Bloggers and Hockey: The Rising Prestige

This year has been a success for popular hockey bloggers. With the rise in importance of analytic usage in hockey, more teams are hiring bloggers to consult with them. This past offseason, many teams have realized how useful it is to consider what the sites are saying (and seeing) about their teams.

The most recent case of this is Tyler Dellow, the owner of the blog mc79hockey.com (which has been taken down since the announcement of his role on August 5th) has been asked to be a consultant for the Edmonton Oilers. The ex-lawyer was even the one to uncover questionable emails between then-league disciplinarian Colin Campbell and Stephen Walkom. The New Jersey Devils are also a recent team to add a blogger to their arsenal. Sunny Mehta, a blogger and ex-professional poker player has been chosen to help in analytics. Blogger and Analyst Eric Tulsky has been added to the roster of an unknown team to also examine.

This is a great thing for hockey bloggers recognition in the hockey world. This could open doors that directly link teams to the writers websites.

This is a huge breakthrough. It shows that teams really do care about what you have to say about them. They value what people see the teams doing right, and what they are doing wrong. Dellow specifically showed new ways of evaluating and comparing the players to the numbers that were being put up (by the team and the players). This could not only be a goal for the writer, but also the team. If a team can see their stats in a new light, then they can adjust how they need to.

Bloggers of all sorts can take not of this advance. This goes to show that you really don’t know who is seeing your stuff, and what opportunities that it could bring.