Awesome idea Dave.  Awesome.

Posted by IwoCPO from Sunny San Diego, bitches on 05/30/09 at 07:58 AM ET

Paul signed me to a free agent contract last fall, I’m rolling in the dough now….

Seriously though, as a hockey blogger, with attracting a readership so crucial, it’s a no-brainer to get an opportunity to blog at one of the biggest hockey sites on the Internet…

Just have to wade through the damn Wings fans, but I manage…

Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 05/30/09 at 08:10 AM ET

Like a few of us I hung around awhile before I became a member. I liked what I saw. This isn’t you average fan blog.
We are passionate Red Wing’s Fans. Kinda clickish, but will welcome anyone, even haters. I think one of my first comments was regarding Sammy being the new Bobby Lang, and I’m not sure if i was a member at that point.

Anyway, it’s been a hell of a ride and believe me when I say this, the best is yet to come.

Thank You to, Paul Kukla and, our very own, IwoCPO Bill Houlihan. Bitches.

Lets Go Red Wings!!!!!

Posted by Kate from Pa.-made in Detroit on 05/30/09 at 08:50 AM ET

April 2007. It was a magical time. The Chief’s live blogs were becoming less sporadic, less coherent, and more participatory. I’d been lurking for months, probably commenting since the beginning of the year, but around the time the playoffs started I…I felt compelled to sign up.

I’d like to say I registered because of an epic post and I wanted to memorialize it for myself with my first “offical” comment. Or I’d like to say I registered to be among my peers of hockey fans and support Paul’s vision.  I’d like to say I signed up because I wanted to be in on the groundswell of one of the greatest blogs in hockeydom.

But in truth I think Paul was just holding a contest or something.

Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 05/30/09 at 09:23 AM ET

i made quite a lot of posts before i actually signed up i think..

though i don’t really remember. was probably drunk

Posted by Pharazon from England on 05/30/09 at 09:43 AM ET

I joined in April because I wanted to try out the live blog. I never figured out how to get it to work. This will be my second post.

Posted by senor g on 05/30/09 at 10:28 AM ET

The very first A2Y post I read was the 2007/08 season preview.  It was a player-by-player thing, I think.  I then read for the whole year, because it’s literally impossible to just jump into commenting with these people without knowing how they think.  Unless you’re trolling—then you can figure out exactly what to say in about 5 seconds.

I made an account this year because I was jealous of people like Gabe and Wing Fan in Bean Land with their icons.  I wanted one of those.  Unfortunately mine falls a little short of the precedent they have set.

Posted by Triple Deke Tyler from Lansing on 05/30/09 at 10:36 AM ET

Had been reading A2Y since before the switch to the empire.  Was crushed when it vanished. On a stroke of luck, managed to re-find it shortly after the Chief joined up with KK and have since been reading KK every day.

Didn’t actually register until March ‘08 to join in for the failed experiment of using the chat room for game days, and to toss in some photochops. None of my friends are really sports people, much less hockey people (some friends eh?)and needed to talk Wings with people. The A2Y bunch have proven to be good and clever folk. Most of the rest of the KK posters aren’t bad either.

Posted by Nate A from Detroit-ish on 05/30/09 at 10:39 AM ET

HD - Good idea. I’ll try to put something together a little longer maybe, but in a nut shell, my joining became good therapy after I lost my eldest son, Josh, my best friend, my Red Wings buddy. We were dedicated Red Wing fanatics together. He went to be with the Lord on 05/05/07 when the Wings were making their run that spring. I was a sideliner at that time here but I sorta lost track of things after 05/05 for some time. Tough deal on me. Real tough. (He was 19 at the time.)

The following spring, the Wings were again making their run but I didn’t have JNH to share the excitement with me in person. A2Y helped me coup and I became an official member on 04/04/08. As history now records, the Wings ‘won one for Josh’ and the 19 last year. I’ve been hooked ever since! The bond shared here, connected by the same passion for hockey in general and the Wings specifically, is really a joy! I’m sure Josh would be sharing in the fun!

For JNH and the 19, do it again, boys!

4 to 12

Posted by stonehands-78 from the beginning ... a WingsFan, on 05/30/09 at 10:57 AM ET

I can’t remember when I started reading KK but I lurked for a LONG time probably a year or so before I finally joined January 17, 2008. I wish I could figure out what the first post was that prompted me to join (tried to search by date but nothing came up). I’m pretty sure it was an A2Y entry though.

Posted by Jennemy of the Skate from putting the b*tches in the box on 05/30/09 at 11:53 AM ET

Stonehands - I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t even comprehend what that must be like. I’m glad that you had time to share with him, to become best friends to have wonderful moments together. And I’m glad you found your way here to become one of the 19.

Posted by Jennemy of the Skate from putting the b*tches in the box on 05/30/09 at 12:29 PM ET

Didn’t actually register until March ‘08 to join in for the failed experiment of using the chat room for game days

I hunted through the archives and found that I joined the night of the very first online chat for the Wings/Canucks game. lol. I guess that was what finally got me to stop lurking.

Posted by Jennemy of the Skate from putting the b*tches in the box on 05/30/09 at 12:43 PM ET

Jen - Thank you. I appreciate your kindness.

My faith in the Almighty God has & will sustain me.
I am looking forward to the day Josh & I will be reunited!

Posted by stonehands-78 from the beginning ... a WingsFan, on 05/30/09 at 12:47 PM ET

Great idea, Dave—people love to talk about themselves.

I saw this on the road from Chief’s pointer and tried to post a quick reply from the wife’s iPhone, but I got rejected.  Oh well.

I’ve been a longtime reader of A2Y—I remember when it was on Blogger (abeltyzerman.blogspot.com) and when it moved over to Freshly Pressed—do the terms ‘Able Canes’ and ‘Randle Patrick McMurphy’ mean anything to anyone?  Cementslinger, I’m lookin’ in your direction…That’s how long ago I was reading A2Y.  I was crushed by The Great Silence, but hell, a lot of the things I like disappear.  I was equally elated when I found A2Y here on The Empire.  I’ve been a fan of the Chief for a long, long time, and I can honestly say that he’s just as cocky, swaggerin’, and every bit the good guy in real life as he is online.

Like Gabe (the new avatar rocks, BTW), I’d like to say that it was an epic event that got me talking, but in truth it was far more mundane and pedestrian.  I first posted in October 2007 in reply to a nasty troll: http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/A2Y/comments/franzen_shelved_3_4_weeks/  For a while I continued posting ‘anonymously’ and only registered when the liveblogs went to the chat room ever so briefly—the Chief mentioned before he revealed what the new format was that we would need to register.  I didn’t start using the registered entry for a while, though.

So yeah.  Long way of saying that I followed Abel To Yzerman here, and now I’m happy to be here.  I still stick mostly around A2Y, but I like Paul’s little corner of teh interwebz and you all.  Bitches.

Posted by AndrewFromAnnArbor from Fortress Europe on 05/30/09 at 02:32 PM ET

I joined July 22, 2006 02:13 PM, my member # is 82 right behind good guy RWBill who I used to post with at Mlive as Zenster. I could have had a lower number but I was temporarily disgruntled about Paul changing from the old newsprint looking site to the fancy shmancy site we now frequent. He used to have a man’s link of interesting things he found on the web that I miss, not just all hockey . However I’m over these trifles and am happy for Paul’s success and the growth of this site.

Cheers,

Puck

Posted by Puck from San Francisco, CA on 05/30/09 at 04:08 PM ET

Wow stonehands, that’s an incredibly touching story.  When I wrote the post I didn’t anticipate such a moving reply.  I’m truly sorry to hear about your loss, not having any kids I can only imagine what that must be like.  But I’m glad us crazy people on A2Y stick together like we do.  It’s heartwarming to see such a tight knit community born from the Chief’s incendiary swagger.

p.s. nice avatar Gabe, you’ve got some animation skills!

Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 05/30/09 at 05:19 PM ET

Thanks, HD.
I appreciate the camaraderie for the common cause;
(and so did Josh).

GO WINGS!!!

Posted by stonehands-78 from the beginning ... a WingsFan, on 05/30/09 at 10:51 PM ET

Wooo Wings going up 2-0.  Awesome.

Good times.

My story for joining was because my friend Puck joined a few days before me and goaded me into doing so.  We both had already been lurking for about a year, but I hadn’t been motivated to join until Hasek re-joined the team.  That bastard will continue to be my favorite Goalie for a long time, just because he was batshit crazy.  The only goalie I’ve seen on a regular basis that would bum-rush a guy at the top of the circle with his head down and send him ass-over-teakettle a’la Gaborik.  He made the game even more worth watching.  He was the icing on the insano-cake.  And I wanted to share my elation with all the fools here.

Then A2Y came alive, and well, I found a new religion myself.  Paul had always kept a great blog, fun to read, he had a few posts that weren’t hockey oriented that kept things fresh, I’d love to see that come back.  The Chief, well, he just was incendiary and insane and represented about every thing I’ve stood for when I was drunk, screaming from the rooftop and throwing shoes at passers-by below.

I’m hooked.

Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 05/31/09 at 10:06 PM ET

I joined in from redcootie’s own website, which was a haven from the ridiculous TDN Wings Talk forum.  That was back in 2002, I think.  So he sets up his own place and every time he mentioned A2Y and the quotes coming from that site, it was witty, sharp, clever.  Like nothing else on the ‘Net.

Still I hesitated to click on the link for years until I started lurking A2Y - just for the hell of it.  I didn’t know what to say.  I saw the faces of my neighborhood buddies on our expeditions to the Joe and to Tiger Stadium.  I saw my buddies talking hockey on the levels I remember it.  All due to redcootie’s persistence in quoting A2Y.

My first loyalty is obviously to his site and we have our own little liveblogs.  He let me become as visceral as I wanted.  To be as emotional as I wanted.  My best writings are still on his site.  But this little A2Y citing and stuff that he was doing really got me interested only in the last couple of years.  I can’t clearly recall at the moment exactly when I first started to post as SYF but I didn’t officially register for the site.  I wanted to see how well I needed to make an impression to earn my way into A2Y’s (and by extension, Paul Kukla’s) good graces.  Bits and pieces, little things.  Once I got a few good responses, I joined up on November 22, 2007.

Ever since then, it’s been one incredible ride.  I still liveblog over at redcootie’s site on Game Days.  I immensely cherish the friendships he has painstakingly built into something so real, its members’ separation by distances makes us long for each other’s companies.  We still get mad at each other for things said and beliefs expressed but that’s what friends do.  I’ve met a couple of them offline to watch Wings games here in Las Vegas and I hope to meet the rest of them as well.  And I really hope to meet up at an A2Y muster sometime in the future.  Ain’t no party like a Red Wings party…

Posted by SYF from a "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on 06/01/09 at 09:56 PM ET

Hey I used to live in Vegas, too bad I wasn’t aware of the site back then, I would have hooked up.  It’s rare to find like-minded people in that hellhole.

Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 06/02/09 at 10:49 PM ET

It’s just difficult to be the only guy into hockey in my small group of friends and co-workers when I’m so far from Michigan. Now that I live in SoCal, I get a blank look on people’s faces when I bring it up. I had lurked on and off for a while, but signed up on the eve of the ANA-DET series this year. Anaheim plays one of the dickiest “systems” in the league—infuriating. It’s nice to have the camaraderie. I generally get to the Ponda when the Wings are in town (not really a fan of the Staples Center) and I managed to get to 2 regular season and 2 playoff games this year. I kick myself when I think that I gave them probably $600 this year, but I’m constantly jonesing for good hockey and have to wait until good hockey comes to town, if you know what I mean.

Long story (mostly) short… Met the wife (who I refer to as original6donna online) while we were stationed at the Presidio of Monterey in the late 80s. She was also in the Army. I’m from Kalamazoo and she’s a classy NJ girl (all of the confidence but none of the trailer park) that got moved to CO at 13. I love that she hates everything CO with every bone in her body—ESPECIALLY the Avs. Neither of us really grew up with hockey, so we had no allegiances. Thank sweet zombie Jesus, she wasn’t tainted when the Nords moved to Denver! After we returned from our overseas tours, we got out of the service and I convinced her that we should move to Ann Arbor for school. She’s now a graphic designer, while “I are engineer.” An art teacher gave her class an assignment to draw a caricature of a Red Wings player—she drew Larry Murphy. Neither of us being into spectator sports, we were “forced” to watch UPN 50, Fox 2, etc, for homework—honest, I can not make that up! The timing was perfect since it was the 96-97 season. Murph may not be the fastest on skates, but he along with Ken & Mickey welcomed us to join in and we’ve had a blast ever since.

Posted by original6dan on 06/08/09 at 07:02 PM ET

I’ve been watching hockey since the ‘94 playoffs (I was 11 at the time) and started following the Wings the next year as they were on locally here in Lansing.  I never really chatted/blogged online about them until the ‘07 playoffs when I was getting really pissed off during the Ducks series.  That year, I only really commented on detnews and freep articles.  Last year I joined the newly formed forum on the Red Wings official site (I was dangler13 btw), and had fun, but didn’t like the direction it was going last summer, so I stopped visiting there.  During the early part of this past regular season I was reading Matt Saler’s Defending the Cup pieces on AOL Fanhouse.  From there I started reading his great On the Wings blog and began commenting there.  From there I linked over to A2Y and was pleasantly suprised to see that the 19 were as crazed, obsessed, irrational etc as I am, so I lurked for a while, posted a few times w/o an account until officially joining sometime, I think, just after Game 5 against the Hawks.

Posted by John W. from a bubble wrap cocoon on 06/11/09 at 10:19 PM ET

Great post idea, Dave, as well as Paul for having these Member Blogs.  This is the second time, I believe, stonehands has related his story and each time I am moved.  RIP JNH.

Center Ice changed my life.  During the regular season I could finally follow the Wings intently.  Wanting to talk Wings is not fruitful in the heart of Leafs country, so at first I commented on individual articles at the Freep or Detroit News under the name DrDrifter (my online poker handle at the time).  A commentator linked hfboards in late 2006, and in April 2007 I joined as a member.  Around then a poster linked A2Y, and I was in Wings heaven.

Missing from most online talk was humour and satire.  Bill, IwoCPO, Chief, or whatever you call him, has a passionate perspective and applies sarcasm liberally.  Both qualities I enjoy and share.  And the 19 were all the same.  And yet there is great maturity and intelligence among the funny comments.

Like Triple Deke Tyler, I lurked for a long time.  The Kukla Empire is the only news/blog that I regularly read comments. At A2Y the jargon, running jokes, and twisted perspective kept me at bay until I could keep up with the culture.

The Douche Canoe vote pushed me over the edge.  I could no longer sit on the sidelines.  I signed up and offered (and still do) 2 free tickets to a game in Toronto for anyone who could get a Douche Canoe sign on TV behind Pierre McGuire’s head during the playoffs.  I finally felt I could meaningfully contribute to the culture of the 19.  Getting a screen cap of that sign would be a gift to all Red Wings fans.

Now I consider many here actual friends.  It is a pleasure to be part of such a fun community.  Hats off to Kukla for being one of the best moderators I have ever seen.  He allows the conversation to be fun and yet keeps things under control.

Posted by VooX from Behind the Bar in the Hasek Club Car on 07/02/09 at 07:37 PM ET