By Phil Coffey | NHL.com Editorial Director
Sept. 29, 2006
The start of the 2006-07 season is now a tangible moment you can almost touch. In many respects, it's a big relief here at NHL.com to get the regular season under way because it means "preview season" is finally over.
Over the last six weeks or so, many, many waking hours among Shawn Roarke, John McGourty and myself have been spent in pursuit of team programs. Previews are a notoriously fickle animal, subject to change at a moment's notice, often requiring rewriting and reediting. After a while, the lines begin to blur and in one instance, I couldn't have told you where Justin Williams played on a dare. Thankfully Caniac Matt Casulli was able to get me back on the track. But it's a labor of love because none of us would be here if we didn't love hockey more than breathing.
This is an abbreviated edition of Ice Age because I wanted to bring everyone up to date with what to expect here at NHL.com this season before we get into the real business next week.
Phil Coffey has covered the NHL since 1981.
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First, a note of thanks. Last season was NHL.com's most successful to date in virtually every statistical category that tracks web traffic. Coming off the loss of the 2004-05 season, no one knew what to expect here. We were shocked, humbled and very gratified by the faith hockey fans showed in us and we promise to redouble our efforts to make NHL.com worth your time and interest.
You may have heard we will soon be debuting a very different look for the regular season. It's true and I'm confident you will love it. It's a bright, clean look that will really help showcase what hockey has to offer. And from a selfish perspective, there is more real estate for the "word guys" to bring our stories on the world's greatest game to you.
I wanted to take a few moments of your time to clue you in on what's coming this season.
To start off, the Eastern and Western Conference notebooks by Chuck Gormley and Doug Ward proved to be so popular, we decided to do division notebooks, so six days a week there will be a new notebook on the site. Chuck will do the Atlantic, Doug the Pacific. Rob Picarello will handle the Southeast, James Murphy the Northeast, Roger Phillips the Northwest, and Larry Wigge will add the Central Division to his other duties as one of our regular columnists. We're looking forward to some interesting notebooks from these guys this season.
The future of our game is of particular interest to us this season. As such, we will focus a lot of attention on young players who will be the NHL stars of tomorrow. Senior Writer Shawn Roarke will be directing our efforts in this area. In addition to Shawn's coverage, NHL Central Scouting will provide a regular blog on the scouting world. Also Russ Cohen and Shane Malloy will profile players in our "In The System" feature, which will appear every Tuesday and Friday, and Shane will keep everyone up to date about the junior ranks with a weekly notebook each Tuesday.
We're confident that by the time June's entry Draft rolls around, NHL.com readers will be up-to-date with these young men, who will be tomorrow's stars.
On Mondays, our AHL columnist, Lindsay Kramer, of the Syracuse Post-Standard will focus on an up-and-coming player from the AHL ranks. Lindsay's regular AHL notebook will appear in its customary Thursday slot.
The ECHL Report remains in it customary Friday slot and our weekly look at college hockey, "On Campus" will retain its Thursday slot. Bob Snow and James Murphy will continue their successful collaboration on all things NCAA.
Bill Meltzer also will take an in-depth look at hockey in Europe each Thursday with his "Across The Pond" column.
NHL.com will be debuting a lot of new material this season. Many of you already have become acquainted with Paul Kukla, whose Kukla's Korner blog is an excellent read. Paul will look at a number of issues during the course of the season and also take NHL.com readers on a tour of the hockey blog world each week.
Marcie Garcia will take a closer look at some of the NHL's players, learning about their off-ice hobbies and interests. We already have quite a few interesting pieces ready to go.
We won't forget hockey's wonderful history either. Mike Wyman will continue to provide up-close looks at some of the game's legendary players, and Evan Wiener will debut a weekly column called "Off The Wall" that will profile some of hockey's strange and wacky moments.
There won't be a lack of opinion either this season. Mike Emrick, Larry Wigge, John Kreiser and Mel Bridgman will voice their views on all things NHL and the staff here will chime in frequently too.
We will have other surprises for you too. Last season was a great success and we look forward to an even better season in 2006-07. Remember, please send your questions, comments and rants my way at iceage@nhl.com. I'm sure the mailbag will be filled to overflowing before long.
Enjoy the season!
