A Dream Come True - NYI FYI joins the Blog Box

Well, I know that it's been a while since the last post here. However, much has gone on, especially over the past two weeks or so. I figure given these recent events, now is a good time to give you guys a post with a special announcement to catch up since things are moving along fast and furious with training camps just around the corner.

I am proud to tell you all that I have been selected to be an official member of the New York Islanders Blog Box for the upcoming season (yes, I know my name is spelled wrong in the article but we'll ignore that for now). Needless to say, this is a dream come true.

Just to give you all some background, Sean and I have been wanting to become re-affiliated with the team in some capacity. As some of you may remember, we used to have our podcasts taken and put up on IslandersTV for everyone around the world to see back during the 2007-2008 season. In June, the Islanders presented the opportunity for new bloggers to try out, and I decided to throw my hat in the ring on behalf of NYI FYI. The audition was to go to the draft party on June 25th and use every resource available and paint a picture for the readers. For those of you who might have missed it, this was what I was able to come up with.

When the Islanders first announced their plans to have a Blog Box back in 2007, I created this blog with the idea of trying to join that. But at the same time, Sean approached me about doing the radio show, and all the time and resources we had went to planning and preparing for the shows. The blog had been put on the back burner for a bit.

When I started blogging again, I never thought that I would be able to take it this far. The show has been pretty good for us, as we gained our own little cult of followers and were able to get some big name people come on the air with us over the last few seasons such as Steve Mears, Chris Botta and Kevin Allen.

One thing that I have always been grateful for was the support and help I've had from people along the way. Obviously, a key person in all of this is Sean. He fully supported trying to get NYI FYI re-affiliated with the Islanders and has really helped to make things successful so far. When he created the idea for a show way back when, I bet he didn't expect to go through what we have so far.

Obviously, I appreciate the fact that Katrina Doell and the New York Islanders thought enough of my audition and interview to select me for this opportunity. I hope to be able to provide some extended coverage for a sport that gets some unfair treatment.

One thing I understand is that many people don't seem to have the best feelings about bloggers, and some go as far as to constantly voice their displeasure in how they get grouped along with writers. Well, this is a sport that much of the main-stream media fails to recognize, which honestly is their loss. Over time, the Islanders have been able to shape the Blog Box into something reputable, something that I am proud to be a part of.

I was able to develop my writing skills over the last couple of years, which is something that I feel will be valuable when trying to provide the best coverage possible. A friend from school, Michael Kelly (who now writes for the Amsterdam Recorder), got me into journalism, which is something that has quickly become a hobby of mine. He encouraged me to write for the Stony Brook Independent, which is an on-campus news organization (they do an excellent job and still have some very good talent running the show there, so I encourage you to look them up). It was there where I learned most of what I know now as I was able to dabble in general campus news and sports. Mike will help me out with this blog from time to time, taking care of some editing and helping out with some html things since I can get a bit technologically challenged. So a big shout out to him for the help and support.

So where to from here? Well, there have been some recent news stories that I haven't covered, and my next post plans to touch upon all of that. We are just coming to end of the slow point in the offseason and players are now starting to gear up for training camp. The Islanders are going to have camp back on Long Island this season, so of course I'm sure there will be plenty of items to discuss as the camp rolls along. It's very exciting to have camp back here for the first time in many years, and some of the practices are going to be open to the public and for those of you who can check some of them out, I recommend you do. There is going to be some great competition for some spots on the team this year.

In the meantime, I encourage you guys to take a look around at some of the links that we have on the blog. For those of you who are new, please be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you have anything questions or comments, you can e-mail us.

So there is a little update for you guys. I'm currently working on that post with the quick hit of updates from the past couple of weeks. As I said, now that we're at the beginning of September you can expect the amount of coverage to pick up again so please be sure to visit often and feel free to leave your comments.

-Chris