Five years, two brands, no strangers: An ATB/P&R swan song

Under different circumstances, our own Al Daniel would be filling this space and time of week with the latest Wallaby Wednesday Rocko’s Modern Life column. But given the reality, we shall instead channel Filburt in his eulogy for his beloved bird.

Along the Boards/Pucks and Recreation franchise, bless you. Like the turtle said about Turdy, “even though you were with us for a brief time, you still had plenty of time to spread happiness.”

Yes, it is time to suspend operations on this hockey-turned-hockey-and-culture publication. And granted, Pucks and Rec is not entering its deep freeze in the sexiest of shapes. With that said, we still have the people, the prose and the memories they generated under both of this franchise’s banners since Jesse Connolly assembled the first ATB staff in the spring of 2014.

While we cannot sustain our original WordPress platform, this site will continue to function as an ATB/P&R vault. We will archive the text and images from selected articles from our first full season of hockey reportage to our most recent projects. With an emphasis on human-interest features centering on hockey players and coaches, we remember what worked best for the brand in both eras.

Whether any of their work is currently on display here (more could still be to come), and regardless of whether they have stuck in the business, our storytelling highlights came from a solid gathering of more-than-recreational hobbyists and up-and-coming aspirants. More than a handful have represented this franchise’s alumni with established sports media outlets or in other communications sectors.

Maple Leafs and IIHF guru Tyler Woudstra overlapped his ATB tenure with a transition to TSN. (And shortly after our relaunch, we connected with Canada’s oldest national sports network again, with the inimitable Bob McKenzie as one of our Meet the Press subjects.)

Mary Clarke, an ATB Metro Division editor and Flyers correspondent, went on to SB Nation and The Athletic Philadelphia. Alexander Appleyard joined Clarke in that revolutionary publication’s Flyers pages shortly after helping us break in our new brand with his Across the Pond reports.

Cat Silverman, one of our NHL Central Division editors at ATB, has been with InGoal Magazine since December 2015. She has also sent her ink to The Athletic, primarily as a Coyotes correspondent.

Minnesota’s Ryan Lund and Boston’s Arielle Aronson, who covered their respective regions in ATB’s college section, have each graced Fox Sports with their byline. Lund, who came here by way of the San Francisco Chronicle and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, is still with the network’s Minnesota and Wisconsin affiliates.

Aronson had also seen action in the Boston Globe and the New York Times before lending her knowhow to ATB. She has long since started channeling her talents in other departments, as have others during and after their tenures with this franchise.

When we broke away from the sports media pack and aimed to make “hockey and pop culture collide” in 2016, we were partly victims of our own success. Some of our best talent in writing, photography and editing alike went to the next level faster than we could replace it.

While a quorum remained to keep our content stream flowing consistently, we had fun with group projects like the 25 Duck Days series in the fall of 2017. That certainly lived up to our social media cover photo and epitomized the tagline and mission of our 2016 relaunch. It allowed us to seize some fun Mighty Ducks-related stories from athletes, entertainers and sportscasters alike. We even caught the attention of bilingual audiences.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the creative thinking and evolving visions of our founder, Connolly. Special thanks to him for giving Along the Boards and Pucks and Recreation life, leadership and direction.

Thank you to all those who loaned us their talent for anywhere from 500 words to five years. We wish everyone continued and amplified success, regardless of where you go and what you do with your skills.

Thank you to the athletes, celebrities, coaches, broadcasters, executives and celebrities who loaned us a little of their time for our on-site game coverage as ATB and for our feature projects in both eras. Thank you to all of their respective publicists/SIDs/media-relations coordinators for granting us access.

And thank you, most of all, to our readers for your support. Whether you are strictly a hockey enthusiast, have a penchant for pop culture or a mix of both and beyond, we hope you will continue to follow our alumni as they take their bylines elsewhere.

No matter where they go, what they write about or who they write for, they shall forever represent their roots in ATB/P&R.