The Three Avalanche Players With The Most To Gain - Or Lose - This Season
Pivotal times for these three
You guys know I usually stay away from clickbait-y headlines like the one above. I played that game for a long time and it got really tiring. But, and I hate to admit this, but clickbait-y headlines often do what they’re supposed to, which is make you click.
Before jumping in with my list, let me digress for a second with a personal story. I learned a hell of a lot more about clickbait science in the roughly two years I worked at Bleacher Report, from about 2015-17. First of all, you’ll never hear me say one bad thing about that site. Bleacher Report came to my rescue about halfway through the Year Of Our Lord, 2015, about six months after I left the Denver Post, in somewhat unfortunate circumstances.
I thought my name was Mud in the journalism business. The true story was different than the “public” story, but the bottom line is I created the situations for things to be slung at me. It’s always your fault in the end, when you put yourself in potentially bad-headline situations, and I own it.
About six months later, though, I got a call from a top editor at Bleacher Report. “Would you like to be our national NHL writer/columnist?” he asked.
“Uh, have you looked my name up lately on Google?” I responded, thinking they must not have and would instantly rescind the offer right then and there once they did.
I’ll never forget what his reply to that was: “Yes we have, and the Denver Post’s loss will be our gain.”
Pardon my French, but holy shit. The offer was for pretty much the same salary I was making after 25 years at the Post. I also wouldn’t have to write as much, or travel as much. I could take my time on deep-dive features or write what I wanted as a columnist, and also still travel at times to cover events or to interview players for stories I was doing.
I think I wrote some of my best stuff for Bleacher Report, which, believe me, was and still is a big, money-making sports site. It had a reputation for pure clickbait, but the fact is - in my years anyway - they really wanted to do journalism in a serious way. Alas, they later found that quick-hitting, clickbait-y stuff is more cost-effective than paying people like me good money, so they have adopted that kind of model for a few years now. But, I will ALWAYS be so grateful to them for letting me resurrect my sports writing career.
Here are a couple of my favorite stories I did for Bleacher Report, starting with a long dive into the worst season any NHL team has ever had, which was the 1974-75 Washington Capitals: Click here to read it.
Re-reading it myself just now, I have to give myself a backslap for the John Adams line about midway through the story, and for also getting 97-year-old Milt Schmidt - the GM of that team - on the phone, no easy task.
Another story I’m most proud of in my time there: another deep dive into the expansion days of the San Jose Sharks compared to where they were when I wrote the story, which was in the Stanley Cup Finals against Pittsburgh. I covered all games in that series from the scene for Bleacher Report, and it was a really great, underrated series. I also remember walking past Metallica’s James Hetfield before Game 3 in San Jose. He played the national anthem.
Here is that story on the Sharks, which as an Avs fan I think you might still like.
About what I learned about getting traffic at Bleacher Report: Before I did any story, the headline had to be agreed upon. The headline was everything to them, at least when it came to traffic. It had to be SEO-friendly, first and foremost. Then, you tailored your story to the headline. In traditional journalism, it’s the other way around.
In the digital age, that’s absolutely essential, and it's amazing to me how many traditional journalism outlets still don’t get it when it comes to that stuff.
OK, as Casey Kasem would say, on with the countdown of my list of Avs players with the most to gain/lose this season:
