I'm excited to announce that, as of today, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» will be a go-to outlet for Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Canucks coverage! Hopefully your go-to.
We've hired Daniel Wagner as a full-time staffer to head up our new Pass it to Bulis section, which is actually old enough to be in grade five; Wagner launched PITB as a blog ten years ago in a basement with his friend Harrison Mooney (who is now at The Province).
They started taking things seriously for the 2010-2011 season and, according to Wagner, "couldn't have picked a better time" as the team had the best season in franchise history and "everyone was clamouring for more Canucks content; we were there to provide it."
The blog grew in popularity and the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Sun picked it up, providing a part-time job to the prolific writer. In 2015 he left the Sun and our sister publication the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Courier became the new home of PITB, running daily stories on their website as well as weekly features in their printed newspaper.
As of today we're moving Daniel over to Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» to expand on PITB, featuring articles from a new stable of regular freelance contributors he'll be editing, while also continuing his own signature coverage.
Here's the roster for our inagural season so far, with Wagner as Captain:
- Jackson McDonald, the managing editor of , will be bringing his acerbic wit and trenchant analysis to PITB.
- has covered both the Canucks for The Daily Hive and the San Jose Sharks for Fear the Fin. He brings some much-needed knowledge of goaltending to the site.
- Will Graham, long-time contributor to PITB in the past, will make his return to the site with his heart, humour, and hopefully photoshops of toast intact.
- David Quadrelli and Natalie Hoy were two of the up-and-coming writers featured in , which gives young writers an opportunity to cover a game and publish an article on the Canucks website. Full of passion and talent, they're our top draft picks.
- And speaking of draft picks, Cody Severtson does unparalleled coverage of the Canucks' farm team the Utica Comets on his blog, . He'll be giving fans a closer look at exciting prospects on the farm, like Kole Lind and Brogan Rafferty.
And that's just a start. We're in conversation with other writers to bring more unique voices to PITB on V.I.A., and we're also open to submissions; writers can pitch ideas to [email protected], along with some writing samples.
The thing that sets Daniel and PITB apart from the others is that they've always provided Canucks coverage that's a little bit off-kilter, taking the silliest aspects of hockey way too seriously and poking holes in the facade of the most serious aspects. You can expect both serious analysis of the Canucks on-ice play and plenty of humour that sometimes still makes a serious point.
Look for multiple Canucks stories from us every day from here on out, located in the Pass It To Bulis section HERE. And be sure to pick up the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Courier newspaper every week as the PITB weekly feature will continue to live on in print.
