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It’s not goodbye, but see you later

I’ll never forget the date. May 17, 2017. One of the happiest days of my life.

I was waiting to pick my wife up from work, sitting in the parking garage, when I got the email: I was offered the position of site manager for a yet-to-be-named SB Nation site covering the Vegas Golden Knights.

Finally, the chance to cover a professional sports team in my hometown. What a time. Little did naïve me think I was going to have to choose covering said hometown team and take a massive paycut over my job at the Review-Journal. But two days later, as I pulled up to the parking lot at the paper, I had to make that choice.

Clearly, we know what the choice has been for the last five years, attempting (whether in a good way or bad way) to lead what we now call Knights On Ice. But the operative term is “five years.” That’s a long time.

So it’s time to step down as site manager of KOI.

It’s a decision I dreaded. I had big aspirations for this space that some people would call a ‘blog.’ I made it a goal to make it more than the conventional place where people could look at us as a respectable source for news, analytics and storytelling. And though sometimes we’ve come up short, this site is still standing because of the hard work of so many people that have made it what it is today. I’m just proud to be a part of it.

But it’s time for a new voice to run this site. It’s time for new leadership to put a fresh, new spin on this site and bring a community together. Maybe it was time long ago, but I was too stubborn. You tend to be that way as a freelancer.

Tom Urtz will be taking over as interim site manager. He comes from Blueshirt Banter and, ironically, will be at the Golden Knights-Rangers game tomorrow night for Gerard Gallant’s revenge. So please show your support to him as he takes over going forward.

I do want to say thank you to some people, if you’ll allow me:

Travis Hughes: Thank you for said email and bringing me onboard. Your belief in me got me started here, and I’m thankful for that.

Steph Driver: Thank you for being a tremendous leader and, of course, a wonderful friend who has believed in me and this site for so long.

To the originals, Ryan Quigley, Dalton Mack, Ellis Frederick, Shepard Price and Jillian Wagner: You guys were almost here since the beginning. You were the best group of people to build a site around. And even if you never see this, thank you for your friendship, your hard work, and just overall being good people.

And to the KOI community: Whether you were here in the beginning, came aboard later or whenever, thank you for being here and reading our content. You all make this site fun and I hope you continue to show it support and help usher in this new era.

I’ll still be around from time to time. You can’t get away from me that easy.

Thank you.