If you only check in for hockey content and wish to skip past 1-year anniversary drivel, please skip to the end where you will find a link to a survey that gives you a vote to help drive Canes and Coffee’s direction for year 2.
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THANK YOU!
One year ago today, I wrote the following first official post to kick off Canes and Coffee. I did cheat and get a couple posts up before that as the site was being built, but I consider July 29, 2015 to be the official founding of Canes and Coffee.
Someday if I win the big lottery, I will hire a small team to hunt down everyone who has been a part of this excellent Hurricanes hockey adventure before, during and after its launch. I will then invite everyone to one of the multiple luxury boxes rented for a Hurricanes game. Until then, please accept my sincere and enthusiastic THANK YOU!
It started with my crazy idea to start an independent sports news/blogging web site for a our small market hockey team in the midst of a playoff drought. Words cannot express how grateful I am that a group of similarly crazy and passionate fans considered this outlandish idea and decided to support it.
THANK YOU to the 64 people who funded the Kickstarter last June!
THANK YOU to Oak City Technology (web design), Jamie Kellner (photo content) and Marty Smith at Curagami (content site advice and strategy) for helping launch the web site!
THANK YOU to everyone who has been kind enough to visit the site, read the articles and participate to a growing mini-community on the site and on social media!
Especially THANK YOU to everyone who offered words of encouragement and small and large pushes of help on social media and elsewhere that made it easy to keep pushing forward on some hard days after trading sleep for CandC one too many nights in a row last summer or writing a game recap after a West Coast road game during the season.
IMPORTANT! Request input to help chart course for year two
With the first year completed, running a new site has gradually become a bit more routine and less chaotic which only encourages me to consider (within reason) adding a little bit to what Canes and Coffee already does.
PLEASE take a moment to answer a short 10-question survey to help us understand what you like about Canes and Coffee’s current web site and Hurricanes coverage and also offer your input on possible improvements and additions.
Canes and Coffee survey is HERE.
Thanks again to everyone who is part of the Canes and Coffee community and broader Carolina Hurricanes fan base. With the foundation built, I look forward to an exciting year two with the goal of contributing to our wonderful hockey community.
Thanks and Go Canes!
Matt Karash
Congrats Matt you do a great job!!
Matt,
Congrats on this milestone, and thank you for your dedication and all you do to provide Canes content and help grow this market.
Congratulations and thank you for sharing your passion for Canes hockey.
You have done a great job so far Matt!! Keep up the great work you and your support team are doing everyday for your fellow Caniacs!!
Wow, I’m really surprised it’s been a whole year…! Thanks for supplying my daily HOCKEY fix, all this time. No other sport has kept my continuous interest, and need for MORE!! ..and you have really excelled at providing varied info and analysis. Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Like hockey itself, this website is addictive. Keep up the excellent work.
Kudos for the anniversary and overall effort putting this site together and keeping it going. I have family in the newspaper business (sports writing and editing) and I understand how difficult and challenging it is to come up with interesting articles and topics on a continual basis. Especially when you’re covering a team like the Canes where change is so slow and staying positive can be a challenge.
Matt, I still remember back when you used to blog on HockeyBuzz so it’s no surprise to me that you’ve been able to keep Canes and Coffee going strong after a year. Keep up the good work! Here’s to another year and more!
Thanks for everyone’s kind words!
I am excited about year 2 and hopefully a long season that requires covering Canes hockey into late spring and early summer.