Running a blog has its ups and downs, and the NHL has caused not much else but downs. First there was the Gamecenter Live debacle, and now this. Like most sports-oriented blog on the net, I run some ads in the hopes of offsetting some of the costs of domain registration and site hosting. There is no chance of my covering all my costs. I don't mind it so much; it's fun and I get to have my say out in the open.



Naturally, I applied for the NHL online store's associates program. This made sense: we're talking about an NHL team, of a sport about which many Canadians are rabid, and they have some pretty sweet merchandise. I just got my answer back from the NHL: a resounding no. The reasons stated were that either my site was unreachable (it is reachable), the web site is not yet live (not so), there is inappropriate content (except for the Big Z post, which can't be because ESPN gets away with it), or low traffic. Ah HA! Low traffic!
 
So no encouragement on the NHL's part to the smaller sites which are the bread and butter of the demented hockey fan. "Bring us the gravy once you have it, but you need to bring us LOTS of gravy. Until then, you're welcome to swim alongside these carnivorous fish". I understand that sports is big business, but why must it be ALL business?