Moving Eyes On The Prize to a new platform

Hello, this is Justin Blades, managing editor of Eyes On The Prize (habseyesontheprize.com), a website that covers all aspects of the Montreal Canadiens, from the NHL team down to its newest prospects. As you may have heard, the parent company of our site, Vox Media, recently made the decision to cut off funding and technical support for our site, and the majority of National Hockey League sites on the SB Nation network.

In the three weeks since that initial announcement, we have received many notes of support from within our community and beyond, and offers to help out in a variety of ways for what comes next. In that announcement on January 20, we were given no details about what was possible to allow us to continue with our site, but we now have a clearer picture of what the future of EOTP can be.

On March 31, EOTP’s 14-year run as an SB Nation site will come to an end, but we will be given the site’s domain name and the full archive, able to transfer to a new hosting platform. After some research by a few of the site managers, it appears that the best option for a new platform and home for our community comes with upfront hosting fees, and the case is the same for a few other services we will need to relaunch the site. For that reason, we have created this campaign to raise those initial funds and support our writers as the work begins to monetize the new EOTP.

The initial ask for this campaign is $6,000, which will cover the hosting fees, allow us to continue some of the subscription services we use to get stats and other information to cover the team, players, and prospects, and keep the writers paid through the month of April. Any further funds received above that value will help us extend payments through May and beyond while we get everything set up.

During this period as we wrap up the NHL regular season, attention switches to the NHL Draft, annually our most popular, and intensive, coverage of the year, followed quickly by free agency. We believe that the Montreal Canadiens organization is in an exciting period of graduating some top prospects to the NHL ranks, and we hope we have the chance to bring you the in-depth features the site has been providing since 2009 for years to come.

We appreciate any donation to our efforts that you can provide, and any help sharing our campaign. We are committed to making this transition, and know it will take a team effort to make it a success.