Comments / New

My Peace

It is unfortunate that I must address this, this way…

The site will be going dormant with this posting at the top until All Star Sunday for reasons I am about to explain.

I’m feeling pretty ripped in half right now…

I really enjoy being a Habs blogger. I love the team, love the history, and enjoy the discourse with fans, some of whom have become readers and friends.

I have been doing this for three years now, and it has brought me many more things than I’d ever imagined. There has been all kinds of education involved, but the most cherished parts have been the friendships made along the way.

If you have followed this site for any length of time, you understand my Canadiens passion. I know many of you share it as well. I don’t expect anyone to feel what I’m feeling now, but I suspect that by the time you reach the bottom of this entry, you possibly will.

There is a great Montreal Canadiens site that I have had some involvement with since it came online shortly after my original site made it’s debut. I do not have to name it, as everyone who is a Habs fan and reads online is surely aware of it. It is la creme de la creme of all things Montreal Canadiens. It has news, history, insight, great personalities, and up to the minute news. It’s the king of the mountain because of it’s direct access to the Canadiens team, and the site takes readers deep into Habs love daily.

As I mentioned, I’ve had a relationship of sorts with that great space for over two years now. It has never been anything other than a privelege to be associated with it. I was quite proud to be actually, and in all honesty, my connection there allowed me a certain credibility that I’ve never felt truly worthy of.

I need not detail what it is I did there, but suffice to say that this site allowed me to posts link to the pieces posted here. Doing such, has in fact enabled me to share an audience with them. With that, I have had the highest respect for it, and the community of readers they have nurtured. “Special” is the only word I can think of to describe what it is.

Over the past six months, I have felt a lesser than warm breeze coming from those in charge of it, towards me. I have inquired about such things, and in hindsight, I get that no one there would level with me in regards to my concerns. It’s water under the bridge now.

During the six month span I am referring to, I began to feel as though I was no longer wanted there. There was a feeling that I was taking readership from them, which I totally don’t see. This operation here is quite small time for me, and they are giants in what they do. I still cannot understand how I could ever be perceived by them as being a threat of any kind.

About a month ago, a posting was actually put up discussing the very matter of outlinks, and I felt that the way it was worded, totally targetted me and what it was in part that I did there. I spoke out about it a bit, but was reassured that it addressed a proliferation of outbound links, and not me directly. I still have the e-mail telling me that they welcomed my links and to proceed as I had been all along. And so, reassured somewhat, I did just that.

Stubbs_e-mail2_medium

What happened yesterday to motivate me to go in depth about this here, was an abhorring over reaction by the site I’ve long admired, to something that I did to help accomodate a few friends. I received several e-mails yesterday that invloved a group of maybe twelve people. It was a group e-mail that was sent, and some names on it were unfamilair to me. The topic of that e-mail had to do with a newfound displeasure in regards to posting comments at their site. These people in question had long conversed together in a more civilized and unattacked manner, and they were seeking an alternative to going headlong into that again. Simply wanting to help out – because I was receiving a machine gun like multitude of e-mails on it – I offered the option of hosting them here, in what would be a more suitable place for their needs. I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into what that might incur as far as extra work went. I was just trying to extend a helping hand.

In doing so, I really screwed up!

Before sending the e-mail out, I looked at it’s intended recipients, and omitted some names. Two of those were people who I did not know at all, and the other two were the folks in charge of the blog these e-mailers were criticizing. As I gathered that the e-mail might not have been intended by those who typed the original complains to reach such eyes, I docked the names from the list before hitting send. Where I messed up was in not knowing that further e-mails sent would automatically reattach the omitted names. My goof!

I settled into watch the Habs / Jersey game last night, when I heard my e-mail alerts going off like mad during the third period. At a whistle in play, I came over to discover the source of it all.

The e-mail I had sent out to friends, had found its way to site’s main writers, who were attached to the original e-mails sent to me. Quickly, I logged onto the site in question, and found myself being personnaly slagged off, in the midst of a third period live game blog.

Stubbs_e-mail1_medium

I can’t really describe the thoughts that ran through my head. I doubt I could recognize them. I can say it was closer to shell shock than it was anger. It still isn’t quite bitterness through this misunderstanding, it’s a lot more like uncontrolable despair. I felt the spirit of my heart sink, like something in me had died while I could very much sense my heart beating.

The gist of it all was that I had been loudly called out on the site, criticized in mocking fashion, scarcastically humiliated and embarrassed. The e-mail that had been intended for all of 13 people was now being dispayed to thousands, all in the good name of professionalism and tact. What class!

Boone_s_blip_medium

On the site, it was said that I sent this out to a “good number of (blank – blank) posters.”

Take out your fingers…count ’em, count every digit. Count your nose, and count your elbows. I sent that e-mail out to that many people!

The entire context of my e-mail was not posted. Why you wonder? Because it might have spoken to the meager response I expected to receive back on this.

The last line of my e-mail said:

“Let me know your thoughts. If I have a thumbs up from a half dozen people for starters, I’ll get it up and running.”

Wow! Some poacher of website traffic I am! Better not let me near your tic tacs!


Stubbs_blip_medium My_e-mail2_medium
The worst part of it for me is that I really and truly like the two guys that post content at the site. I feel horrible for what they have done to the perceptions of themselves with this. If they had had one moment of deep breathing, two seconds of logic and calm, all of this would have been avoided. I feel greatly responsible for it in a way, but these are professionals with a supposed higher standard that could have handled it more discreetly had they chosen to.

And they know it too. A few readers still awake at that time of night, have let them have it. It hardly makes me feel any better.

Instead of choosing a private manner of dealing with me, they chose to pubically humiliate me for their gain.

I still cannot for the life of me understand why.

In putting all this down, as I said at the top, it has ripped me in two.

I very much want to continue doing what it is I do here, and in saying that, their’s is a place I will not be heading back to.

Going forward though, I felt compelled to show the truth, and offer my side. As a person attacked, if I expected less of myself, I might as well proceed though life without much conscience and balls.

I’ll leave that task to other smaller people.

One final note. I have not been banned at the site. I have chosennot to return there for obvious reasons.

Peace out.

Robert L

Support Habs Eyes On The Prize by signing up for Norton 360