Behind the Blog: On the Wings

One of the features of Behind the Jersey is my in depth look into the lives of Red Wings hockey players (I'm working on Steve Yzerman's at the moment). I decided to put a spin on this special and Matt Saler at On the Wings was happy to go along with my request. Behind the Blog is what I hope to be a new feature. I'd like to go around to the hockey bloggers, ask them some questions by email, and post their answers here on BtJ so readers can get to know the blogger behind their blog. Christy: Please tell me about your previous web projects before On the Wings. Matt: My first web project was hosted by Alta Vista and was called Puck Corner. It pretty much consisted of re-posted Freep articles and wasn't too exciting. After that, I started an e-mail list on The Globe called the_wings_club with Brian and it became pretty active. After The Globe shut down, we had to move to Yahoo! Groups and activity fell off a bit. The list has since moved to Google Groups and doesn't have very many active posters but we're thankful for those who do still post. For the 2001-2002 season, I made a site on Tripod but it was mostly just pictures and was never finished. After that, I started On the Wings. Christy: What made you create one in the first place? Matt: I liked the idea of having a spot on the Internet with which to talk hockey with other people. That e-mail list was a lot of fun at its height and since I didn't have too many people around me to talk about the Wings with, it helped me grow as a fan. Christy: What made you create On the Wings and why did you name it that? Matt: I read some articles about blogs in 2003 and started reading a few of them. So, I decided to start my own. I don't lead an interesting enough life to have a personal blog so I picked the obvious topic: the Wings. When I wasn't real serious about it, I called it "zata40fan's Wings fan blog" but I soon changed that to "On the Wings." I just meant it to be a description of the blog's main topic, the Wings, but I guess it has a general hockey meaning too. Christy: Were you the only writer in the beginning or was Brian there at the start? Matt: I was the only author at first and stuck mainly to posting quotes from articles and links to the rest, with little or no commentary. It didn't take a lot of work, really. Christy: How did you and Brian become weblog partners? Matt: Eventually, I was able to convince my best friend Brian to join up and start posting. The blog took a big jump in quality after that and we both begain to post more and more commentary. The race to get the game previews up began and so did the competition to get the most detailed and lengthy game summaries. We had a lot of fun documenting the 03-04 season that way. Christy: How did you get the word out about your new blog? Matt: I've never really spread the word on the site through the internet. I don't like to be a pest and fill people's inboxes with link exchange requests. My strategy is to link to people I'd like to have link to me and wait for them to notice the traffic coming from my site. It worked, for example, in getting the attention of Matt Schwartz, webmaster of LetsGoWings.com and we ended up syndicating content over there for a while. We still can but it usually slips our mind these days. As we began to get links from fellow bloggers such as Eric McErlain and Tom Benjamin, we began to get more hits and word got out on its own. Christy: When did you realize that your website had become popular? Matt: Mostly during the second half of the 03-04 season. Once Brian and I started writing epic game summaries, we started seeing referrals from people who were complimenting them. That was cool because it helped make writing those things worth it. The biggest indicator is just hits. We don't get a lot of traffic compared to other sites but I still find it exciting to get 100 or more hits a day. Christy: What advice would you give to a newcomer in the blogging world? Matt: I'd say just link to everyone, work on your quality and quantity, and wait to be noticed. Relaly, there's no need to point yourself out. Just act like you've always been there and like you're part of the established blogging crowd. Just make sure you have the credibility and the quality to back it up and "play with the big kids," as they say. Christy: What do you hope to accomplish with On the Wings over the next few years? Matt: I'd like to just continue providing a service to my fellow Wings fans. I'd like to be able to look back through our archives years from now and get as full a picture of each season as possible. It's really for me as much as it is for everyone else since I'd like to be able to remember this team when it's completely different and I'm documenting another set of players. I guess we're sort of writing a version of the Wings' current history. Christy: Why are you a Wings fan? Matt: Well, the most obvious reason is, I live in suburban Detroit and if you like hockey, you'd better like the Wings. Also, it was a bandwagon thing at first. I thought it was cool the Wings won 62 games in one season. So I started following the team. Pretty soon, though, I got real serious and now I don't care if the Wings lost 62 games a season, I'm watching them. Christy: What is your favorite hockey moment? Player? Why? Matt: I really enjoyed the 2001-2002 season. That year, it was just fun to be a Wings fan. I always felt like we could win a game no matter if we were down or not and a number of times, the Wings came through on that. The playoffs were as exciting as any I've ever watched and then too, I felt a real confidence in the team. In the last minutes of Game 3 in the Finals, I knew the Wings weren't going to lose, even though they were down by a goal. I doubt I'll ever be able to follow a team built quite like that again. It was a series of moments but I can't separate them. My favorite player is Steve Yzerman. It seems like a reflex answer for a Wings fan but I mean it. He's just the best and I don't think there will be another one like him for a long time, if ever. Christy: What do you believe the NHL should do to gain more fans? Matt: They need to ensure the quality of the product. If hockey is boring or lacking in skill, people will not watch it on TV or pay to attend the games. They have to make it exciting and keep it exciting. Actual enforcement of the rules for more than 10 games would help. Christy: Where do you see the NHL and/or Detroit Red Wings in 10 years? Matt: I think the NHL will be pretty well off. Whether I like it or not, the CBA is probably a smart business decision for the League and should hopefully pay off. The NHL will never compete with the NFL but it should be going strong in a decade. The Wings, as long as they are still owned by Mike Illitch, should be up there as well. Christy: How do you balance your time with college and maintaining a popular blog? Matt: Well, the lockout came at a fortunate time in that respect. There wasn't much to post on from September on while I was in school so I was able to focus on my studies much more. In high school, I didn't have much of a problem posting all the time and I probably had even less time then. It will be interesting to see how things go this school year, for sure. Watching all 82 regular season games might turn out to be impossible. We'll see. Christy: Is there a particular blog that you look to for inspiration? Matt: I can't say there really is. We don't do the "blog thing" as much as other blogs do, really. By that I mean, constant referrals to other blogs as well as rebuttals and counterpoints, all that. We kind of formulated our blogging strategy on our own. Obviously the other hockey bloggers provide inspiration but not in a real direct sense. I'd like to thank Matt Saler at On the Wings for agreeing to be BtJ's Behind the Blog's first victim! Go Wings!