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NCAA championship weekend coverage

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

norm1909 said:
+1

Though they do have a Club Section.
Click to expand...

Club Hockey, for its part, has its own sites. The ACHA website, and many of the conference websites, can at times be a little... lacking... but that's because they're forced to rely on the home team for every game reporting in, which sometimes takes a while. And when the national tournaments come around, each division's tournament gets its own website (such as this one, which covered the ACHA D2 Nationals in San Jose, CA this year with live scores and daily recaps), and all 5 national tournaments were sponsored by Miken Hockey to be broadcast fee-of-charge on fasthockey.com. Hockey 101 is generally a decent source of gamescores and schedules for the top teams in each division, but it is pretty much entirely user-submitted content. The forum, which is really the heart and soul of the site, has a lot of crazies that make the worst-of-the-worst here on USCHO look tame...

I'd rather USCHO and D3WH focus on improving the coverage for what they already do, rather than looking to expand into the club domain...
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

There are some very good points here that I'll be sharing with others at USCHO. The new site design will be tweaked, I think, to help keep the "right" amount of content on the front page(s). The way it works now is the D-III blogs and columns age off too quickly this time of year with so much D-I news going on. At the same time, the "News" section in D-III is stale because it reflects non-column and non-blog coverage. We want and need more D-III features and this is a known issue. We underspend our budget on this. Good content is hard to find.

Links to recaps are not included on the front page(s) because they force other more lasting stories off the pages. This is true for D-I as well. Trying to put a link on the front page for every recap may work in D-III where there are not many, but in D-I we have 40 or so each weekend.

The nice part about an automated content management system is that it is far easier to maintain since editors are not needed to update the page(s) each time a piece of new content is produced (which is happening at a rate 3x or 4x than before). This feedback will help us hopefully tweak the way content is displayed.

Also, the comment feature on stories is through the roof without, surprisingly enough, taking away much Board traffic, which I was sure it would. Still, this is not very popular in the D-III area for some reason, with not much commenting going on in the articles themselves. I'm interested in your feedback on that.

Is is frustrating that people cannot find things because we have so much more content with the site being updated literally hourly, and in the case of D-III, almost daily during the season. I and the other writers and editors obviously want you to find and read everything.

As far as linking to other web sites and blogs, we are looking at some new features that can allow for more user-generated content to be linked from USCHO. That's one of the offseason plans, anyway.
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

norm1909 said:
First I must say that for comprehensive DIII coverage, USCHO is the preeminent leader and IMO, no one can fault the efforts of the writers and contributors, especially when considering they are effectively only given token pay, kudos to them.

I continue to be a paying member of USCHO because I realize, nothing is, nor should be free. But I do believe that there is significant potential to tap into the DIII appetite. Could it happen overnight? No, but I strongly believe it would not be contrary to or require a significant change to the USCHO business model to elevate it to profitability and significant prestige.

I find it childishly offensive that a line such as “I have allowed links to competing sites because I think this sport needs all the coverage it can get.” would be used by someone I have considerable respect for, I can only assume/hope it was made out of frustration. Sites of the nature of USCHO do NOT have “competing sites”, they have “complementary” sites, the” public persona” of these sites is to share and promote the news/events/trials & accolades of the competition of sport, not become protectively competitive themselves.

There is certainly enough to go around, and no one should feel “singled out” for criticism, but rather honored that they are significant enough to be critiqued. Everyone knows that there is always room for improvement, and certainly USCHO has a GREAT potential to improve, it has a strong presence and basis on which to build. I think/hope that all those involved internally at USCHO would appreciate the creative criticism and make serious efforts to act upon them; anything else simply appears to show a guilty conscience.
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Hi Norm,

Alas, we do compete directly with some sites and complement others. It's great that we can all expand the base but in reality there are limits on clicks and page views and we compete with some other sites, both general and college-hockey specific. ESPN has a college hockey section as does USA today, etc. CHN is a direct competitor, started by a former employee. There may be one out there in D-III as well ;). Yes, we have 50x the traffic of CHN but they do a good job of pushing us, especially in the strictly news area. INCH is more of a complimentary site as they have a different focus. But INCH has a deal with ESPN the way we have one with CBS. We both have podcasts, etc. So we do butt heads.

I want to see D-III hockey grow and hopefully we can get out of this plateau. In reality, there are 10-12 D-III programs with good fans bases and they are responsible for the majority of page views. The rest? Fan support at games seems directly proportional to the amount of attention a team gets here from fans, no surprise.
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Chris Lerch said:
There are some very good points here that I'll be sharing with others at USCHO. The new site design will be tweaked, I think, to help keep the "right" amount of content on the front page(s). The way it works now is the D-III blogs and columns age off too quickly this time of year with so much D-I news going on. At the same time, the "News" section in D-III is stale because it reflects non-column and non-blog coverage. We want and need more D-III features and this is a known issue. We underspend our budget on this. Good content is hard to find.

Links to recaps are not included on the front page(s) because they force other more lasting stories off the pages. This is true for D-I as well. Trying to put a link on the front page for every recap may work in D-III where there are not many, but in D-I we have 40 or so each weekend.

The nice part about an automated content management system is that it is far easier to maintain since editors are not needed to update the page(s) each time a piece of new content is produced (which is happening at a rate 3x or 4x than before). This feedback will help us hopefully tweak the way content is displayed.

Also, the comment feature on stories is through the roof without, surprisingly enough, taking away much Board traffic, which I was sure it would. Still, this is not very popular in the D-III area for some reason, with not much commenting going on in the articles themselves. I'm interested in your feedback on that.

Is is frustrating that people cannot find things because we have so much more content with the site being updated literally hourly, and in the case of D-III, almost daily during the season. I and the other writers and editors obviously want you to find and read everything.

As far as linking to other web sites and blogs, we are looking at some new features that can allow for more user-generated content to be linked from USCHO. That's one of the offseason plans, anyway.
Click to expand...

It is very hard to find anything related to DIII - the content may be there, but with the site set up the way that it is, DIII info either gets overwhelmed by DI and rolls into oblivion and never gets seen, or sits on the DIII "news" file and rots (like Adrain to play in the outdoor classic).

With your system being automated, perhaps a tweak is needed in the way DIII content fits into the system. It's frustrating for those of us who are fans of the DIII game not to be able to learn as much as we can and follow our sport the way that we used to. It seemed like the old setup was more suited to our manner of following the game. As far as commenting on individual articles, I haven't found many individual articles about DIII hockey - maybe I haven't been looking in the right places. I'm not trying to snipe at USCHO, I just want to be able to follow my favorite sport in a convenient way. There may be good intentions going on, but I'm not finding it. That's my frustration. It's almost like the old conundrum "if an article is posted on USCHO and nobody knew where to read it, was it content?"
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Chris Lerch said:
There are some very good points here that I'll be sharing with others at USCHO. The new site design will be tweaked, I think, to help keep the "right" amount of content on the front page(s). The way it works now is the D-III blogs and columns age off too quickly this time of year with so much D-I news going on. At the same time, the "News" section in D-III is stale because it reflects non-column and non-blog coverage. We want and need more D-III features and this is a known issue. We underspend our budget on this. Good content is hard to find.

Links to recaps are not included on the front page(s) because they force other more lasting stories off the pages. This is true for D-I as well. Trying to put a link on the front page for every recap may work in D-III where there are not many, but in D-I we have 40 or so each weekend.

The nice part about an automated content management system is that it is far easier to maintain since editors are not needed to update the page(s) each time a piece of new content is produced (which is happening at a rate 3x or 4x than before). This feedback will help us hopefully tweak the way content is displayed.

Also, the comment feature on stories is through the roof without, surprisingly enough, taking away much Board traffic, which I was sure it would. Still, this is not very popular in the D-III area for some reason, with not much commenting going on in the articles themselves. I'm interested in your feedback on that.

Is is frustrating that people cannot find things because we have so much more content with the site being updated literally hourly, and in the case of D-III, almost daily during the season. I and the other writers and editors obviously want you to find and read everything.

As far as linking to other web sites and blogs, we are looking at some new features that can allow for more user-generated content to be linked from USCHO. That's one of the offseason plans, anyway.
Click to expand...

If it is true that there has been more content this year than ever before, I retract one of my initial complaints about the lack of coverage throughout the season. The problem then comes in with the new site design. Before the new "upgrade", there would be links to all of the D3 columns on the D3 homepage. It was very straightforward and you didnt need a treasure map to find Jaslow talking about a pretzel. You mention that the comments on stories and in turn, the hits on them have been low if not nonexistant. I think you have found your answer as to why. The new system makes it impossible to find a D3 story let alone even know one exists.

One criticism I will not retract however is the coverage during the NCAA's. It was an absolute joke plain and simple. I realize the decision to send the D3 editor to St. Louis was not made by you, or her for that matter. While you are sending these suggestions to the USCHO brass you can send this message to them as well. It's time they remove their heads from their rears and wake up. They have lost track of how this site started in the first place. The words that come out of their mouth is that they do this stuff "for the love of the game", yet their actions show nothing but greed for the almighty dollar. You can't have it both ways. Have them think back to 11-12 years ago and realize why they started this site in the first place. The NCAA coverage was much better under you Chris, no matter which region the finals were in. I think D3 deserves a bit more respect than what they are getting from those who shall not be named. (And they apparently want to keep it that way since there is no longer a section on the site showing the chain of command. Interesting.)
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Chris Lerch said:
Hi Norm,

Alas, we do compete directly with some sites and complement others. It's great that we can all expand the base but in reality there are limits on clicks and page views and we compete with some other sites, both general and college-hockey specific. ESPN has a college hockey section as does USA today, etc. CHN is a direct competitor, started by a former employee. There may be one out there in D-III as well ;). Yes, we have 50x the traffic of CHN but they do a good job of pushing us, especially in the strictly news area. INCH is more of a complimentary site as they have a different focus. But INCH has a deal with ESPN the way we have one with CBS. We both have podcasts, etc. So we do butt heads.

I want to see D-III hockey grow and hopefully we can get out of this plateau. In reality, there are 10-12 D-III programs with good fans bases and they are responsible for the majority of page views. The rest? Fan support at games seems directly proportional to the amount of attention a team gets here from fans, no surprise.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris -

I find the tone and quality of this reply a significant improvement over the one I quoted, perhaps frustration was a factor.

I certainly agree, that there is "competition" to some point, and luckily so, in a purely monopolistic environment, there is no need for improvement, innovation or even caring for that matter. But the competitive spirit should not lead to censorship or restrictions, or even the thought thereof. I disagree that there are "in reality there are limits on clicks and page views", in fact hyperlinks (which I have been known to create every now and then ;) ) expand the pie, creating more "clicks". What goes around eventually comes around, stooping to level of censorship/restricting certain sites etc, while common in totalitarian regimes, has NO place in this environment. Embrace and encourage comparisons to "competitive sites", as long as you "recruit, train, practice and give good support", you have nothing to loose and might even win the championship.

It is nice to hear that recognize the criticism as "creative criticism" by people who care about the sport and the site and want the best for both, but sometimes you have to "call a spade a spade". Godspeed in your efforts and thank you for giving your best.

PS
My name really is Larry, no pseudonym here either :)
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I don't know how many others do this, but I have the message board saved as a favorite so I don't even go to the DIII page that much anymore. Yes there are personal issues with some, but thinking back to the off season how long did we wait to see MAJOR stories on the DIII page. I'm not framiliar with the DI board but do stories break on the DI main page before the forum leaks, or how long after? There were several big stories that should have been covered and reported in a more timely manner, but USCHO did not and d3westhocky did. Again, if we work together we should allow sites like d3wh to post a story on the DIII main page. You would probably see more hits. We have more posters from different teams/conferences then I can ever remember, credible posters. If everyone works together and the heads (not Chris) of USCHO stops looking down on DIII maybe we could up the traffic if we had more content.
 
I have the message board link in my favorites for two reason, there is no reason to go to the USCHO homepage, unless I'm looking for Dl news (which is rare) and it take too long for the homepage to load on my phone.
 
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Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Is USCHO naming any Division III All-Americans or any such post-season awards as it has in the past? All but four teams have been done playing for over a month. Looks like USCHO's "commitment" to Division III coverage is nothing more than lip service if this can't even be taken care of within two weeks of the finals being over. If I've missed this I apologize but I don't think I have.
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Sir Nubs said:
Is USCHO naming any Division III All-Americans or any such post-season awards as it has in the past? All but four teams have been done playing for over a month. Looks like USCHO's "commitment" to Division III coverage is nothing more than lip service if this can't even be taken care of within two weeks of the finals being over. If I've missed this I apologize but I don't think I have.
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lip-service.jpg
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Yes, it's in process. Look for them starting Tuesday or Wednesday. I've also (hopefully) got a retrospective on Adrian coming.
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

As promised, the D-III awards go out today. Check the D-III front page for the links. Today: POY. Tomorrow: COY. Friday: All 1st, 2nd, 3rd teams.
 
Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Arafel said:
As promised, the D-III awards go out today. Check the D-III front page for the links. Today: POY. Tomorrow: COY. Friday: All 1st, 2nd, 3rd teams.
Click to expand...
Hit your blog - so you are from the Queen City of the Sound...didn't by chance grow up in Sutton Manor and have a brother Joe, did you?
 
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