Eurolanche concluded 7th season
This is a recap of the seventh season in the Eurolanche history.The Eurolanche Fan Club will celebrate 7th birthday in the next week, but there is time now for the summarizing the seventh season in our history before the celebration. Previous season 2012/13 will be remembered as the one that was shortened due another lockout. We, European reporters and editors, took advantage of it as many current and former Colorado Avalanche players played in Europe, so they were closer to us and we even met with some of them face to face. The result was our great coverage and dozens of exclusive interviews. After the end of that season, not many fans believed the Eurolanche coverage could continue at the same level as the last season 2013/14 finally started on time and wasn´t hit by a lockout. I am extremely happy that I can say today the negative projections have stayed outside the Fan Club. Eurolanche experienced another great and successful year with many memorable moments. Let´s take a look on the biggest ones.
The first big event of the last Eurolanche season was a summer meeting with Jan Hejda. Five Eurolanche members met with Jan for the second straight summer in his hometown in Prague, Czech Republic and also his player agent was there as well. For the first time, we decided to make an informal meeting with less on-record questions and answers. Finally, Jan got a present from the Eurolanche executive staff members – a plaque with printed photos from our previous meetings with Jan both in Czech Republic and Colorado.
The season 2013/14 started with the announcement of the biggest Eurolanche event in the history – Eurolanche Invasion VI. Record number of 6 members from three different countries traveled for record seven-home Avalanche games later in the season. The sixth trip to Denver included a standard service for the European fans as for example post-game meetings with all Avs players, free tickets for the games, trips in and outside Denver, media appearances and more. You can take a look back on the Invasion in this recap.
We successfully continued in the 4th edition of the Eurolanche League where our members predict final scores and other aspects of the Avs games. For the first time in the competition history, it went thru regular season as our team made it in the playoffs after long time. After 89 games we got know three most successful members and they will be awarded with the Avalanche and Eurolanche souvenirs during this summer. The Eurolanche League wasn´t only way how our members could win attractive merchandise. There were several contests for the souvenirs and mainly signed photos that we received directly from the Avalanche players during our trip in Denver. We launched the biggest contest in the history when we awarded seven different members with seven different autographs.
The Eurolanche crew activity on the social media has reached the highest level in our history. Number of our fans on Twitter and Facebook has significantly raise. Our Facebook page for Slovak and Czech fans finally got more than 1000 likes. I have to underline the fact we got more and more followers on Twitter too and some of them are key persons from the hockey world as for example the Avalanche players, employees or media representatives. The higher activity on the social media has contributed to the historical numbers in the statistics of daily unique visits of the main website www.eurolanche.com. The popularity of our website raised also thanks the regularly published exclusive interviews. Here is the complete list. You can find there interviews with the former and current Colorado Avalanche players and other people related to this team. It is hard to choose the best one. Many interviews were quoted by several media in the US and European media. You can check the list of our mentions at this link. I don´t have to say the number of our mentions is still growing and also there are more and more credibility journalists who visit our website and source us.
Speaking about the website, I cannot forget on the technical updates of our system and the website itself. There two kinds of upgrades. Firstly, our CMS system is still developing and adapting on our reporters´ needs. Our goal has been always to hear them and adapt the administration system so their voluntary work for the Eurolanche wouldn´t take a lot of their free time. These changes aren´t visible for the public, but they play key role and are another factor of our next successful season. Secondly, we do regular updates of our websites that you can see and we always try do steps that will make your experience better. The highlight of the last season was launching new Eurolanche Invasion website. Now, it shows you everything about all seven Invasions at one page. It is easier to orient there and get answers on every question very fast. Other updates related the main website. We introduced you new elements inside our stories – you can find there related stories under almost every article and we occasionally publish a poll at the same position where you can send your votes. As the Avalanche made it to the playoffs after long time, we decided to celebrate in some special way. Our administrator launched specialized Eurolanche.com playoffs version on this occasion that showed you all key stats and news of each game of the series at one place. Finally, as I mentioned we are still working on the development process both of our internal and external system. For now, you probably saw new structures of the Staff and List of fans sections, and also the rotation of the published stories in English and Slovak/Czech boxes. You will find a recap story of all recent website updates later in the summer.
At the very end of this season recap, there is one big stat that I almost forgot on. We have now more than 400 registered members from 34 countries (you see the counter in the List of fans section that was updated as I wrote before). It is incredible how fast our member base is growing. And there are many our fans who follow our coverage but aren´t officially registered. I would like to say big thank you to all our fans and supporters, because it wouldn´t make a sense do all of this without their interest and support. Thank you!
Thank you to all executive staff members who take care about the Eurolanche on the daily basis. These people are responsible for everything – they manage a timetable of published stories, do administration things and generally manage all active members.
Thank you to all reporters! Eurolanche is a unique project also thanks to their work. No other websites publish more stories than us. We published more than 1000 own stories in different European languages what is exactly 3 unique stories per day. Also no other websites publish regular stories in so many languages than we. Thanks a work of our reporters, we were amongst the media that reported as the first about some Avalanche breakings news.
Thank you to the Colorado Avalanche organization for everything what they have done for us. They have never turned back and have never said no. We appreciate your help during our Eurolanche Invasions and we promise you we will continue in our mission in the next season too!
Thank you to the Colorado Avalanche players who have been always friendly to us and never say no if we asked them for dozens of autographs for us or for our friends who couldn´t travel to Denver. Big thank you to amazing person Jan Hejda! He is our big friend and is always willing to meet for the lunch with no matter if in USA or in Czech Republic! Jan, you are just great man.
Thank you to our American fans who Denver who helped us during the Invasion VI. It would not be such easy to do it without your help!
See you in the next season.
David Puchovsky, Slovakia, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
06/08/2014 - 23:00
