It'd been more than two years since our previous staff meeting, and it's been two months since we opened the Downtown HQ/shop, but we finally got it all together.
As in, we got together.
Earlier this week, we gathered for a couple hours of talking, taking pics and caring for other company business, and we did so with all of us in the same room for the first time since ... wow, 2019. Meaning even before the pandemic.
There's evidence to support:
EDDIE PROVIDENT'S REMOTE CAMERA / DKPS
L-R at 224 Fifth Avenue: Alex Stumpf, Chris Halicke, Danny Shirey, Taylor Haase, random interloper, Dali Kovacevic, Eddie Provident, Dale Lolley, Andrew Mundy.
That's our entire full-time staff minus new Pitt beat writer Mark Clemente, who was big-time under the weather. Off to the right is Andrew Mundy, who's not full-time yet but is pretty much working on hijacking the entire operation. And snapping the shot was Eddie Provident's app-based camera that was dodging PAT buses out on Fifth Avenue, before he took a few new shots for Live Qs backgrounds, as well:
EDDIE PROVIDENT / DKPS
Danny Shirey and our shop copy of -- what else? -- the 'Total Hockey' book.
EDDIE PROVIDENT / DKPS
Dale Lolley violates shop rules and plays with the Steel City Chess pieces.
That's DKPS 2.0, my friends.
We've been working at this for months and, in addition to a handful of contributors, this is where we are. And I couldn't be happier. Because they're happy. It's a group that's having fun and working together unlike any we've had and, being totally honest, it's been a blast to be around them. There's energy, enthusiasm, ideas, independence and so much more. We needed this. I needed this. It took nearly a year, countless interviews and other related moves, and every bit of it was worth it.
A LIVE SHOW?
As an example of the above, Eddie and Andrew have been pushing me for a while to try more live programming via multimedia and, obsessive as I am about detail, I kept needing to hear more about how we could do it that it'd be genuinely different than anything else out there.
So, the two of them conspire away from me, after which Andrew lets me know Thursday night he's ready to present something. He shows up at the HQ yesterday, flips open his laptop, begins firing away and, by the time we were done, I was the host, we were broadcasting out on every social media platform every weekday at 4 p.m. from the HQ ... and well, we'd welcome hearing your ideas on content/format.
A SPECIAL VISITOR
My goodness, what a treat finally getting to meet Paul Ogden yesterday:
DALI KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Paul and David Ogden, yesterday at the Downtown HQ/shop.
Paul's served our military on three tours of overseas duty -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- and has been a subscriber since the start, keeping up on our teams through our site wherever he's been stationed. He popped into the HQ/shop with his son David, both wearing the DKPS gear, and we just melted. What a wonderful hour we got to spend together, and all I'll say further is that he owes all of YOU a direct version of his story of how he learned the Penguins had won a Stanley Cup while in an operation. I'd never do it justice.
ICYMI ON WPXI
If anyone missed it: I severed our partnership with WPXI-TV earlier this week. And I'd rather any additional comments on this subject stay on that same thread. The political obsessives in our little world can't resist hijacking any real-world subject in the threads, and it's easier to monitor one rather than multiples.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 409,069. Our most-read original piece was my column from PNC Park on Oneil Cruz's return, at 8,333. Broken down by team traffic, articles on the Pirates brought 30.6% of our readership, the Steelers 13.1%, the Penguins 9.6%, Pitt 1.4%, and Penn State 0.9%.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week again weren't available. Had some insane spikes a couple weeks ago that weren't at all reflective of reality -- it'd be cool if they were! -- and that's only begun to quell. Don't ask.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 93,404.
• Our company social media accounts are at 45,501 followers on Twitter, 37,711 on Facebook, 14,545 on Instagram, 14,548 on YouTube.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
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