According to Globe and Mail staffer and hockey blogger, James Mirtle, there are over 100 hockey blogs [1] in North America right now that cover NHL teams. I started to wonder if there were hockey blogs out there that didn't only cover professionals, but were on a grassroots, community-based, and at the amateur/minor hockey level. After a few quick searches, I was in luck!
Starting in BC, the Whistler Minor Hockey Association's blog [2] was used recently to post the list of those who made the cut for the Atom Rep Team. Winfield Minor Hockey [3] has their blog in the form of a news page that you can subscribe to. They've used this online space to update parents on recent meeting notes. Congratulating players on making jumps to new teams is a highlight of the Williams Lake Minor Hockey [4] news site, and although this website talks about all things hockey in general, they have a great post up [5] about the history of minor hockey in BC.
Moving across the prairies, Saskatchewan Hockey Association has a blog news page [6] and their posts are open for comments. The Flin Flon Bombers [7], Kindersley Klippers [8], and Humboldt Broncos [9] all have nice looking websites with news archives, photos and videos available online. The Yorkton Terriers [10] link out to Craig Stein's blog [11], where he also covers the Melville Millionaires and the Wayway Wolverines.
The Canadian Hockey Parents [12] have a massive directory [13] of most of the hockey association and team websites across the continent as well.
Being online is a great way to engage an audience, update everyone on upcoming games and tournaments, and also highlight your stars with posts and photos about games won and lost in hard-fought battles. You can start today by creating a player or team profile [14] on Hockey Stars, and if your team has a blog, we'd love to hear about it in the comments below.
Links:
[1] http://mirtle.blogspot.com/2006/03/hockey-blogospherea-complete-listing.html
[2] http://www.whistlerminorhockey.ca/events/events.htm
[3] http://winfieldminorhockey.com/News/
[4] http://wlmha.ca/index.php?p=news
[5] http://crashingthegoalie.com/2008/07/20/crashing-the-goalie/
[6] http://www.sha.sk.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=22&Itemid=46
[7] http://www.bombers.ca/news_item.aspx?news_id=2148&team_id=
[8] http://www.klippershockey.com/news.aspx
[9] http://www.humboldtbroncos.com/news.aspx
[10] http://www.yorktonterriers.com/photos.aspx?page_id=1
[11] http://craigstein.blogspot.com/
[12] http://www.canadianhockeyparents.com/
[13] http://www.canadianhockeyparents.com/new_links_page.htm
[14] http://www.hockeystars.com/sign-up