It's been a long, interesting, rambly month, hasn't it? It went significantly faster than I thought it was going to, but at the same time, let me tell you, I don't like doing those "Meet your Whoevers" the night of. A couple of times, I was racing the midnight clock to get those up.

Things I Learned from NaBloPoMo:
1. I have a lot more to say than I think I do. Or, at least I can make myself say a heck of a lot.

2. Liveblogging is significantly more difficult than the big boys and girls will have you believe. There's a lot more to keep straight while watching hockey AND typing AND listening to the calls than just watching hockey and yelling at it.

3. Non-internety types don't understand the "NaBlo-Whatever" concept at all.

4. Without the Hloggers, I never would have kept this going, especially after some of the anti-blogger experiences I've had. But the fact that there are people who read it, comment on it, and seem to at least be amused by what I say, even if they don't take me seriously.

5. I have discovered, in the last 24 hours, while looking for other blog-related things, that the WBS Penguins' Ben Lovejoy is in the running to become the next Chasing The Dream-Esque fan favorite, and that my computer is one of those few random ones that the NHL radio broadcasts work on. Why I wasn't LISTENING to Pens games earlier, well, humanity will never know.


Things I need to Work On:

1. Improving my touch typing even more while liveblogging. It's coming, but I get harried and stop to care and you start getting TrashBlog '07 instead.

2. Shameless Self Promotion. I'm a really tiny little fish who's good friends with some bigger fish, but I have to drag people over into my pond. How's that for an extreme metaphor? (I do have some ideas- one of which I've already tried to implement, so we'll see. Otherwise, whore me out to your friends)

3. Cleaning my camera lenses BEFORE the game.

4. Not subjecting people to the same harping on my favorite players. We get it, I'm female, I have favorites I will follow from team to team, and I don't care about stats that that much, but this is not the Colby Armstrong and Jay Beagle show. I promise, now that I'm not forced to post as much, less about them.



Anyway,

The Canucks in my brain cranking out content as fast as they can would like to thank you too. They now get their first vacation in over 30 days.

If there's one large overarching thing I learned in this month on Hockey Mission From the Great Gods it's that hockey people are really, honestly, usually some of the best people you're going to meet, and some of the most trusting.(with the exception of a few select people at the Flyers game-I'm thinking Camera Dude and Bathroom Girl.) In this last month I've given people camera advice, been offered tickets, have an old man take pity on me and slot me into a food line in front of him, watched someone's kid while they took the other to the bathroom, joked good naturedly with a Flyers fan in the stands, joked online with a Phantoms fan I'd never met, and found a source who's willing to copy me Chasing the Dream for peanuts on the dollar, just because she thinks 'more people should see it.'

Honestly. Where else can you find a group of people that come together to watch grown men pummel a little rubber thing with a stick and get in fights, but trust each other enough to do stuff like that?


I love this game.