Monday, May 16, 2005
Hockey Rants Turns 1
Yesterday, May 16th, Hockey Rants celebrated its first birthday with a tall glass of Stella Artois.
One year ago, I started this site as a venue to express my multitude of hockey-related opinions in one convenient place. Instead of childish, terse and fractured conversations on various message boards (like Hfboards.com), I could write more verbose criticisms and analysis of hockey-related news items and write about whatever the heck I wanted to.
Through this past year of blogging, I've been able to garner many new opportunities, meet new people, discover other smart bloggers out in the world, and learn many new things from differing perspectives. It's been a bit tedious, and I may repeat myself on occasion, but you can see that I never seem to run out of things to rant about, lockout or no lockout.
It has certainly been a very strange year in the hockey world. Instead of analyzing NHL trades, games, the Vancouver Canucks, and talking about the 2005 NHL Playoffs, I've been blogging about the Czech and Slovak Extraleagues, more NHL labour bickering than I care to acknowledge, exposing the evilness of Sweden, and many other news items that may normally fly under the mainstream radar.
What will the next year bring? I hope it brings a return of the NHL and continued growth of good hockey blogging. I certainly hope that this blog brings some educational and entertainment value to those who happen to read it.
Looking back at the past year...here are some of the major events from one of the craziest periods ever.
One year ago, I started this site as a venue to express my multitude of hockey-related opinions in one convenient place. Instead of childish, terse and fractured conversations on various message boards (like Hfboards.com), I could write more verbose criticisms and analysis of hockey-related news items and write about whatever the heck I wanted to.
Through this past year of blogging, I've been able to garner many new opportunities, meet new people, discover other smart bloggers out in the world, and learn many new things from differing perspectives. It's been a bit tedious, and I may repeat myself on occasion, but you can see that I never seem to run out of things to rant about, lockout or no lockout.
It has certainly been a very strange year in the hockey world. Instead of analyzing NHL trades, games, the Vancouver Canucks, and talking about the 2005 NHL Playoffs, I've been blogging about the Czech and Slovak Extraleagues, more NHL labour bickering than I care to acknowledge, exposing the evilness of Sweden, and many other news items that may normally fly under the mainstream radar.
What will the next year bring? I hope it brings a return of the NHL and continued growth of good hockey blogging. I certainly hope that this blog brings some educational and entertainment value to those who happen to read it.
Looking back at the past year...here are some of the major events from one of the craziest periods ever.
- The Tampa Bay Lightning (!) defeat the Calgary Flames to win their first every Stanley Cup.
- Hell freezes over the very next day.
- The tragic deaths of Ivan Hlinka and Sergei Zholtok.
- North American domination continues as Canada wins the World Cup, World Under-20 Juniors and the 2004 World Championship while the USA wins the Women's World Championships and the WJC18.
- That same domination comes to an end just 2 days ago when the Czech Republic win the 2005 World Championships by beating Canada 3-0 in the Gold Medal game.
- The cancellation of the entire 2004-2005 NHL season. This represents the first time a professional sports league in North America has lost a season to labour strife.
- The 2005 Entry Draft, to be held in Ottawa, is also cancelled, leaving Sidney Crosby's agent awake every night.
- The Kelowna Rockets win the 2004 CHL Memorial Cup, and are one of four teams in competition for the 2005 Memorial Cup.
- The CHL Top Prospects game takes place here in Vancouver. Sidney Crosby bails while Gilbert Brule stars and earns MVP honours.
- Pardubice wins their first Czech Extraleague title since 1988 while Slovan Bratislava wins the Slovak Extraleague title.
- Pavol Demitra, part owner of Dukla Trencin, plays for his club and shatters Slovak scoring records left right and center.
- Tomas Kaberle takes home the Czech Extraleague MVP honours while Milan Hnilicka somehow 'steals' the Top Goaltender award despite finishing no better than 10th in any meaniningful statistical category.
- The OSHL dies a quick death after poor attendance and poor quality of hockey kill interest.
- The World Hockey Association version 2.0 dies twice before it ever gets up and running. The latest WHA 'Bobby Hull Invitational' has seemingly gone up in smoke.
- The Hockey Rumors Blog fiasco, with 'Eklund' getting pwned by Mr. Dubi Silverstein.
- Zdeno Ciger, the ex-Ranger, Oiler, and Lightning, retires and then unretires to help Slovan Bratislava win the Slovak Championship. That doesn't stop him from whining, however.
- Jozef Stümpel scored a hat-trick!!
- During a USA/Canada exhibition game, Anthem singer Carolina Marcil fumbles the words to the American national anthem and then falls on her ass on her way back to the dressing room. This turned out to be one of the most 'googled' items used to find this site.
- Sweden is *still* EVIL, VERY EVIL!
Comments:
<< Home
keep this good job, Jes! you are definitely my most favourite english speaking website!
# posted by 
: 2:09 pm
: 2:09 pm 
Hey Jes,
Keep up the outstanding work! This is the second page I visit, every time I log onto the internet (only TSN.ca is ahead). More news about Slovakia, Gaborik and Zednik will be appreciated in the years to come!
Regards,
Frank
Post a Comment
Keep up the outstanding work! This is the second page I visit, every time I log onto the internet (only TSN.ca is ahead). More news about Slovakia, Gaborik and Zednik will be appreciated in the years to come!
Regards,
Frank
# posted by : 5:43 pm
: 5:43 pm << Home
