Welcome to From the Point!

Welcome to www.FromthePoint.com, the new home of Brian Metzer.

If you already know who I am…awesome! That means that you have been following my work with XM Radio, Hockey Buzz, or Versus. If you aren’t familiar with me I will give you the 411.

I spent the last four years covering the Pittsburgh Penguins for various outlets and have been blogging about the team longer than many who have focused on the Flightless Waterfowl. In fact, if you consider the time I put in on my age old “Pittsburgh Penguins Report” my coverage takes me back as far as the lock out. Over that time I have dreamed of branching out on my own and when I started to get frustrated, complacent, bored and stagnant I felt the time was right to move forward.

I began planning this website about six months ago and started bouncing some ideas around with my team of designers… which for the record equates to several lunch dates with my good friend Ryan Lenocker from Kicksave Design. Ryan and I eventually came up with what you are seeing here today. I hope you like it!

Though the Penguins coverage is front and center, “From the Point” allows me to provide news, thoughts, analysis, and interviews from around the hockey world. There were plenty of times over the past four years where I would have loved to have spent some time focusing on another team, group of players, fantasy hockey, dumping some newsworthy links etc, but was sort of pigeonholed. This gives me the outlet for all of that and more.

You will see coverage of some college hockey as well, especially Robert Morris University who has built one of the best up and coming programs in the country under head coach Derek Schooley.

I will be working and cross linking with several other bloggers and websites to ensure even more great content, including round tables and surveys debating different points throughout the year.

You can find groups of newsworthy links each day, so as to save you the time and effort of seeking the news yourself. Sort of a morning skate through the NHL if you will.

The “From the Point” hockey show will be kicking off soon, which should whet the appetites of everyone out there who has been missing the old “Penguins Hockey Buzzcast.” I have missed doing the show and am really fired up to get the new one off of the ground.

I am not asking you to leave any of the sites that you might have been reading in the past behind, just hoping that you will consider making mine one of your daily stops. I will be working hard to ensure the quality of everything that is here for your consumption. If there are things that you would like to see, please drop me a line at bmetzer@fromthepoint.com. I love interacting with readers, I was very active in the comments/chat applet over at Hockey Buzz and that will be the same here. This is a developing community and I want you all to be a part of it.

If you encounter something that isn’t working the way it is supposed to…let me know. Something you love… let me know. Something you hate… keep it to yourself… I am kidding of course, let me know.

Lastly, I am thrilled to FINALLY have a blogroll… not being able to publicize my friends in the blogging community was always a pet peeve of mine at my former employer. There are plenty of amazing bloggers and blogs out there and we are all part of the same community — working towards the same goals… We all need to work together!

My blogroll is still in progress and being updated as we speak… I will be linking to all of the ones that I love, but if you have one out there and would like to be included, please send me your url. Of course, I am asking you to please add me to yours as well! It would be much appreciated!

Thanks for stopping by… back soon with my first official post From the Point!