I started this site in the fall of 2008 to catalog my little backyard rink. Five years and several hundred thousand visitors later, it’s one of the most visit purist hockey sites on the web, home to backyard rink how-to’s and the most comprehensive pond hockey tournament listing around. Each fall, our pages explode with readers hoping to get outdoors and skate under the open sky with their friends and families, and to think we’ve had a small hand in that is immensely gratifying.

But we’re only just getting started.

Beginning today, we’re opening the back end of our site and taking applications to become a site contributor. Despite some wonderful guest posts over the years, and buoyed by support and help from friends and readers, this site is limited in content to what I am familiar with. All the product reviews, the how-to’s, the hockey experiences…most of what you read on this site comes from me. I don’t mention this to gloat — it’s actually quite the opposite: there’s so much more out there that I don’t know, that I am not familiar with, and if I want Backyard-Hockey.com to be the biggest and best hockey purist site in the world, I need to tap into the community at large.

In essence, I need your help.

I want our readers to know which products you’re using on your rinks. I want our readers to know which pond hockey tourneys you’re going to and how much fun you had on the car ride and at the hotel between games. I want them to know about how your child’s youth hockey experience helped him in school, and how he met an NHLer that one time at a restaurant and still has the signed napkin on his wall. I want them to know how YOU build YOUR rink, and how you implement all the little tips and tricks that I’ve never thought of.

I want you and your experiences to usher in the next generation of Backyard-Hockey.com. I want the hockey world to read and share posts that you write.

I tried to anticipate the questions some of you might have. Those are posted in the new Contributor FAQ page. I expect I’ll be adding to that as we move forward.

For those of you ready to put pen to pad (or fingers to keys), we have a specific Contributor Sign-Up page. Once you submit a writing sample, we’ll create your user account and you can begin adding content right away.

Once your account is created, there is no obligation to write or schedule to adhere to. We’ll be here when you’re ready to share a little bit of your outdoor hockey self with the world. So please consider signing up and help give back to the grassroots hockey community by sharing what you know and love about the game. Let’s take this community we’ve built to the next level, and ensure that even more people experience the outdoor game in the process.

-Joe