I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who reads/comments on Lighthouse Hockey. I began writing here about a year ago (around the time of the draft) and I'm just over 100 stories in now. As Dom and I joke about sometimes, there would be game threads consisting of just us going back and forth. If you go take a look at the Archive page in 2009 you can see the number of comments on the articles. Some months didn't have 50 comments total. Now though it isn't surprising when multiple posts on the same day each go over 50 comments.
A lot of it is thanks to you, the reader. Much of the growth of LHH has come from word of mouth. People liked what Dom was going for here and it spread. With that word of mouth means that about 99.9% of the people who have come around and joined our discussions understood the type of community we all were hoping for. Very rarely do we need to take any sort of moderation action. Very rarely do we need to spell out rules. The way LHH has grown almost gives off a feeling of a corner bar. We know each other, we love the Islanders. Sometimes we fight and bicker, but in the end it's about being a fan of the team. Joining together in both the highs and lows for the team.
We can disagree without making things personal. It's not just comments back and forth either. Some of the content in the comments are incredible too. The song parodies, the in jokes (someone's brother in law?) the offensive jokes that people get instead of complaining about. Our ability to both love the team, and still make fun of them. Without laughter, getting through these last few seasons as fans would have been a lot tougher
When I first found LHH, it was probably at a low point of being a fan. I knew the team was struggling, but I finally understood that Mike Milbury was long gone. I hadn't thought to go looking for an Islanders blog at the time, but when I found LHH linked at Yahoo! it seemed like a gold mine. It wasn't AP stories that someone with only half an interest in the team wrote up. It was daily updates on the team. My childlike love of the Islanders quickly re-kindled, and Dominik's excellent coverage helped.It's been a bit of a wild ride for me since that March day. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be writing here. Some days I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, when I schedule a post and fall asleep. The gifts I wake up to are the comments, agree or disagree with me, I'll never take them for granted. I'm sure Dom, Keith and Mike all feel the same.
So take this time to pat yourself on the back, give yourself a congrats, And thanks for Reading/Subscribing to Lighthouse Hockey!