Where Are the RSS Feeds?

Like many other people out there on the internet, I’m getting a lot of my information through RSS feeds today. I’m subscribed to many, and it’s currently the easiest way for me to get as much information and keep up to date with as many websites as possible. So why can I not find one official hockey site with a feed?

I took a visit to the major league sites: NHL, AHL, ECHL, UHL, CHL, OHL, QMJHL, WHL and even took a visit over to the SPHL. Not one has a feed auto-detected*. These sites are about easy information for the fans, there’s no reason why each and every one shouldn’t have an RSS feed to hook in visitors. I’d even settle for an Atom feed.

This site has a feed, along with almost every other blog out there and all major news sites as well. ESPN, Sportsline, Fox Sports, CNNSI, CBC Sports all have multiple feeds going, and TSN is working on getting more than just one feed going there.

So I took a visit to each official NHL team site - and again - not one had a feed auto-detected*. How could a team not have feeds? It’s such a great way to connect with fans. Yes, I’m sure they’d all love to have email lists and attempt to collect demographic information and such, but there’s no reason not to offer feeds as well. You can offer global feeds and then break it down into game previews and recaps, promotions, news and anything else you can think of.

Think of how great it would be if you could visit NHL.com and pick and choose which info to subscribe to, whether it’s on a league-wide basis, conference, divisional, team, etc. The possibilities are endless. Most teams and league sites have dynamic news systems already in place - adding a way to generate feeds from them should not be difficult at all.

Also, do it right - full feeds, have them sponsored if you must, but you’re probably not going to have as many subscribers if you just have partial feeds (and don’t have those sponsored, and then plaster ads on the pages you want people to go to, that’s just tacky).

Don’t know how to get started? Consult with me. Want to work with someone not associated with hockey? I’ll point you to someone else. Worried about formats, statistics, traffic and bandwidth? Consult with Feedburner.

If a league or team really wants to start interacting with fans, open up commenting on some of the editorials posted. Yes, fans can be rabid, and moderation can be hard, but it’s still an option.

Trackbacks are another option. Either add a link for bloggers to use at the end of all articles on a website, or simply have them auto-detected when someone pings a page (many blogging apps will auto-ping pages linked to).

So go, do something for the fans. Make your information more easily accessible and if you want to interact with the fans, do so.

* I use the term auto-detected because if one of these sites do have a feed they don’t have it setup for readers and such to find it easily and may simply link to it somewhere else on the site that I missed. If you find any of these, please point it out to me.

Posted by David M Singer on Jul 26, 2005 at 01:53 PM
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John over at Boltsmag talks briefly about RSS, and points us to The Ice Block’s complaint that hockey websites don’t...
Posted by neurobashing on 2005-10-12 20:19:41 I still think it's a matter of the teams not deciding to do anything over the course of the last year. A new website would be a big expense and picking up new technology as well would be a huge cost with no income coming in. I expect most of the teams are in the midst of having their private firms (or some of the temas who have hired private firms) redesign their web sites. I mean, the Tampa Bay Lightning website is using a design that's 3 or 4 years old with the splash/flash page that leads into a page that doesn't display properly on Firefox. While the CONTENT is usually up to date, the actual site has aged fast (as all do on the Internet. A general rule of the thumb is that sites should be re-designed / updated everything 6-8 months).
Posted by John F on 2005-07-27 13:58:41 You're right, hockey websites generally aren't cutting edge - but there's no reason they shouldn't be. I don't mind a site that doesn't pass through a code check, but I do think they all need to keep up. Example: Some really need to do things like ditch splash pages and such. I can deal temporarily with the "sorry" messages that are up as splash pages now, but you visit these sites and think "do they really think fans want to see this every time they visit?". The reason I pick on them about RSS is because of the nature of most hockey sites (giving information to the fans) and just because adding feeds is a pretty easy thing to implement. What I do understand is that many of the teams or leagues have contracts with an outside company and they might go to them about it and get a hefty price quoted to them. I hope this isn't the case, but you never know.
Posted by David M Singer on 2005-07-27 13:03:04 If we're being honest here, I have never thought of hockey sites in terms of "cutting edge" when it comes to web technology. In fact, most non-NHL sites I have seen have been quite out of date and some even built with older HTML standards. But, given time, as RSS evolves further out of its infancy, I'm sure that hockey sites will eventually adapt. In the meantime, David, maybe this opens up a little business opportunity for you. Especially with the NHL team sites that can certainly afford to compensate you.
Posted by caverat311 on 2005-07-27 09:02:30 To give them the benefit of the doubt, they were out of action for a year and most teams didn't even think to update their web sites during the downtime.... LEt alone give their blessings to new technology during their downtime. Maybe the league will wise-up when they launch a redesigned NHL.com site? Same with the individual teams....
Posted by John F on 2005-07-26 22:02:10

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