainne Downey will be calling most of the shots on Twitter, Facebook, and any new territory we all feel is worth going into. Honestly, they’re both wittier and more creative than me, so the growth we’ve already seen from not being dormant will likely be minuscule compared to what they’ll pull off once they’re in full swing.

If there’s any bad news here, it’s that you’re not shaking me off just yet. Contrary to everyone’s initial fears, I didn’t just show up to hitch my name onto the site and ride off into the sunset. I’ve committed myself to staying on as a writer, and unlike Rhys, I’m not expecting to get approached by a hockey team. I’ll also still be pitching in on social media. As I said prior; talking about my other childhood team was something that I always wanted to do, and now that I’ve had my chance to break into it, I don’t want to stop.

That’s all from me. For now, I’ll pass you on to JD, who has some words of his own to say:

With that, I leave the site in his hands. If you have any issues with it, please head in his direction, while I sit in the corner and fawn over Chris Tanev. In seriousness, this is a time for excitement; the last time a Burke was in charge in Vancouver, the Canucks had an attitude in the front office and a ton of fondly remembered talent on the ice; there’s no reason we can’t see the best parts of that again!

Until Next Time,

Jeff