According to the date on the previous post, it has been 84 days since the last new article here on SensChirp.
Sure there were a couple sneaky little edits along the way to confirm I was still in existence but that’s nearly three months without a new article. This site has been around for more than 16 years if you can believe it and there has never been a lull quite like this one.
As an aside, remember this?!
Yikes.
Anyway, where was I? It’s not that it was a quiet time in the off-season either. The Senators hired a new Head Coach. They stole a former-Vezina trophy winning goalie from a Division-rival. I’m pretty sure there was a Draft in there somewhere. In Free Agency, Steve Staios put a big ol’ stamp on this team adding a veteran top six forward with a Stanley Cup ring, a bottom six energy guy with a Cup of his own and a right shot defenceman to balance out the back end. There was a seemingly endless string of random trades, hirings and interviews just to keep things interesting.
Maybe not the usual scandal-filled drama we’re used to in the Nation’s Capital and barely any random celebrities tried to buy the team but under normal circumstances, there was more than enough to keep an anonymous blogger busy.
Honestly, I’m not really sure what happened.
The hockey season ended I suppose and it was a spectacularly disappointing from start to finish but it was something more than that. This was a perfect storm of sorts. A unique combination of personal, professional and physical factors that just left me with a sense of mental and emotional burnout that I haven’t really experienced before. I don’t know what it was really but my heart just wasn’t in it.
I just couldn’t write. I tried a bunch of times too.
The Sens would do a thing. I would have internal thoughts about the thing. Everything appeared to be trending in the right direction. I’d open the website up like usual. But instead of those thoughts turning into words, there was just nothing.
Something that had once felt so natural had suddenly felt kind of forced. And I couldn’t do it.
So a week off turned into two. And then a month. Then two months. And as the calendar rolled over into July, I found myself seriously doubting whether I’d ever write here again.
But there were a couple key moments that helped remind me why I’ve put so much time and effort into this site over the last couple decades (yeeeesh) and why I’m gonna work even harder at it in the years ahead.
The first reminder came from my 10-year old daughter. As an aside, remember this?!
Anyway, I was talking to her about the future of the site and about the possibility of stepping away and she asked me, “Why?”. I rambled on about not having enough time and about growing up and about struggling to find the motivation and it was in my own long and meandering answer and the disappointed look on her face that followed that I realized that the explanation made no sense to me or to the future SensChirp.
The second moment has been more of a gradual thing and has played out over the last couple months. Watching you weirdos run the comment count up to 65,000 on this half-assed Draft Day post has been a good reminder that this place isn’t just mine.
It’s yours too.
I don’t know exactly what the future holds for this site but for the first time in awhile, I am excited about the possibilities. There are some really interesting opportunities on the horizon and I think it is the kind of thing that can help take this place to the next level. What I know is that whatever direction we take this thing in the future, the SensChirp Community will be at the centre of it all.
There are 73 days until the start of a new season and the truth is, it’s going to be a painfully quiet time in the hockey world. The Senators have done most of their wheeling and/or dealing at this point and while a PTO or two is always a possibility, the roster is mostly set. There won’t be a lot to talk about in the month of August. But when has that ever stopped us before?
Seriously though, thanks for keeping this thing going in my absence and for reminding me why I started this wacky site in the first place. Also, for those that are interested, that old thread remains very much open and 70,000 is just around the corner.
That record will stand forever.
Back with more tomorrow. Or in September, who the hell knows.
