Go time

14 years ago

For many folks the last 30 days were an ordinary August like many others. Relaxed summer fun, while we wait for the new season to begin and for Dancing with the Stars to end. But to us August 2009 will stand as our quarter life crisis that caused us to quit our job before it killed our soul in order to focus on hockey blogging.

During Great Depression II.

We are that dumb

We have realized of late: it is better to fail at doing something you love then succeed at something you hate. Even if that shit pays you well and has an inattentive IT department that hasn’t noticed “user pr62 has 3.2 trillion hits on OilersNation in the past 12 months.” At the exact time that many folks are glad to have a job – we have unwisely left ours and are setting out on our very own.

It went over well with the roommates:

Wanye: (enters room, throws down luggage) I’m home gentlemen. I bring you three vessels loaded rich spices from exotic lands.

Roommate 1: (watching TV) Whatever, keep it down.

Wanye: And also I have quit my job.

Roommate 1: (watching TV) Whatever, keep it down.

Back to OilersNation World HQ

Having returned to the City last night, we immediately decided to lay in provisions for the long hard winter in a moment of Survivorman-esque planning. Never having to leave the house again, we were looking for commercial quantities of ready made meals, that require no added steps like adding milk. To our great joy we found a sale so massive that we had to go back to Wanye Manor and gather the roommates to assist in bringing our provisions back to the cave. $2 for a box of five granola bars? In this economy?

It boggles the mind:

Taking stock of the scene

Job quit, survival provisions stocked in the pantry, we set about seeing what’s what on the Nations. While we were busy losing our mind Jonathan Willis has turned into a three-a-day article beast, providing insight and interesting articles multiple times per day.

So you can imagine our shock and horror when we read this comment last night from local media personality Bob Stauffer:

No disrespect to Mr. Willis, but five JW stories on the front page of ON is at least three and probably four too many.
Given that JW has his own site do we really need all five lead stories on the ON site coming from someone who has no direct access to anybody that matters in hockey circles? Combine that with the fact that Jon resides in Mortheastern B.C., it can be argued he doesn’t really have a pulse for what is happening in Edmonton either. I can see getting Jon’s take once a week…but in this case I think less might be more.
Take Care
Bob Stauffer

Oh Bob. Really?

A few questions spring to mind:

1. Why bother?

What did Willis ever do to you? The guy is a gentleman who is busting his nuts in your field for a tenth the dough that you did when you started out. Rather than using your power and influence to cheer on emerging sports writers you have used it to shit on Willis publicly, in his home court we might add. Why bother?

2. What’s worse?

Having no access but saying something every day of interest or having plenty of access and rarely breaking news you know people are clamoring to hear?

See Bob, you who possesses both the bat phone number for Daryl Katz and the actual shoe size of Captain Ethan Moreau haven’t really used this power for any real good of late. Rather than calling out Willis for the stuff he talks about, you may want to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself about all of the stuff you haven’t talked about. Great stuff, interesting stuff you could discuss that you know people would want to know – except for the fact that it is easier to report the news that floats to the surface rather than do any real digging.

Compare if you dare, the portion of the media kicking it at well paid day jobs that haven’t done any real digging in years – to a guy like Willis who does nothing but dig – even though he has to dig for miles to find a glimmer of gold. There he is, day after day, grinding it out. When a guy like Willis gets that access that you refer to – watch out.

3. Willis is awesome

Jonathan Willis is a gentleman farmer, a scholar and an immediate recipient of any or all Wanye Organs ™ of his choice should he ever need a donor. The guy takes ridiculous amounts of shit from people but continues to churn away, steadfastly becoming a wicked writer in the process. Nothing but good will come to a man of his nature.

In closing, be on the ready Nation

We have walked through a few doors of late and no longer recognize our surroundings. We are out on our own, cushy job be damned and we are going to try to take it up a notch around here. We have a year’s supply of granola bars to fuel us and no longer have anything better to do than work on our dream: hard hitting independant NHL coverage.

And on that day when the Willises, Brownlees and Gregors of the world are so highly read from coast to coast that the NHL has no other option but to grant them full access over which they have little control, we shall put our feet on our desk, crack a Bud Light and declare the job well done.

Until then – it’s game time.