Happy New Year to everyone and may all of you reading this have a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2011!
I thought I would also take this opportunity to provide the latest and greatest information about Canes Country and to thank those who made 2010 such a successful year for the blog.
Canes Country started up as a totally independent site back in the summer of 2006 and it has grown every year since then. We joined the SB Nation network in February of 2009 and in less than a year's time had about 800 thousand page views to complete the year while under the guidance of the mother ship. I'm pleased to report that for the calendar year 2010, the blog had over 1.44 million page views.
Of course those numbers would not be possible without a lot of help from a lot of people so I would like to start by giving a shout out to our primary contributors, Cory Lavalette, Carolyn, (hockeymom), Jamie, (LTD), and Cory Wilson Spiers, our new correspondent from Charlotte. Each of them provide their own skills, personalities, and strengths with their contributions and I am very grateful for all of their assistance.
We all have full time careers away from the blog, so it can be a challenge at times to keep things current, especially with up to the minute coverage, but each of us strive to provide timely, accurate information and analysis, much like you would find at a professional news site. That is one of our goals here and we will continue to work toward that in the coming year.
This blog would not be as interesting or successful though, without the personal interaction aspect of it and that is where we owe our members and readers a debt of gratitude. (Membership now is over 1500.) Especially those of you who take so much time to leave long, well thought out opinions and analysis in the comments and Fanposts sections, and others who might not say much, but come several times a day and have done so for years.
This is also a good chance to thank members like abramsdoug, Elsker, curiouscanesfan, C-Leaguer, PackPride17, Sittler27, and so many others for their input. I hate to name names because I know I'm leaving so many of you out and I don't mean to discount anyone. Everyone's input is valid and important, whether we agree with each other or not, and it is all appreciated. So a big thank you to all.
I would also be remiss if I did not take the time to thank the Carolina Hurricanes organization for the access they provide us. We are one of the few blogs out there with media credentials and that is something we do not take for granted. This access has helped us to provide some unique perspective as well as enabled us to be as up to date and accurate with our reporting as we can be.
For those of you who are new, allow me to provide some basic information about the site.
During the season, we will have a game day preview for every game. Usually, this is published after the morning skate so that we will have the latest information.
SB Nation offers what they call, "open game threads" which can be used by all members for general game chatter. These are normally created 30 minutes prior to each game and can be accessed well afterward. The software is unique in that you do not need to refresh the page while leaving comments, so it is very easy to follow along and interject. (For those of you who might be curious, those open game thread comments do not count toward the page view totals I gave out earlier because the page does not refresh.)
After the game, we will publish a game recap, or synopsis. For home games, I usually record video of press interviews and will embed those as well.
Sometimes we will publish additional analysis regarding a certain game, (Five Observations), or analysis about the team in general. One thing we would like to improve upon is our statistical analysis.
Of course we try to do many other things here as well, like provide in depth prospect and draft coverage, offer links and give out information about other news concerning the team or anything we think may be of interest, and publish details about some of the events the organization will put on for fans.
Bottom line, we try to provide as much information as we can, (with updates every day), and will continue to do so this coming year.
If you are interested in making your own contribution, feel free to leave a comment under one of the articles, or submit a Fanpost or Fanshot. For more information about that, see our general information section on the left sidebar. (also copied below.)
Please read our Community Guidelines.
Commenting: User's Guide
Fanposts: User's Guide
Fanshots: User's Guide
Have questions or comments? email us at canescountry@gmail.com
Whenever we have something new on the blog, of course our RSS feed is updated, but an update will also be made to our primary Twitter account. @CanesCountry I also use that account when I am covering an event or if I have something "special" to say.
Each of our contributors have their own accounts as well, which you may also want to follow.
@corylav - Cory
@HMof2 - hockeymom
@jbk_ltd - LTD
Finally, let me close this out by saying that if anyone ever has a suggestion, complaint, or any information you would like to pass along, please email me at canescountry@gmail.com. I appreciate all feedback and will do my best to respond.
Thanks again, and Happy New Year!