Hello, everyone, and welcome to Mile High Hockey. I know there's a lot of veterans among our readers, but, with our September '09 traffic quadrupling our September '08 traffic, I thought it might be a good idea to throw out the welcome mat and let everyone know what we're all about. Many of you already know this stuff, so you can safely skip the next few paragraphs. There will not be a quiz.
Mile High Hockey was started way back in the summer of 2007. On the surface, it is yet another Colorado Avalanche blog. But, really, we like to think of it as a community more than a blog. There are currently four writers on staff. I do a lot of the heavy lifting, meaning you get to see that hyphenated byline quite often during the year. Joe, our founder, pops in from time to time when he's not too busy between work, school and posting links to frightening bands on facebook. Mike will chime in quite often, especially when goaltenders are involved. Last, but not least, we have Angélique who specializes on Avalanche prospects on her own excellent blog and provides occasional updates for us here as well.
What do we write about? Pretty much anything Avalanche-related. We are all fans with, apparently, way too much time on our hands. Although we are fans, we have no affiliation with the club and try to present our opinions as fairly as possible. We throw around a lot of love to the team when it deserves it and aren't afraid to offer biting criticism when it's warranted as well. That being said, we try not to take anything (including ourselves) too seriously and we try to avoid anything that's particularly mean-spirited. Usually.
However, it's not just about the writers. SB Nation has a system in place that encourages everyone to take part, whether it's through commenting or by posting FanShots or FanPosts. I could write a few words about how all those features work but someone has already taken the time to do so; that link has a great primer on all things SBN-related. At Mile High, we actively encourage FanShotting and FanPosting from our readers and love to promote the best and most relavent material to our front page. So, if you have something Avalanche-related that you'd like to share, feel free to turn that into a FanPost and let us all take a look. There's certainly no rule that you need to become a member and start commenting and creating FanPosts, of course, but give it a try - you may like it!
Among the regular features you'll find at MHH are the live game threads. For every Avalanche game we host a live thread here for folks to hang out and discuss the game as it unfolds. Those are usually up an hour before the puck drops, unless one of us forgets to schedule it. Live threads can be a lot of fun. Really. The day after most games I'll have a recap posted to provide further commentary on the game; normally, those are up by noon eastern of the next day but sometimes I get caught up doing actual work at my job.
Since we're all modern and stuff, we also have a Twitter feed and a poorly-updated Facebook page that I'm unable to provide a direct link to due to a work firewall (just search FB for Mile High Hockey). Technamalogical new media wizards, we are.
You'll find a lot of inside jokes at Mile High, but don't let that intimidate you. The only thing we like doing more than making inside jokes is explaining inside jokes, so if you're scratching your head at The Baron, Shamwow or Beachie's Boyfriend, just ask.
So, consider yourself warmly welcomed. Feel free to grab a comfy chair and hang out for a while. The more the merrier. And go Avs.