A tradition for every new year is to make a bunch of outlandish resolutions that you will keep for a week, attempt to keep for another three weeks, and then forget about all together. However, at 86Forever, things will be different. Why? Because we are here today not to make resolutions for ourselves, but to make resolutions for YOU, the reader.
We had an exciting 2017. Our long-time editor Jon moved on and I (AtlantisB) took over the reigns. We hired two new writers (Cwilkins and Andrew Bahl). We saw one of our writers (Cascadia Lion) leave for bigger and better things with Curva Collective. We expanded our Guess the Starting XI match contest and our coverage of all things Vancouver Whitecaps; specifically the now defunct ThunderCaps. We also trotted out some new feature series, including Behind the Numbers, Soccer Formations, Future Stars of the Whitecaps, and several more. I expect to see more of these in the future. Finally, we also had to major features this year. First was the Supporters Week series put together by the departed Cascadia Lion, where we sat down with each of the major supporters groups, and the Caps front office, to convey what it means to be a Whitecaps supporter. Second was our year-end roundtable discussion with Daily Hive, From the Backline, and AFTN Canada on the season that was.
In 2018, we will continue to strive to expand our coverage and come up with interesting new angles. We will be hiring a new writer or two, so stay tuned for that application. We will also continue to increase our presence on social media. If you have not done so yet, make sure to follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/86forever and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/86forever While we do try to make sure everything appears on the main website here, Twitter, and Facebook, it does not always happen. Specifically, sometimes there are things that we feel we should cover but that do not warrant an entire article, so we focus our discussion on Twitter and Facebook. For each platform, the discussions vary as well, given character limits and the audience, so I encourage you to keep an eye on all three as I am sure it will help keep you informed on everything happening in Whitecaps land AND the decisions in MLS that impact the Caps.
As we move into 2018, I have a request for all of you. We often write on topics that are of interest to us, however, what makes those topics of interest even more enjoyable to write about is knowing that they are reaching an audience that is interested in the subject matter. I have always been one for discussion, so I love coming to 86Forever and seeing an article that has 30, 40, 50 (!) replies. It is nice to see the engagement and nice to get varying opinions about something. Our writing staff is passionate about the Caps, but that doesn’t mean that we have all the right answers or that we should be viewed as the authority (obviously). I think that part of our passion comes from knowing others have different viewpoints and WANTING to hear what those viewpoints are. Therefore, my request to all of you is to let us know in the comments the types of things you would like to see more of this season. Are you interested in the individual match analysis? opinions? player pieces? National team? something else? I am a numbers person, as you have probably been able to tell by some of my articles, so I like throwing around statistics. Do you like the numbers or do you like opinion pieces more? Do you prefer the long, in-depth pieces, or is that too much and do you prefer the short to-the-point articles (again, obviously not mine!)? Finally, let us know if there were some articles from the past year that really stuck with you as some of your favourites. We would love to hear about what resonated most with you.
Again, happy new year everyone and we look forward to making 2018 even better!