Anniversary FTB: 2 Years

PPP officially opened at its current home two years ago today. I didn't really believe we'd make it to this day still covering games, arguing about things – some of them hockey – and watching the Leafs.

A lot can change in two years. A whole women's hockey league exists now that didn't then with a Toronto team to cheer for. The world seems a very different place, the business of the NHL is very different, but the media business is in the same precarious state.

A short history for new people who don't know the long tale of Pension Plan Puppets: The name refers to the time from 2003 to 2011 when the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan owned the majority share in the Leafs. Their benign neglect marked the first stage in the rebirth of this century old team that had languished for decades in the ownership of Harold Ballard, who never tried to put a winning team on the ice.

In 2007, PPP moved from its original home as a private blog to SB Nation. SBN began to build up blogging and commenting communities focused on all the professional sports, and eventually had one for every NHL team. Those blogs paid site managers and writers very small amounts of money or no money. The sites were monetized with advertising and SBN retained all revenues.

To really dig into what happened next, you have to cover the entire history of Google's domination of internet advertising and their changing methods of measuring pageviews, the decline of advertising revenue and the overall decline of the profitability of all news or news-adjacent media.

Instead, let's skip to the end of the SBN era when that company decided to close down most of the NHL blogs as well as many others. They chose to offer the content archive – all the way back to 2007 in PPP's case – of several sites at no cost to the site managers along with the rights to the logos, names and URLs.

And so I ended up, very unexpectedly, owning this site. But there was also something else, something bigger and a lot more important, and a thing that can't be valued in dollars. That was the duty and obligation to preserve that archive and to do my best to continue the community that had formed over all those years.

PPP is these two, sometimes completely separate things – a blog of articles, opinions, facts, ideas, theories, speculation and news – and a community of people who ebb and flow talking about the Leafs or Marlies or Sceptres or something else altogether.

There is a third thing PPP is that goes unnoticed by almost everyone. I might be the only person who can see the shadows of this third thing. There are a number, unknown in size, who come here and read and never comment. I wanted all of you who just come to read to know you are welcome and valued. If you want to read the comments – and there is often valuable information there particularly on posts about new signings or trades – you are very welcome to subscribe to the site for free which makes the comments visible. No one is harvesting your email address or anything like that.

Paid subscription is what keeps the site going, and has kept us going for these two years. The site and comments cost more than free versions, or should I say "free" versions. Everything that is free ends up costing time or doesn't work well enough or has ads or data harvesting. I like paying solid and reliable providers for good products at a fair price.

If you can afford it, and you want PPP to continue for more years, please consider a paid subscription.

To manage your existing subscription, use the Account link in the main menu (you have to be signed in).

I enjoy that the happenstance that our anniversary day is April Fool's Day since we don't do joke posts anymore. That seems like a thing from a different time like playing hockey without a helmet or jerseys knit out of wool. The real news (such as it is as the season winds down):

NHL, Rogers Agree to New 12-Year TV Deal Worth $7.7 Billion

The NHL and Rogers have reached an agreement on a new 12-year Canadian TV agreement worth $11 billion CAD, or $7.7 billion in U.S. dollars.

Sportico.comScott Soshnick

This is reported to be more than double the current yearly average payment. This has to be approved by the BOG in a vote before it's final.

Note the timing here as Gary Bettman has said he is hoping for a quick and quiet new CBA, and those discussions are about to start.

And no, before you ask, there's no details here about Amazon Prime and how that is going to work in coming years. This new deal would take effect in 2026-2027.

More news about growing the game:

Toronto Sceptres forward Hannah Miller ruled ineligible to play for Canada at IIHF worlds | TSN

Hannah Miller will not be suiting up for Canada at the IIHF Women’s World Championship after all. The IIHF announced Monday that the Toronto Sceptres forward is ineligible to play for her nation of birth, having played overseas more recently than the two-year timeline stipulated by the organization.

TSNTSN.ca Staff

Julia Gosling of the Sceptres will take her place.

This is just weird:

Happy Cake Day, everyone.