With hockey on hold, online creators head back to the drawing board
On Easter Sunday, Shannon Skanes stood in front of a dry-erase board in the basement of his Vancouver-area home and talked into a camera for 19 minutes. The Hockey Guy, as he's called, had filmed this way countless times. However, this particular video - titled "Lessons Learned Over the Last Month" - was not part of the regularly scheduled programming.
Skanes, who makes a living covering hockey thanks to the support of 137,000 YouTube subscribers, had printed five pandemic-related topics on the board:
- The channel survives
- Missed hockey after a week
- I like routine
- Sports have a large economic role
- This can bring out the best in people
Regular routine, Skanes lamented five minutes into the video, has been thrown out the window in the days and weeks since the NHL's hiatus took effect.
"This isn't like an offseason, because we don't know when anything's going to happen," Skanes told his viewers, shrugging his shoulders in a Vegas Golden Knights jersey and ballcap. "So this is complete improv. Every day I get up and I go, 'OK, I guess I'm going to talk about this today "'"
Saturday's uploads included an offseason preview of the Arizona Coyotes, a rundown of the lowest points in Anaheim Ducks history, analysis of the latest return-to-play scenarios, a livestream of Skanes playing the NHL 20 video game, a recap of the 2003 Wild-Canucks playoff series, and a ranking of Skanes' favorite and least favorite NHL clubs. In total, Skanes posted more than three hours of content to his channel in just one day.
Subscriber numbers for The Hockey Guy are up since the NHL shutdown, which is a promising sign while circumstances force Skanes to make other adjustments.
"Before this went down, we were thinking about taking trips to various locations around North America this year and next year, meeting up with subscribers who have talked about meeting with us for years," he said in a recent interview, referring to himself and his wife Yvonne. "That's all put on hold. It's taken out well over half of what we were making."
Skanes is not alone in this strange new world. He's one of several independent content creators who, although grateful for good health during the COVID-19 crisis, are grappling with life without live hockey. What differentiates them from others in the media industry is a lack of corporate backing. Independent creators are on their own.
Ian Oland holds a replica Stanley Cup Ian Oland, who runs Washington Capitals blog Russian Machine Never Breaks (also known as RMNB), became a full-time writer last summer after years of freelancing while working in the vacation rental industry. "That was a really big moment," the 35-year-old Oland said of the career change.
Over the past month and a half, RMNB has lost roughly 40% of its daily readership, according to Oland - though it's still seeing about 20,000 unique visitors per day. The blog's business model follows a similar template to The Hockey Guy, with Oland and staff relying on a steady stream of Patreon donations, merchandise sales, affiliate marketing deals, and advertising kickback.
"The support we're getting from our hardcores is unbelievable," said Oland, who's both discouraged and encouraged by traffic numbers through the initial stages of economic turmoil. "I feel like it could be so much worse for us."
The new landscape has allowed RMNB to double down on its mission statement, which is to "make hockey as fun to read about as it is to watch." The blog is devoting more digital ink to lighthearted content, partly out of necessity but also so fans struggling with the woes of the pandemic - including the lack of live sports - can enjoy a laugh or a smile.
For instance, last week, the daughter of Capitals forward TJ Oshie was featured on RMNB for creating an "incredible" marble run; Caps blue-liner Nick Jensen garnered a write-up for changing his son's diaper with a mask; and Captain, the Caps' team dog, earned blog love for his "immense" neck rolls.
"In situations like this, I know I need to entertain people," said Oland, who's based in Frederick, Maryland. "I've never felt more of a higher calling than right now to work my butt off 14 hours a day - write as much as possible, entertain people, provide them with things that might entertain them - during a time that's really scary."
To that end, RMNB recently created a "What Caps player are you?" Instagram filter. It was a hit. They also partnered with fan gear company FOCO earlier on in the hiatus to help sell two bobbleheads - Alex Ovechkin on top of a goal counter and Tom Wilson with his rescue dog. A portion of the proceeds from the Wilson figurine went to a D.C. animal rescue organization.
Micah Blake McCurdy in his home office. Out in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Micah Blake McCurdy continues to operate HockeyViz.com, the hockey analytics website that marries data with visualizations and is best known for its aesthetically pleasing scatter plots and heat maps.
HockeyViz's user base consists primarily of journalists, stats-literate fans, and NHL team employees. User loyalty over the years convinced McCurdy, who has a PhD in math and is an occasional lecturer at Saint Mary's University, to dedicate the majority of his working week to the site in 2015. Since hockey stopped, the monthly payout from Patreon - McCurdy's core source of HockeyViz revenue - has dipped approximately 5%, or $300 a month.
A common message in McCurdy's inbox over the last while: "I'm so sorry. I wish I could afford to pay you. I'll be back soon." These sentiments have kept McCurdy's spirits high, along with the attention attracted by the late-March release of his latest predictive model, which brought in a flood of new users.
In the absence of day-to-day action, the 36-year-old father of two is tackling some things ahead of schedule.
"You'll have to ask me again in July and August what I'm doing because I'm doing all the work that I was going to do then, now," McCurdy said.
The common thread connecting Skanes and Oland and McCurdy is an ability to create a community strong enough to support them in good times and bad. In Skanes' case, going full time with The Hockey Guy was a dream come true. He'd been miserable in past jobs at a meat processing plant and call center.
"Even now, while things are scary, it's still better than what I had before," he said, adding that interactions with subscribers have tripled during the pandemic. Many of them see him as a friend.
Skanes, 47, is popular because he's accessible, levelheaded, and knowledgeable. He tries to give every NHL team equal attention. And he gives the people what they want.
His Twitter bio says it all: "I make YouTube videos during the apocalypse."
John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.
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