I first met THG Publisher Brandon Maurisak at the 2012 GLI. I was staying at another pep-bander’s house in Livonia, and Brandon gave my brother and me a ride into the city each day for the tournament. Though Brandon had also been in the Huskies Pep Band when he was a student, he was there covering the tournament for THG.
A few years later, after I had graduated and gone off into the adult world, THG was in a bit of a crisis: there just weren’t enough people to run the site and when the word came down that the site might shut down there was a resounding cry from so many regular readers who would miss the independent coverage of the program. So Brandon got in touch with me and said “We want to keep THG going, but we’re a bunch of engineers who really need an editor; how would you like to be our first Editor-in-Chief?” I took him up on it, he introduced me to the team, and we all got to work on saving THG from being relegated to the part of the internet you can only find on The Wayback Machine.
Since then, Tech Hockey Guide has come a long way:
- We brought on new staff, including reader-favorite Mike “Old Dog” Anleitner.
- The THG Bracket Challenge started bringing together our readers for a bit of friendly competition at the end of the season.
- We held our first watch party meet-up to watch the Huskies in the first round of the NCAA playoffs.
- We hosted Will Sterrett’s “Chasing MacNaughton” series, in which he visited every venue in the WCHA.
- Tim and Dustin launched their “Chasing MacNaughton” podcast, which sees monthly donations from over 30 patrons on Patreon.
- We started a new tradition of April Fool’s Day articles*.
- We started up an analytics team.
- We launched a Discord server that’s connecting Huskies fans around the world to talk about their team.
All of this passionate work from the whole THG team has taken Tech Hockey Guide from being a website at risk of going under to being a tentpole for a whole community of hockey fans. If Brandon had told me all those years ago that this was where we’d be, I’d be scratching my head trying to figure out how that could possibly happen.
So now it’s time to add another point of growth to that list:
- I’m stepping aside and, effective immediately, Matt Cavender is now Editor-in-Chief, Tech Hockey Guide.
When Brandon called me, THG needed somebody who knew where to put the commas and how to structure a news article; now I’m calling up Matt because THG needs somebody who goes past grammar and spelling and can really get into Huskies Hockey as a grander culture.
Matt is, as some of you are already aware, a living embodiment of Huskies Hockey fandom. He’s been on our editing team for a few years now and it’s clear that he is the person who should be in the driver’s seat for this new era of Tech Hockey Guide. The same passion that he brought to heading up Mitch’s Misfits as a student has carried over to his work on THG. So please join me in welcoming Matt to his new role. He’s just the right person, arguably the only person, for the job.
Mush on,
Alex Slepak
*If you’re reading this, Suzanne, we’re still waiting to get to write that women’s team announcement as factual.
Cover image credit Alexander Hardin via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jammed_Typewriter.JPG
Alex Slepak is the former Editor-in-Chief of Tech Hockey Guide. Alex was a Student Conductor of the Huskies Pep Band and graduated from MTU in 2014 with a B.S. in Scientific and Technical Communication. After graduating, he moved to the Twin Cities where he now writes software manuals for a living.
Thanks for everything Alex. Best wishes for whatever the future brings you. I’m sure you’ll make the most of it.
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