Canucks: Staff shuts down in style web site fan boards, followers lament the loss

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The information arrived quietly, however those that noticed it reacted with nice shock.

The Vancouver Canucks are shutting down Canucks.com’s fan boards, which at one time had been the main place on-line to speak concerning the Canucks and a mannequin for fan engagement throughout the NHL.

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In a message that followers first began noticing late Friday, roughly across the finish of the Canucks’ 7-1 win over the Calgary Flames on the Younger Stars Basic in Penticton, the location’s directors revealed that the boards could be closing on the finish of September.

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The message reads:

“Pricey Canucks followers and discussion board customers,

“We need to thanks to your ardour, your thousands and thousands of posts and your curiosity in our crew and this web site. It has been an unbelievable journey and an entertaining expertise. Sadly, the time has come to close down this discussion board and switch the web page on what has been an unbelievable novel to learn. It would stay energetic till the tip of the month and be closed October 1st.

“Remember to comply with us on social media and obtain our cellular app for breaking information and content material in your Vancouver Canucks. We additionally look ahead to seeing you at Rogers Enviornment this season.

“Go Canucks Go!”

The Canucks declined to remark, merely pointing to the assertion posted on-line Friday.

Identified formally as Canucks group boards however recognized colloquially by the acronym CDC — for Canucks Dot Com — the boards first got here on-line twenty years in the past and rapidly turned one of the vital vibrant websites on-line for dialogue concerning the province’s favorite professional sports activities crew.

Kevin Kinghorn, who headed up the Canucks’ digital crew for years and now works for the Portland Path Blazers, stated that over a couple of 5 12 months stretch about 15 years in the past, the Canucks’ web site was the busiest web site within the NHL’s community, with a big portion of that pushed by exercise on the boards.

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“It was about giving the followers a voice and that’s what made it so extremely highly effective. It created a web-based group across the model,” Kinghorn advised Postmedia.

Creating an area for followers to work together was good for the Canucks’ enterprise, he believed. There had been smaller, area of interest areas like Usenet newsgroups earlier than, however what Canucks.com got here to supply was a central hub. There was some moderation in place, largely administered by the customers themselves, and commentary of all kinds, constructive or adverse, important or surface-level cheerleading — all of it welcomed.

“We at all times checked out it as a spot for the followers, managed by the followers. What was actually essential was we gave folks a spot to speak concerning the crew. It was very arms off,” he added.

“It was actually nearly fan-building.”

The boards had been so busy they wanted the eye of a staffer. Kinghorn employed Byron Ribble to oversee the boards.

“It was such a good time,” Ribble stated.

At instances, senior crew executives would push to close down the message boards as a result of they’d come throughout a thread important of the crew, however the crew’s digital workers at all times pushed again, saying that the group it offered, proven within the excessive variety of web page views, introduced the crew much more general worth, added Ryan Nicholas, who labored alongside Kinghorn and Ribble from 2013 to 2020.

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As phrase of the pending closure unfold, followers paid tribute to the location and what it has meant to them on the boards, and on social media websites and with Postmedia.

“It was the primary area the place I discovered my voice as a Canucks fan. I keep in mind becoming a member of in ’03 once I was in Grade 5. For a very long time it was the one place for the Canuck fan group till Twitter took off,” Arpan Parhar stated Saturday.

“If you’re a diehard millennial Canucks fan, there have been just a few moments in the previous couple of years to remind you your childhood is lifeless. Sedins’ retirement was one in every of them. CDC closing is one other.”

For Garrett Milne, who lives in Kitimat, CDC was a technique to join with B.C. followers.

“Been on the boards since round 2009, by no means had an account, by no means acquired into any of the drama. It was simply one of the best place to get all of the information and signings first, good spot to learn articles and watch movies of prospects,” he stated in a message to Postmedia.

“It actually saved me within the loop and I really feel like I’m going to be misplaced with out it now…. Sort of a surprising day.”

He at all times most well-liked to go to CDC becasue it saved every part in a single spot, as an alternative of getting to navigate his manner via the chaos of X (previously Twitter).

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“As a substitute of scrolling Twitter looking for each spotlight or interview from totally different reporters, the discussion board was one centralized place the place every participant and prospect had its personal thread, making it simple to see clips of Euro prospects and the NCAA guys,” Milne added. “After all there could be idiots on there making an attempt to chop the crew down, yadda yadda, however for essentially the most half it simply appeared like devoted Canucks followers who wished to speak hockey and share opinions.”

Kevin Madigan, recognized on CDC as “kmad,” grew up in Nelson, then moved to Castlegar to attend Selkirk School and stated the boards had been a  formative a part of his life. He signed up for CDC in February 2003, not lengthy after the boards launched.

“Being on that discussion board allowed me to really feel like I used to be concerned, regardless of being a 12-hour Greyhound experience from dwelling ice,” Madigan stated.

“Perhaps it was for one of the best, as I in all probability would have attended that Free Bertuzzi rally exterior of GM Place if I’d been residing in Vancouver on the time.”

When he moved to Vancouver just a few years later, a CDC discussion board consumer referred to as phuser22 let him crash on his sofa whereas Madigan looked for a job and a spot to reside.

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“Since I knew no one else once I moved right here, the folks I’d recognized from the boards turned my closest mates. I counted some time again and I’d met effectively over 100 totally different folks from there. Plenty of meetups on the Cambie,” he stated.

He’s nonetheless in a hockey pool with about 14 others from their outdated days on CDC, which he stated is essentially the most significant factor to have come out of his days posting on the boards.

The commissioner of the pool is Miles Tautscher, who admits he has by no means gained within the 15 years the pool has been operating.

Tautscher is amongst those that discovered love by way of CDC, assembly the girl who turned his spouse. The couple now has two kids.

“We had been each youngsters on CDC on the time and we weren’t overtly on the lookout for companions. But it surely was the times of MSN messenger and one factor led to a different and right here we’re,” he stated. 

Posters at CDC additionally began various threads lamenting the lack of their discussion board, each to vent and likewise to recall the great instances.

“Mine — and I’m positive a number of different folks’s favorite — must be the, ‘Burrows? Do we actually want him?’ Thread. That thread will at all times be iconic, at all times made me snigger once I wanted it,” poster Apricot wrote.

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“The man who was on a date, and the bathroom backed up, and went to CDC for recommendation,” wrote TheGhostof1915.

“Raymond, Ballard and a 2nd,” quipped Billabong, referencing the long-standing love followers have for posting their very own commerce proposals, which are sometimes structured round a participant they don’t like, plus throwing in a draft choose.

Wyatt Arndt is likely one of the in style Canucks writers of the previous decade, who first discovered his voice posting to locations like CDC.

“Earlier than Twitter, the place to speak Canucks hockey WAS the Canucks.com message boards,” he stated in a textual content message. “At this time folks go to Twitter however again then all of us filed into the sport day thread to hang around collectively and yell about hockey.”

With the rise of Twitter, Youtube and Reddit, the CDC boards have declined in prominence, however for years it was the one outlet for followers to assemble on-line.

Arndt stated: “With out CDC I may not have a sports activities writing profession. It allowed me to check out my writing in entrance of an viewers and I additionally learn a number of different hockey opinions on there, which helped deepen and broaden the best way I thought of hockey.”

Different followers rapidly arrange a brand new unofficial web site, the place they hope the vibe of the official web site would keep on: forumcanucks.com.

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