As you may have noticed, SB Nation has been rolling out some "regional" sites. On Monday June 21st, the SB Nation Pittsburgh hub will become active. They asked me to contribute there, and I'm happy to have accepted.
This isn't a good-bye by any stretch of the imagination, sorry you won't get rid of me that easily. I'll still be around Pensburgh seemingly 24 hours a day and I'll still be writing some stuff here in the future. Our readers, commenters and supporters have been terrific and I'm very thankful for everything you guys out there have helped me with. I hope you'll continue to follow me at SB Pittsburgh and that will lead into a lot of the great work that Frank and the boys will continue to give you here at Pensburgh.
The new site will, hopefully, become a factor in what your blog routine is. It'll have all the major stories of the day for the Pittsburgh pro teams, as well as Pitt Panthers, Penn State and West by God Virginia material. It'll also have the opinion/analysis and other stories from donkies like me up there. The design is slick (it's similar to the others like the DC Hub or the New York hub) and I think it'll be a major player out there.
I'm also happy to announce my friend Steve will be writing on SB Pittsburgh as well, for even more Penguins material. Steve's a real character. I know that's not very descriptive, but you'll see what I mean soon enough. He's a hilarious writer, has a journalism degree and, like me, was a low level club hockey player in college. He knows what he's talking about and I'm willing to bet you will very much enjoy his work.
Anyways, enough of me talking about blogs and myself. There's a party at hand. Courtesy of Charlie from Bucs Dugout, here's the details. Hope you all can make it (I'm working on being there myself):
I'm pleased to announce that SB Nation is hosting a meet-up on Monday June 21 at Carson City Saloon in Pittsburgh. I'll be there if you want to come out and talk baseball [Hooks' note: HOCKEY], and there will be food and drink specials, so I hope you can make it out. This is separate from the July day at the game that cocktailsfor2 and others are organizing, which I encourage you to also attend, but unfortunately I'll only be at this one.
The occasion is that SB Nation is starting a series of regional hub websites for individual cities, and they're launching them throughout the month of June. You can read about SBN's expansion in this recent New York Times article. Several of the hub sites, like Boston and Chicago, are already up for you to check out, if you like. They look great, and their big innovation is something called StoryStreams, which basically turn every news story into its own blog.
I'm going to be the editor of the Pittsburgh site, and it launches on... June 21. We're going to cover the Pirates, Steelers, Penguins, Panthers, Nittany Lions and Mountaineers. I've assembled an awesome team of writers that includes Michael Bean (from Behind The Steel Curtain), Jim Rixner (a.k.a. Hooks Orpik, from Pensburgh), Anson Whaley (a.k.a. Lee, from Eye Of A Panther), Jeff Junstrom (a.k.a. PSUJunny05, from Black Shoe Diaries), and several others with whom you may not be familiar but who are excellent writers.