Real Talk: Are you NOT entertained?
The question is only moderately facetious. But let's talk about the future of the Stack, and a quick(ish) thank you.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop laughing. It’s tough maintaining a backyard that inexplicably has a concrete slab at the center.
I don’t know what it is about hockey. I can never just look away. I love watching it. I love writing about it. I love reading about it. I love it when people are wrong on the internet because then I can explain to them why I’m right (am I kidding?). I love the breathtaking talent on display as much as I love the figurative and literal bloodshed.
Maybe that’s it. Unlike most sports, there’s more to hockey than super cool moments of athletic drama and gamesmanship. It can be and very often is psychologically barbaric, and physically vulgar. As it happens, vulgar in French is “vulgaire” which means accessible to average people. What hockey players do is paradoxically more relatable, yet more extraordinary in each player’s performance of spectacle; fearlessly acting against a set of rules that aren’t arranged with a knife and fork. Whatever they earn, and whatever they accomplish is fought for. It sounds cheesy and super pretentious but tell that to the players who literally play through broken bones to make history.
I love hockey. For all its stupid ass warts, I love it. I’m also extremely grateful for getting to have a voice in this ecosphere.
So why am I telling you all this? Over the past few months, I’ve received a decent influx of new subscribers, and with that, more pledges. In ‘Stackese’ it just means there is a small collection of people willing to pay a monthly fee for my work. That means a lot. Seriously. I truly love that people connect with my “brand” of analysis. It’s what I’ve always aimed to accomplish: analysis that is as diligently-constructed as it is accessible to the average fan. And I think that’s ultimately what fans truly want — analysis that allows fans to share in the discovery of things rather than the echo of things. “Verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude,” as Mary Oliver once said.
So why turn on the pledges, and take advantage of it now? No, I don’t have a mortgage on a house I just got kicked out of. I didn’t stop paying my school loans. Yes I have a lot of kids as you can see from the photo, but they’re pretty self-sufficient. After some reflection (and maybe a liiiittle desire to afford a few more Lord of the Ring Magic cards), here’s the deal: writing about hockey the way that I do comes at a real cost. I never really thought about that or broke it down until I began getting serious about budgeting. Evolving-Hockey, HockeyViz, JFreshHockey, AllThreeZones, Mitch Brown & Lassi Alanen, Natural Stat Trick, Hockey-Prospecting, The Athletic, EPRinkside, ShapShots, Jack Han, NHL.tv, even my Discord channel — these all cost money. They’re well worth it, they all provide something different, and they teach me a lot, but it doesn’t come cheap. And no, my point here isn’t to make you feel sorry for me. I’m willing to burn for my swag, and always will. If anything, it illustrates the barrier to writing about hockey.
But the real reason I mention the cost of what I do though is that it was the only way for me to justify in my head taking money from readers. I’ve always gone back and forth on this topic. On the one hand, writers should be paid for their work. But on the other hand, I have qualms with the subscriber model too, as it pools readership into a select few channels that can minimize the impact of good, local coverage (like D Magazine). Sidebar: D Magazine is still very much my home. In fact, it remains the home for my writing. Speaking of, if you haven’t read my piece on Radek Faksa, please do so. It’s about Faksa. But it’s really about how critical it is for the defense to get an upgrade.
I say all that to say that I’m deciding, with some reservations, to turn on the subscriptions beginning next week (probably the 11th). This doesn’t mean that the Stack is going away for those that want free content. It just means that paid subscribers will get a little extra. l’ll keep writing pieces for free here. In fact, there’s gonna be more free Stars content than ever. Yes, even during “slow season.” I have damn near a hundred random drafts of content I never finished here, so I will always find something to write about. The paid subscribers will simply get the exclamation marks (like heavy video analysis). For this to be worth paying for, this needs to be a place that people enjoy, that keeps people informed, where we can share news and actively build the Stars community.
Thing is, I’m interested in being challenged. If you’re gonna pay for a service, I want that service to feel worth it. This isn’t some bullshit ghost kitchen. I’m not here to do more, I’m here to do better. If there’s something you’d like to see, or even something you feel is lacking in hockey coverage as a whole, let me know. I have some ideas (some of which I made sure to blueprint before deciding to turn on subscriptions). In fact, I’m working on a pretty cool project with Sean Shapiro. But I love collaboration (working with Mike Piellucci, who has become a mentor, has been a massive blessing), so I like the idea of getting to collaborate with my subscribers in whatever way that manifests.
Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, email, Discord, or just leave a comment right here. Whether you’re about to pay, or whether you never will, if you’re reading this, I appreciate you all the same. Now let’s get this party started.