Announcing: Live Chats

Every Avalanche contest, we'll hang out and talk about the game in real time

One of the cool features of this new platform for me is the ability to chat with every subscriber, live and in real-time if we want.

I’ve done a couple of them already. It’s very important to me to have readers feel like they have access to me and to how things are done around here. I’ve done live chats before, when I worked at the Denver Post and Sports Illustrated. And they were usually pretty good, but they were so early in their infancy that the traffic wasn’t very good and they had some bugs in the software. The software on Substack is really good and I’ve seen so bugs so far for live chats.

This platform makes things feel like we’re more a part of a true community. It’s down to just you and me, folks (though I’ve already added the great Pat Salvas as a contributor and might add another person or two) and so YOU are my real bosses now - not some corporate beancounter who doesn’t know good journalism.

I’ve read that a lot in the past though, where writers starting something new wherever they work pledge to be open and accessible and do all kinds of “community” stuff and then…go right back to their ivory tower. They are the types of sports writers who never respond to you on Twitter. There is still a ton of arrogance in the sports media community. A lot of them truly do think they’re better than you. They take their audience for granted.

I don’t think I’ve ever had that attitude - I’ve always considered it a miracle I’ve gotten to write for a living - but I probably did have too much of a “let them eat cake” attitude in my earlier days in Bigger Media. I would say it was more of a “hey, where else are they going to get their information from, besides us Big Media Monopoly people?" attitude.

Those days are OVER for Big Sports Media. There is too much good competition out there, too many alternatives for readers to go. Woe to the lazy media person in today’s world.

As I said the other day though: I want to be able to breathe some and write more thoughtful, better stuff again. I was starting to feel like a hamster on a wheel at my old place, and I thought the quality was starting to suffer - and it wasn’t good for my physical or mental health.

I still want to break news at times and I still have many good sources in the hockey world. But it’s not as much of a “scoop” thing anymore, especially in hockey. Management, agents, players - they just do not open up as much as when I first started out. Teams have their own websites and Twitter accounts now. They break their own news most of the time. Players are so wary of saying anything that might get them in trouble that we’re mostly down to the rock-bottomest of cliches from them.

A lot of players loved it when the locker rooms were closed for most of two years because of Covid. I won’t at all be surprised if media is kept out from locker rooms in the not-too-distant future. Players and teams just don’t need “beat” media as much as they used to. Not at all. Why allow some meddling reporter in the room who might be after some “dirt” or trying to “stir it up” when teams can now control their message on their own platforms?

Take today, for example: the Avalanche announced Nathan MacKinnon’s return on their own Twitter feed. Most teams do this now. They don’t even alert the “beat” media first. Fans of the Avs knew just as fast as the media spending resources to cover the team.

That’s why it’s so important for media, in my opinion anyway, to join forces with the fans they write for. We still have many advantages over the average fan out there when it comes to providing information on the team, but those advantages are dwindling every year.

I’m lucky in that I have experience from Day 1 of the Avalanche’s existence to use as an advantage. I can tell a lot of stories and talk about what it’s really like as a sports writer, then and now.

So, with that spirit in mind, come join anytime when I start chats. I want to do them for every game. It’s easy for me to not only watch the game but see your comments and converse back and forth quickly. I may be distracted at some times, but you don’t have need to have ME there to chat anyway, right? You can all chat amongst yourselves.

These chats, though, are open only to paid subscribers. Since we started this on Thursday, there are hundreds of you who have become paying members. I’m grateful, and let’s get to know each other better.

When I start a chat, you should get a notification saying it’s live. We’ll go from there. See you tonight maybe.