Ozzie Sport

Thanks for all the great Canberra Raiders social networking information.

Especially: Bebo, Blogger, YahooGroups, Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal and clones.

I was wondering if you could look at the Australian Ice Hockey League, and especially the Canberra team?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra_Knights

And see who is interested and why?

It will be interesting to see which Canberra sporting teams you have talked to, and would like to talk to.

I've actually got some data for the AIHL floating around. (I've seen a few advertisements and follow a Sydney team on Twitter.) If I was going to do that, I'd want to set up an interview with them to discuss how they handled things. I just haven't gotten around to trying to call them yet. Some of that is a result of what I'll call North American bias in that the people I've talked to from the US and Canada who had seen it said quality level wasn't that high… but will try to get it on the list of things I'm doing.

At the moment, I'm working on another W-League team, the Melbourne Victory. That should be up probably Tuesday after I interview them and write it up.

Very exciting.

What advertisements have you seen? I got interested (well, re-interested) last week – a fortnight ago – after reading in the Sunday Herald-Sun Sport which listed the Icehouse (National Ice Sports Centre) games for the next few weeks. It was an article.

It's interesting to know you follow a Sydney team on Twitter.

Europeans – especially the Northern ones (eg Finland and the Netherlands) – don't seem to have that bias. Look at the players in the teams.

Looking forward to reading about Victory in the W-League: as would probably be a lot of people!

The advertisement that I recall was just a general television advertisement on free to air television on a Saturday morning. It encouraged people to go down and see the Canberra Knights play that weekend. I can't recall much about it beyond that.

By bias, I mean that I've been told that the quality of play is pretty low. One North American I've talked to said they felt they could go out and play better than the guys on the ice. I love ice hockey. I really do. I attended about 10 or 12 games for the AHL in Rockford, Illinois and watched or listened to streaming radio all the Chicago Blackhawks games I could during their run for the Stanley Cup. I've just seen third level hockey in the US and it wasn't that entertaining. (Interesting and glad I went, wanted to go again but preferred the AHL to that level.) I just am not ready to pay $30 AUD to see them on my own. It is a little beyond my price point. That's what I mean: Level of play is lower, not sure I want to pay that much to see that level. (That issue has nothing to do with say my interest in talking to them. You can learn a lot from different sport clubs in different leagues.)

The informational packets are prepared as a thank you for talking to me. I also find that they are useful during interviews as I can ask questions based on them. “Why do you think you have a larger audience at the University of Canberra than at Australian National University?” It is also just good interview prep. I also learn from what team ask me or explanations that they offer for data. The Canberra Raiders getting US traffic as a result of the Oakland Raiders was something they pointed out more to me than I intentionally asked them.

My Twitter following is a bit weird. I also follow some one from a WA gridiron football team. (He's trying to encourage the league to adopt Twitter more.) I use Tweet Deck. I have several columns where I follow some lists I've created dedicated to specific leagues and sports.

Will you blog your impressions of the Raider's understanding and reception of this work?

Confused by the question.