Girl’s hockey co-coach stepping down

HowieHanson Jun 24, 2009 16 Comments

DuluthJournal.com is reporting that Amber Fryklund has stepped down as co-coach of the Duluth Northern Stars high school girl’s hockey team. The team’s other co-coach, Jim Knapp, stepped down in late May. Read more.

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16 Comments

Starfire

about 15 years ago 

Are you going to cross post everything from your blog?

mevdev

about 15 years ago 

Maybe it's because his site is incredibly slow.


Also hockey sucks. This is not news. Post this shit to the duluth news tribune. They seem to be hurting for content. PDD, however is not. We've already got the farmer's market and the umd concerts posted weekly. 

Make it stop, or at least post pictures of Barret from the 80s (seems to be popular with the locals).

HowieHanson

about 15 years ago 

No, though the first few posts have included hotlinks to read the rest of the stories, if your readers are interested.

wildgoose

about 15 years ago 

Looks like I might have to pull out my handy dandy soapbox here ... I like Howie.  Not sure why he posted this story here, either but for sports, it is far more local than the vikings item which certainly fit.  

I doubt that his site is "incredibly slow" either. There may be few comments, but that is not a complete or accurate measure of readers, is it?  He has a lot of readers, I wouldn't be surprised actually if it is more than PDD actually.  And he has a lot of people who actually subscribe to his blog, through email updates so he can track them.  Maybe he just wants to reach some different demographics.  

Or maybe he just thought some people at PDD might find it noteworthy that there's no coach for the local Duluth Girls High School Hockey team in the hometown of three time NCAA Champion UMD Bulldogs, a team which also happens to have a number of Olympians from around the world on it.  Seem like sports news anyone?

Like I said, I don't know why he posted this here, but remember that Howie is an independent WORKING journalist and blogger in this town, who appears able to stay independent.  That's something.

HowieHanson

about 15 years ago 

Thanks, JP. Yo0ur kind words mean a lot. I do believe that the PDD and I have a lot in common: independence, mostly. To be candid, I'm working this double full-time, made less than $12,000 last year for a family of four -- including a kid at St. Scholastica -- yet my passion for promoting a healthier Duluth continues to drive me each day, and stronger than at any time in the last 30-plus year in the industry. I've always been a big fan of the PDD, and only recently made a commitment to drive some of my all-local content to my favorite homegrown site.

adam

about 15 years ago 

Clarification, please.

Megan

about 15 years ago 

Yeah, what Wildgoose said.

HowieHanson

about 15 years ago 

What part of it do you want me to clarify?

adam

about 15 years ago 

I'm asking for a policies clarification.

Christa

about 15 years ago 

Howie is great, but for realsies... If I  wanted to read Howie Hanson, I'd read his uber prolific web site. This isn't his aggregator.

Barrett Chase

about 15 years ago 

Adam brings up a good point. These posts border on infringing against at least one of PDD's policies:


Repeat Posting

Don't post frequently about the same thing. You shouldn't post about an event more than twice, and not twice in the same week, unless there is something significantly different to mention about it.


We discussed this before allowing the posts through, and decided to let them through to see how the community feels about them. 

Speaking both as Blog Director and as a PDD reader, I consider the frequency of these posts to be rude. There are several unpublished posts from Howie all linking to his site, and I don't feel right approving them. Five posts in two days all promoting the same website is far, far too many. And I fear that unchecked, the frequency would even increase significantly over time.

On the other hand, since there is nothing patently offensive about the posts, and there were only two of them at the time, we decided to give Howie Hanson the benefit of the doubt and allow them as long as the community was OK with it.

That question is still open, and I'd very much like to have a discussion about it.

Tim K

about 15 years ago 

Misanthropic heathen that I am, I say "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

tony d

about 15 years ago 

PDD is a great public forum and Howie's blog is a solid alternative news source, but perhaps one not all PDD readers would enjoy on a regular basis. So to avoid this, why not just have mutual links at the top of one another's site that includes the "headline" of the latest story/post? (Assuming that could be done automatically.) That way if PPD readers are interested in what's going on at Howie's blog, they can click the link without the need for a post, and vice versa.

But then I suppose there will be an onslaught of requests for permanent links to all sorts of sites....

wildgoose

about 15 years ago 

I like Tony D's idea.  I agree with Christa and Barrett, too. And I think Adam was good to highlight the policies again. And I still think Howie is awesome.  Could this be a case where I agree with everyone?

Paul Lundgren

about 15 years ago 

I think everyone is right except Mevdev. (Just because you don't like hockey, Mevdev, doesn't mean hockey sucks. And I don't find Howie's site to be slower than anyone else's.)

But that aside, here's the deal. The owners of PDD have discussed this (if a discussion is possible through e-mail) and I spoke with Howie today on the phone. 

Here's the ruling:

There is nothing wrong with this specific post by Howie, except ...

Because it contains a link to Howie's site for the full story, it is semi-promotional in nature. Therefore, a series of similar postings in a narrow time frame would be a violation of PDD policies. Since Howie made two similar posts the previous day, this post was a violation.

I tend to not be too uptight about these things, so I approved the post, but it turns out those policies are there for a reason, so people felt compelled to hijack the post with negativity, which is my fault and I regret it.

Now that this is behind us, why don't we all go jump in the lake and cool off?

HowieHanson

about 15 years ago 

Enough. I won't post.

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