Silver Seven town hall meeting

With the start of any new NHL season, we get a bunch of new visitors here at Silver Seven. So at this time, we'd like to take some time to introduce ourselves and the features of our site to everyone here, as well as use the comments section of this post for people to briefly introduce themselves. If you haven't yet created an account, now's the perfect time to do so!

1. What is Silver Seven?

Silver Seven is an Ottawa Senators fansite. What we lack in insider knowledge we try to make up for with analysis, opinion, and conversation. Silver Seven is also a user-driven site, and its content becomes significantly better when users like yourself contribute.

2. Standard posts

Although there are a lot of unique content on Silver Seven, there are three things that remain the same and are posted with great frequency:

• Silver Nuggets: posted most weekdays, Silver Nuggets is a current events piece that links to Senators and other hockey news. It also features a brief column by the author (usually Adnan) on one of the issues of the day.
• Game day threads: about two hours prior to puck drop, we post a brief preview of the game. Then, during the game, our writers and readers chat/argue in the comments about the play as it happens.
• Recaps: after each game, we summarize the action and label our Sens Heroes (the best Senators players), the Sens Zeroes (the worst Senators players), and Sens Killers (players on the other team who were particularly effective).

3. How can I contribute?

The easiest way to contribute is simply to create an SBNation account (which can be used at all of our affiliated sites, and there's one for pretty much every sports team you can think of) and post in the comments. Respond to our analysis by agreeing, disagreeing, or coming up with points we didn't even think of. Pose questions to other readers or writers, but do so in a civil and intelligent manner. Click the "Recommend" button under comments or full posts that you particularly like. Simply get involved in the dialogue that happens beneath every article.

If you want to get even more involved, you can starts writing FanPosts and FanShots.

4. What's a FanPost?

FanPosts are just like our front-page stories, except they're written by you. You can find them on the right sidebar. These are substantive articles about any Ottawa Senators or hockey-related topic you feel needs to be heard. The best FanPosts have a specific topic in mind, are well-written, and have been edited and properly formatted. Our favourite ones often end up posted on the front page. If you read a FanPost you particularly enjoy, show your appreciation by clicking the Recommendation button. Articles with 4 recommendations get pushed to the top as part of the "Recommended FanPost" list.

Two good examples of FanPosts are Ibanez_Guy's Top 10 Senators Games of 2010-11; and Donny1619's A Look Ahead to the 2012 NHL Entry Draft.

5. What's a FanShot?

FanShots can be found on the right hand side bar, just below FanPosts. These are less substantive than FanPosts, and are quick posts, links, images, or videos from around the internet. You can (and should) also recommend FanShots when you really like one.

A good example of an image FanShot is DaveYoung's discovery of a smiley face on a Sens whiteboard, while a good example of a link FanShot is AlfieGirl's link to the Bobby Butler signing.

For detailed information on how to write both FanPosts and FanShots, please see this post from Broad Street Hockey.

6. Who are the people behind Silver Seven?

Peter Raaymakers is the founder of Silver Seven and has been here since Day 1. He's kind of like Gordon Bombay in the way he has led this ragtag team of misfits into a venerable blog powerhouse by stealing players from the blogging competition due to zoning bylaws. He previously wrote for the now-defunct Sens Army Blog.

DarrenM, on the other hand, has been here since Day 2 (literally), and is a jack of all trades and Senior NHL Debut correspondent. He's only kept around because he lives on the west coast, and therefore can recap the few games each year that take place in the Pacific Standard time zone

Mark Parisi has been writing for Silver Seven since Peter and Darren realized they needed a sucker to write while they sat around and drank. He is mostly known for poor choice of songs that are supposed to "pump up" people and misusing the word "jerk." His favorite song is Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Traveling Band - Beach Patrol.

Ryan Classic is responsible for most of the player nicknames that become memes around here. In his spare time, he photoshops pictures of Ottawa Senators with Paul MacLean's mustache superimposed over them.

Adnan is from beautiful Toronto, Ontario and has been with Silver Seven since February, 2011 after Peter became depressed and desperate during a long losing streak. He occasionally does interesting statistical analysis, but is mainly responsible for the Silver Nuggets as well as Game Day Threads. Lastly, he thinks Erik Karlsson is awesome.

Varada also writes for Welcome to Your Karlsson Years. He occasionally drops into Silver Seven to write an article about how hockey is just like baseball.

Dave Young just started officially writing for Silver Seven this summer, after a couple years of FanPosts and comments. At Silver Seven, Dave often writes articles that end in polls because he believes in the power of democracy. He previously wrote for a little blog called Ottawa's Consensus, which you've likely never heard of, and he's ok with that.

bobbykelly is the prospects correspondent and started writing for Silver Seven in the summer of 2011. He attends McGill University whenever not watching hockey. Also, he hasn't gone go-karting in years, and whiles away afternoons wondering if it would be as much fun now as it was way back when.

7. Any problems, feedback or questions?

If you ever have a problem with something you see here, or want to offer some constructive criticism or praise about an article, but don't want to put it in the comments, do not hesitate to email Peter, myself, or the author of the post in question. We pride ourselves in having a high-quality site and community, and we take that very seriously.

8. Join the community, and introduce yourself!

You read all about the boring staff above, so now we'd like to read about you. Whether you've been here for weeks or years, and whether it'll be your first post or your thousandth post, we look forward to hearing from you.

9. A quick thank you

On behalf of all of us here at Silver Seven, I want to thank all of our readers for continuing to come back here, and a special thank you to those who are constantly contributing to our community through comments, FanPosts, and FanShots. Our site would not be half of what it is without your contributions, and we're very grateful that you take the time to join us here.