Chirps from Center Ice

Thanks for the feedback on the Reader Survey. I’ve decided to share with you the feedback and give a preview of coming attractions as far as what to expect with the blog for the 2019-20 season with the Penguins.

Most of you follow me on Twitter and get to the blog based off of tweets of mine which link stories for you to read here. (42.2%) The other half of you (39.1%) access the blog he most direct way, directly through the website. 29.7% of you see something I post on Facebook and link in that way and 18.8% of you are signed up for the e-mail notifications.

Analysis: Pretty much as I expected, I use Twitter to drive people to the website, Facebook is secondary and the e-mail signups are just an added vehicle for those who have neither.

Half of you read the blog weekly and 45.3% of you daily and just 6.3% of you monthly. I’d assume, and I will get to this here soon, that there is a small portion of readers from out of town that access the site from other AHL cities.

A vast majority of you read the blog on your phones. (68.8%) and I have to consider that when putting out content because it shows up differently on the phone vs. the computer (35.9% of you) or tablet (just 12.5%)

Analysis: The blog is really set up for reading on a laptop or PC, but WordPress plays nice enough to allow for reading on a phone. I’ll go in on the back end and see if there are any improvements that can be made for viewing on mobile devices.

The next parts are of interest in what I talk about during the season:

Gameday Setups and Postgame Summaries are a popular thing which I don’t intend on tinkering with and a vast majority of readers come here for that sole purpose.

AHL Power Rankings was balanced all the way through with, 21.9% voting “2” and 29.7% voting “5” with “3” and “4” somewhere in the middle. More on this in a minute. (the scale was “1” being least interested and “5 being most interested)

Next and with this being a blog about the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, the 57.8% of you who marked “most interested” in the feature for WBS News and Notes doesn’t surprise me. I would like to mix in more non-gameday stories throughout the season as they come.

AHL News and Notes was also balanced with about 25% for categories 3-5. I always try to mix in news about the Penguins or their opponents here.

Now, some pie charts:

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This is actually what I was hoping for and what I was expecting. There are a cadre of readers who like the Power Rankings but most people don’t read all of them all the time. Well, for me, I can’t just put half the scores or work on 2/3’s of the teams. It’s a time consuming process that I moved to Thursday’s because I wanted my Sunday evening’s back instead of sitting in front of a computer at 9 o’clock in the evening knowing that in twelve short hours I would be back at my regular job doing it again. So I moved them to Thursday’s last year and it was a lot better for me.

Doing both on ice and Power Rankings at the same time in the same week is not an option, but I threw it in there anyway. Leads to my next pie chart.

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You’ll be getting that. I am planning on going deeper this year and bringing back the on-ice stats for the Penguins.

Next pie was how, if you followed on Twitter, how it could best be served you.

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Good to see Hershey fans have a sense of humor!

I just tossed in this next question to see where the base of the readers come from.

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Decent spread, with the majority full share members, the die hards and the ones that the blog really caters to.

Last was a free form field that if you wanted you could drop a note. Here are some with my response.

First off, thank you so much for all the time you put into the blog. You don’t understand how much at work I look forward to a new post. Moreover, I think you should go live on Twitter an answer questions from readers… I would love to have a more open discussion about the Baby Pens…And hear not only other people questions, but your thoughts!

Sounds like a good idea.

We are from MN and don’t go to all the games. We watch all the games on AHL TV stream. We buy the season pass. Thank you so much for your blogs. Enjoy them.

Some of the responses were like this one above. You are welcome.

Time on ice for wbs players

Trust me, if there was a way I could freely access this and share, I would. You can’t. I have looked. A lot.

Maryland loves Nafsnep

Thanks, Dan!

I always check your blog. You do a great job. The questions above didn’t ask about game day updates. I go to your live feed for that. If I am out travelling that is where I go. Not the AHL scoreboard. I like to see who scored etc. I always look for the capital letters because that means we scored. I also listen to the game on my phone. Lets see if the next couple of years we can get over the hump and get a championship!

If that day comes, I wonder what the postgame story would be and what it would look like. Likely an incoherent mess put up at 3 am after the celebrations.

I think you do a tremendous job with your blog. Your level of detail & dedication are very much appreciated. I’m from the Pittsburgh area and your blog is a daily read during the season & a weekly read during the off season to see what you will post next. I hope you can keep it up & look forward to what changes you may make. Thanks again!

Blog isn’t going anywhere so don’t worry. Thank you for the kind words.

You’re doing a great job and are now basically the only reliable blog to read up on the WBS Penguins since the Penguins Insider one is pretty much dead. I’m a reader from Bulgaria, so there’s virtually no other way for me to get some insider info on the AHL Penguins. Even the radio that covers WBS games is geoblocked for some reason. Not following you on twitter just because I don’t have one (never hopped onto that train;). Cheers!

Get a VPN and connect into the USA to allow yourself to listen to the games on the internet radio… Jonathan left for Pittsburgh and his inspiration for me to start my own blog has grown into this… Tom Venesky doesn’t cover the Pens anymore and I’m not going to step on Tyler’s toes as he does this for a living and I a hobby. I’ll never encourage folks to prefer the blogger over the paid professional but I’m not going to tell the person where to get their news.

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Thank you to all who contributed to the reader survey. I truly do appreciate your input in helping me improve the blog.

So anyway, I’m going to make the AHL Power Rankings a bi-weekly feature and in weeks where there are no Power Rankings offer up a deep dive into Penguins on ice stats. Long time readers of the blog will remember this feature from a few years ago. I have to work on a few things as to how to best apply this so look for more information on this in the coming weeks.

Training camp and rosters will be out soon for the Penguins as camp opens on Coal Street next week. I’ll be back with a look at the names attending the camp. First preseason games get going next week as well.

It’s about that time.