Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now...

Time for some silly stats today - let's look at the leaders from the NHL 2005-6 Regular Season in terms of Giveaways. Who coughed up the puck more often than a cat with bronchitis? Let's have the envelopes, please...

**Top 10 in Total Giveaways (The Roberto Duran Trophy)**
Ilya KOVALCHUK, ATL	127
Ales HEMSKY, EDM	123
Chris PRONGER, EDM	110
Jaromir JAGR, NYR	109
Sergei ZUBOV, DAL	103
Joe THORNTON, S.J	102
Brian RAFALSKI, N.J	97
Marc SAVARD, ATL	94
Mike MODANO, DAL	93
Jason SPEZZA, OTT	93

**Top 5 in 3rd Period & OT Giveaways (The Bill Buckner Award)**
Ales HEMSKY, EDM	42
Ilya KOVALCHUK, ATL	39
Bryan McCabe, TOR	36
Patrick Marleau, S.J	36
Marc SAVARD, ATL	35
Chris PRONGER, EDM	35

As a further refinement, I could add in Time On Ice to try and get a handle on who's logging more giveaways per minute of ice time. And in light of the finding last week that Giveaways actual seem to be correlated with positive results, the impression I get is more that Giveaways are indicative of having the puck more often, and trying to do more with it. As a result, some giveaways occur, but positive offensive plays occur as well, if not more often.

Later today I'll post similar numbers for Takeaways...

Cheer up, it's the holidays...

Why is it that various media outlets continue trying to put their own spin on the "what's wrong with the NHL" story? Our latest example comes from The Hockey News , in a piece by Jay Greenburg entitled, "Excitement Level On The Decline." Take the opening sentence: Attendance is down and yet still up from before the lockout, leaving it arguable whether buildings in New Jersey and Florida are half-full or half empty. It's no surprise that attendance is down from last season, particularly if you compare the first half of 2005-06 to the first half of this year. Coming out of the lockout, there were legions of fans starved to see the on-ice product, particularly in light of the massive rule changes. This year is more indicative of business as usual, so the fact that the league is above pre-lockout levels is a positive. Toss in the projection that overall revenues are increasing despite a 1% decrease in attendance, and I'd say that paying fans have come back

How I'm Trying To Make Money Sports Blogging

To kick off this series of articles general sports-blogging articles here at OTF Classic, I think it's best to start with a comment that Brad left here last week, after I shared my goals for 2012 , which include specific revenue targets: I considered diving into the world of internet marketing myself, but I felt that my friends would hate me for bugging them about stuff. I mean, it's pretty low-risk high-reward, so it's tempting. I wouldn't mind reading about tips on how to maximize impact of blogging in general to make it a legitimate income source. Trying to make money at sports blogging can be a very touchy subject - for the vast majority of us, this is an activity we pursue to both exercise our creativity and share our love of the game, whether it's hockey, football, badminton, whatever, with fellow fans. Mixing that personal conversation with a commercial message can turn people off, especially if it becomes too intrusive for the reader. It's not unrea

Social Media, Internet Marketing, and Real, Paying Customers - it really works!

Applying the basic tenets of internet marketing (SEO best practices and social media network building) have helped me grow the readership and engagement over at On The Forecheck tremendously in recent years, but lately I've been wondering if those same techniques could be applied to small- or medium-sized local businesses, to help them drive real, tangible business results. I'm talking about not just drawing idle hockey fans looking to a blog so they can muse over line combinations, but helping businesses connect with potential customers in ways that otherwise wouldn't occur. Recently, I was able to help make just such a thing happen, and it shows just how great the opportunities are for small, local businesses which may not have the resources or skills available to extend their brand effectively on the internet.

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