Nestled in the back of the media workroom inside Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center last week, new NHL.com Editor-in-Chief Bill Price sat with nearly all of his team of writers, discussing storylines, injury updates and what else they’d be following in the game to come — as well as the remainder of the Stanley Cup Final.
The writers had been well-briefed by Price earlier; he also held court in morning meetings with them over coffee. But it was only 48 hours before that they were all together in one place for the first time, and it was the first extended time Price had been able to spend with some of the writers.
It’s been a busy six months for Price, who was hired by the league in December to fill a role that had been vacant since the April 2012 departure of Bob Condor, now vice president of Yahoo Sports Media. Price came to the league after spending more than 17 years at the New York Daily News, most recently as the paper’s sports editor.
While Price is based in the NHL’s New York office, he has been traveling to all of the league’s big events and games, something he joked wasn’t too common in his previous job. And while his tenure at the league has been short, his appointment and the subsequent editorial shift of NHL.com toward more feature and column writing as opposed to a direct news approach has been a long-intended project for the league.
It’s a vision to have NHL.com be a one-stop shop for hockey fans from an editorial and news perspective — akin to what the site is making available on the statistical side through the NHL’s work with SAP, and what it’s doing with MLB Advanced Media for video, television and other digital initiatives.
“The site was a great site for any information you needed about hockey, and now I think we’re a destination site for people who want to read great stories as well,” Price said.
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The league aims for NHL.com to become a destination for great storytelling.
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To achieve that goal, Price and the league have made a number of new editorial hires, almost all of whom brought with them to NHL.com dedicated followings from their past hockey writing at their respective newspapers. Among them are Amalie Benjamin from the Boston Globe, Nick Cotsonika of the Detroit Free Press and previously Yahoo, Tom Gulitti of The Record in New Jersey, and Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette.
John Dellapina, NHL group vice president of communications, said more hires are expected in the months ahead. Dellapina, like Price, is a New York Daily News alumnus; they worked together there for a number of years. He also is playing a key role in overseeing the editorial transformation of NHL.com.
“If you just look at what we were editorially, we were a New York-based operation out of necessity, out of size, out of resources, so we covered players when they came through New York, we covered teams when they came through New York, and while that served us well for some time, that’s not what our league is; our league is all over North America,” Dellapina said.
“If [Edmonton’s] Connor McDavid is going nuts next year, we want someone nearby who could cover 30 to 40 games,” he said. “It seems like we’re going to have a California team excelling year after year after year; we want someone out West.”
The intended future hires will aim to address those regional gaps.
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Recent metrics for the editorial work have been positively received. According to the league, there has been a 13 percent increase in the number of articles read by U.S. visitors to NHL.com and the league’s app compared with last year.
Dellapina said the editorial shift for NHL.com comes with a rubber stamp from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who Dellapina said is perhaps the most fervent reader of the website and its stories. He added that shift will position the site better to cover some of the league’s more delicate topics, such as player safety and collective bargaining, as well.
“One of the many reasons we wanted to bring Bill in is to set the agenda and direct the troops — and then bring in people” like the aforementioned writers, Dellapina said. “There are delicate issues that have to be handled, and you need certain types of people to do just that. I think we can go places that perhaps we weren’t able to before because we weren’t comfortable with it, and I also think that a rising tide will lift all boats and our existing staff will further improve being around another set of great writers.”
Price said that shifting from working for a newspaper to covering a league while working for it was a scenario he became comfortable with after talking with Dellapina, who made a similar transition eight years ago.
“Everything still has a news and editorial feel to it, and while we obviously want to promote the league and get the players out there, we’re going to do it editorially,” Price said. “I think that is what makes the site great; we’re telling great stories and we have great writers doing it.”
