The first year is complete with many more to come.

When I started a year ago I had written a few column ideas, unsure of what I would do with them. I've always been a big sports fan and it got to the point where I felt I needed to actually jot down some of my thoughts. After some urging from my girlfriend Lisa I was given the confidence to start a website and post my work for all to see. I found this one of the toughest hurdles to overcome. Having the confidence to believe in my work and to post it for everyone to see, judge and comment on. I soon realized that if you want to write in any form you need to be willing to expose yourself…no not in a Pee Wee Herman type way. My philosophy since then has always been to give you readers an original, sometimes humourous point of view on some topic in the world of sports where you could feel free to disagree or agree with my point of view. It would be extremely idealistic and pretty boring if I never got any discontent or disagreement on my views. As a writer I would much rather receive negative feedback than none at all because at least with negative feedback I know that I wrote something that affected a reader so much they felt compelled to tell me I'm wrong. Of course I won't lie, it's always nice to get those glowing comments. I mean everyone has an ego to build, right?

So how do I come up with all the ideas for my commentaries? Well I'll let you in on my secret: all the ideas are spawned from a small 5x3 notebook that I carry around with me most of the time. What fills the pages of this notebook? Everything! Topic ideas, jokes, quotes, observations. Sometimes it takes the smallest idea for a whole commentary to be born. For instance my Dungy Theory commentary was a very small observation in a much larger commentary version about coaching in professional sports. I was simply going to make a point that Tony Dungy and Jacques Martin share some similarities both in their demeanor and coaching style. That then led to the correlation for the entire theory and how the path to a championship is adversely affected by a coaching change. My notebook is full of disjoint ideas that while initially writing those leaves me scratching my head and wondering where will I ever use this joke or idea. A few weeks or months later I'll end up flipping through the pages and find an idea that I wrote down that now fits perfectly with a commentary I'm working on. The key is to capture all your thoughts on paper regardless of the irrelevance because if you don't write it down, you won't remember it. I also learned it's important to take chances with my writing. The first real big chance I took was writing my Dear NHL, commentary because it was such a different format and departure from the norm of how I was preparing my commentaries. I wrote the commentary in the style of a breakup letter with the NHL and in the end I was pleased with how it turned out; I presented an original thought in a creative format that differed from the typical viewpoint that other sports journalists were presenting about the NHL's situation.

Another key for me in formulating topic ideas was to plan out my writing schedule a couple weeks in advance. I looked at what significant events were coming up, i.e. Title games, season's starting, player's in the news etc. and put them into a general schedule for publishing. This really helped me organize my thoughts and provide commentaries that were timelier in nature. There are some commentaries that transcend time, meaning they are relevant reading for anytime of the year, i.e. a look at the role of referee's, the trading patterns that occur in the four major sports and so on. With these types of commentaries I knew I could write them and then publish them to the site anytime I didn't have a more pressing issue that I needed to discuss in a certain week.

To combat the dreaded "writer's block" I held a pretty simple approach to writing: when I was in the mood to write I wrote as much as possible which left me with a small reserve of commentaries, kind of a safety buffer from week-to-week. If I ever hit a week where my writing felt forced or I didn't feel I was being creative I simply went to my reserve supply of commentaries and took the rest of the week off. Writer's block really occurs when people stress about deadlines, but deadlines are what keep you focused and it was for that reason that I stuck with a firm deadline of having a commentary complete by Sunday with enough time to publish it and post it to the site for Monday morning reading. Without deadlines it's too easy to delay and procrastinate about your writing.

Throughout the course of the year I received a lot of help behind the scenes. Lisa, my girlfriend and weekly editor, has put up with my constant sports watching excuses. "Hun, I have to watch this game. It's research for my site. I need to keep up-to-date on what's happening." I also got help from my buddy Tuan (who is far more technically inclined than I) who created the flash intro and logo design. My East Coast Correspondent Shawn helped the website gain entry into the East Coast marketplace…watch out world, I have friends who are sports fans living all over the place. And finally a lot of readers have been instrumental in providing feedback and spreading the word about the website.

As I start Year 2 of the website I hope to continue bringing more interesting commentary ideas and innovations and changes to the site. I have a lot of ideas for the upcoming year and I'm sure you'll see a continued evolution in my writing. The best thing about this site is that I get to write about a topic that never stops providing quality news items. Things always stay fresh. Plus this site is a natural fit for me; I am a huge sports fan and love talking sports. It's a labour of love. Welcome to year 2!