The 2013-2014 Dallas Stars season was incredibly fulfilling for us at Defending Big D. A new general manager, a new coach, a new captain, new logo/colors, new system, new faces, new experiences, and FINALLY playoffs (for the first time since DBD’s inception). We covered a lot, and there’s going to be even more new and exciting things coming up next season as the work of returning to perennial winners continues for the Stars.
We’re constantly looking for ways to improve our coverage of the team and better ways to present that coverage to our readers, and that involves always looking to continue to build our writing staff here at DBD.
As part of that, we’re looking to make some additions to the team here at DBD. We’re looking for two different types of contributors, each having their own time commitments.
Option 1: Daily Links Contributor
For those of you who have been reading DBD for a good while now, you know that during the season (and periodically during the offseason) we have a very popular daily feature that is basically a run down of all the links pertaining to the Dallas Stars, their affiliates, and general NHL news. These posts run daily during the season, are a great way to expose our readers to all the resources available on the web and are generally one of the most visited posts of the day.
We are looking for a dedicated Dallas Stars fan and DBD reader who would be interested in contributing to the Daily Links feature, a great opportunity for someone who is looking to write about the Stars and hockey and provide an invaluable service to the DBD community.
The job will entail collecting links pertaining to the Stars and stories from around the hockey world and publishing a Daily Links post five times a week during the season, with some flexibility certainly allowed and expected. Here are some very important aspects of this position to keep in mind if you are interested:
- Daily Links posts are generally published at 6 a.m. CT each day — so any interested persons would likely need to be a night owl, or early riser (or better yet, on the West Coast).
- Each post would also include a short op-ed pertaining to the top story of the day, so some advanced writing skill and hockey knowledge is certainly required.
- Links posts generally do not take more than 30 minutes to an hour to complete, if done smartly.
- This is a great opportunity to get into writing about the Dallas Stars and will almost certainly lead to an expanded role with DBD in the future. (Brad and Erin, now feature writers, started off as Links correspondents.)/
The staff writer is someone who is passionate about the Dallas Stars and wants to engage that passion with the wider Stars fan community. A degree of hockey IQ is necessary for this position — we’re looking for you to provide us with analysis of the game. Prior writing experience will be taken into consideration (this can be through comments, fan posts, blogging, etc.) This person will need to be able to provide unique topics to write about without much guidance from the editorial staff and follow those ideas through to publication. We’d be looking for 2-3 stories a week with additional help as needed for game recaps, breaking news, and the like as schedules allow.
This person will be trained to provide a nearly-instantaneous statistical recap of games in season. We will be determining the format we will use for this, and this person will need to fill in the necessary information (like zone entries, Corsi, Fenwick, etc.) Advanced knowledge of hockey statistics would be the most beneficial to this position, and you’ll need to be able to watch the games throughout the season.
A few things to consider when applying for these positions…
- This is a labor of love, for those that are 100% dedicated to the sport and the Dallas Stars. No, you don’t get paid for it and no, you don’t get free tickets out of it. You do get the satisfaction of having your writing read by some of the top people in the Stars organization, as well as the potential to be featured on sites like Puck Daddy and Dallas Morning News with your name out there for the hockey world to see.
- The process of finding a new contributor will include a “tryout” for each interested candidate.
- Things happen, and life and our real-world jobs (the ones that keep us gainfully employed) are the priority for each of us. But this is a commitment of some of your free time, so all we ask is that you’re able to communicate effectively when things need to change and be able to manage your time to contribute consistently./
If you are interested, please send an email to dbdwriters@gmail.com with a brief rundown of why you feel you are best suited for the job, and which option (or both..?) you’d like to be considered for. Even if you aren’t ultimately selected, we generally return to the list of candidates when any future openings come available.