And if I Dont See You Again Good Afternoon Good Evening and Good Night

It's amazing to think it'southward but been a piddling over four and half years since those words welcomed the first readers to Defending Big D. So much has happened in that brusque bridge of time; with the Dallas Stars, with this weblog and with me, personally. We say it'south only 4 years since we first opened upwardly the doors here at DBD, nevertheless if feels equally if a lifetime has already been played out between then and now.

I look back at those get-go months and I call back the frustration, the stumbles and the lessons that were learned. DBD did non become a adept-quality website for a good long while - some might say we accept still to reach this status, but they're just bitter - and for a long fourth dimension I tried to brand it something information technology was not. Nonetheless we improved and grew as a website and slowly simply surely as a community, in large part aided because I kept poaching the all-time Dallas Stars bloggers abroad from their own sites.

It's astonishing to look dorsum on those early days with the cognition of where it would all go. Back and then, nosotros but wanted to provide a solid source of Dallas Stars opinions and coverage and well-nigh of all a place for Stars fans to debate, hash out, cheer and cry together. The writing wasn't dandy and it took a long time to really figure out the approach that worked best for what we were trying to accomplish, just eventually nosotros started to pull it all together and there is nothing I have ever been more than proud of in my life than what nosotros have accomplished.

The past four and one-half years, for me, has been nothing brusque of magical.

I had decided I wanted to first my own Dallas Stars web log purely because I loved to write and I wanted to write about the team I cared about the most. What I never anticipated was how DBD would be such a passion for me, how the website would occupy such a large clamper of my life or how it would become a major part of who I am as a person. Information technology was never only a hobby, it became a lifestyle and it afforded me opportunities and experiences I never would take dreamed would be possible.

I say that information technology feels as if a lifetime has passed since the time I started all of this mess, essentially because it has. I feel as if I was living a unlike life, that I was a different person back in the time of when this all got started and the merely common thread linking the past and the present is this website. I now have a family and more obligations and not enough time to requite them everything the attending it deserves. Life has quickly progressed and it of a sudden became clear that a very hard decision needed to be made.

Equally such, as of today, I am stepping downwardly every bit Managing Editor of Defending Big D.

This was a 24-hour interval I knew would come eventually, but I had hoped I could have lasted only a bit longer. Over the past few weeks it became clear, however, that this was the right fourth dimension to move forward and embrace the side by side phase of my life.

I walk away humbled by the heights we accept reached the past few years, and proud of the community we take built. Our poll on the whereabouts of all of our readers showed simply how global a fanbase the Dallas Stars truly take, also equally merely how many readers from all over the world have found our community. If only I could go back and tell that frustrated, inexperienced writer four years ago but how much information technology would all be worth it in the end.

I am a more passionate and knowledgeable Stars fan than I have ever been before, and have the memories of some amazing experiences to hold with me when I look back at ane incredible fourth dimension in my life.

I'll never forget the press room debates with Mike Heika and Marker Stepneski, or the electric thrill of stepping into the locker room at the AAC or taking part in a printing conference with the autobus. How the squad approached us with such respect and gratitude and treated the states no differently than the mainstream media.

I'll never forget shaking hands with the owner of the Dallas Stars.

Almost of all, I'll never forget the friendships I've made along the way and the great people this chore immune me to meet -- of the countless debates and disagreements and impassioned disputes that have occupied so much of my time the past four years.

I am humbled past the passion of our readers and how many people take come to our little corner of the internet in merely a short time.

I am indebted to the hard piece of work and dedication of an incredible squad of hardcore fans and passionate writers, who have put up with my crazy means to help build one of the best hockey sites you tin can hope to discover.

Brad, Erin, Josh, Taylor, Trevor, Art, Brandon, Ismael, Derek, Huw, Cole, Jeff, Nick and Stephen -- cheers.

***

I've always held onto the belief that goodbye doesn't take to mean forever, and there's no telling what the future could hold. I'll still exist involved backside the scenes with DBD, and I'll certainly nevertheless be hanging around the comments from time to time, and I'm certain I'll probably have something I'll want to say at some point in the futurity.

Perhaps on something that would involve some playoff hockey?

I find that this is one post that I struggle with finding a way to finish, so I'll leave yous with the ane adieu that always seems to best sum up my feelings most goodbyes:

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

kilianlatim1946.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.defendingbigd.com/2013/9/3/4686596/in-case-i-dont-see-ya-good-afternoon-good-evening-goodnight