OT: When did new team web site begin?

[cwede]

sorry of this is posted already

just saw this today for first time
team website is completely redesigned

same addresses
rangers.nhl.com
nhl.com/rangers

IMHO new website hides and eliminates more info than it offers

just some quick observations:

no more 'In The System' rosters

no more Blueshirts United? (videos are still there)

news archives is narrow left column with pictures and big bolded headlines, so each article tales up too much screen, no more simple list

might be a new NHL standard..

and i cannot find training camp dates -
but i assume they start to report tomorrow, for physicals and testing

Click to read more...

 

[Irishguy42]

sorry of this is posted already

just saw this today for first time
team website is completely redesigned

same addresses
rangers.nhl.com
nhl.com/rangers

IMHO new website hides and eliminates more info than it offers

just some quick observations:

no more 'In The System' rosters

no more Blueshirts United? (videos are still there)

news archives is narrow left column with pictures and big bolded headlines, so each article tales up too much screen, no more simple list

might be a new NHL standard..

and i cannot find training camp dates -
but i assume they start to report tomorrow, for physicals and testing

A lot of other teams are switching over to the new format as well. Slowly but surely.

BlueshirtsUnited is still up. I'm on it right now.

 

[Trxjw]

Yep. Teams are rolling out new sites based on the new NHL.com branding guide and framework. Which is a shame, because it's a giant piece of ****.

 

[RangerBoy]

What a horrible website. The old one was up last night. Rangers hired Kim Gellert as an amateur scout. Former Buffalo scout . I don't see Tommy Thompson on the website anymore. Same front office and scouts.

 

[Mac n Gs]

I absolutely cannot stand this new "bubbly," Apple looking format that most websites are adopting. The new THN website is an utter abomination.

 

[silverfish]

Director, Player Care & Development/Analytics and Hockey Technology Jim Sullivan

The Corsi God

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

It amazes me how they manage to make these websites even slower and more bloated

 

[Trxjw]

I absolutely cannot stand this new "bubbly," Apple looking format that most websites are adopting. The new THN website is an utter abomination.

#1 ask from new clients when building out a new website: "Can we give it an 'Apple feel'?"

The #2 ask from those people is typically "Will it be available in the app store?" Yes. These people are in charge of thousands and thousands of dollars in marketing money.

 

[blueshirtbolt]

hmmm

maybe explains cerny dissappearing as blueshirtsunited integration has gone. bu was probably keeping cerny going. and bu site redirects to new rangers site

 

[Levitate]

The NHL controls how teams sites look and what kind of stuff can go on there. Years ago (maybe it was after the 2004 lockout?) I believe the Rangers actually went to court over who had control of their website and it was ruled that the NHL did and the Rangers had to change their site to conform to the NHL standard. They later introduced Blueshirts United kind of as a way to get around that I think, and linked to it a lot from the NHL site. Lots of other teams did this as well eventually.

I definitel yget the feeling this is the league flexing their muscles again regarding control of the websites and content and forcing everyone to conform to the new NHL standard and I realllllly wouldn't be surprised if they were forcing teams to stop linking to other team run sites as well.

Too bad the NHL doesn't have a clue how to make a good website.

 

[silverfish]

The NHL controls how teams sites look and what kind of stuff can go on there. Years ago (maybe it was after the 2004 lockout?) I believe the Rangers actually went to court over who had control of their website and it was ruled that the NHL did and the Rangers had to change their site to conform to the NHL standard. They later introduced Blueshirts United kind of as a way to get around that I think, and linked to it a lot from the NHL site. Lots of other teams did this as well eventually.

I definitel yget the feeling this is the league flexing their muscles again regarding control of the websites and content and forcing everyone to conform to the new NHL standard and I realllllly wouldn't be surprised if they were forcing teams to stop linking to other team run sites as well.

Too bad the NHL doesn't have a clue how to make a good website.

Well, in terms of managing your digital landscape, it makes total sense to make everything uniform.

But like you said, NHL websites are generally trash, so the effect is felt.

Can't remember the last time I went to the Rangers website

 

[The Gloaming]

#1 ask from new clients when building out a new website: "Can we give it an 'Apple feel'?"

The #2 ask from those people is typically "Will it be available in the app store?" Yes. These people are in charge of thousands and thousands of dollars in marketing money.

Reading this physically hurts.

Wow their website does take forever to load.

 

[broadwayblue]

Yeah, looks worse than the old one. Yet again I probably feel that way 90% of the time after a redesign.

 

[Hire Sather]

There really is no reason to ever visit the Rangers official website.

 

[aufheben]

#1 ask from new clients when building out a new website: "Can we give it an 'Apple feel'?"

The #2 ask from those people is typically "Will it be available in the app store?" Yes. These people are in charge of thousands and thousands of dollars in marketing money.

Yep, so much empty space.

 

[HockeyBasedNYC]

Today's websites are so focused on a responsive design because figures suggest that over 63% of internet usage will be viewed on mobile devices. Unfortunately this is at the expense of the desktop design, which allows so much more freedom and design space.

Sites are also so geared up on SEO, analytics, data retrieval, the use of multimedia and social media that conforming to a rigid standard to push the page views up makes it almost a must to do so.

I'm currently in the midst of rebranding my company and we've tediously been working on a new website design of our own. The framework in which you have to design sites these days can be very rigid - if you want to keep the site truly responsive, and if you want to keep costs down.

For a large company like the NHL, they need to keep their entities as one and 30 teams need to conform. I can't stand the new design for the NHL home page and the new team design. While it may be an effective conveyor of multimedia (which obviously is their intention) I think its too plain and lacking any kind of pop.

I think we are in a bit of a phase these days where under the hood functions supersede the aesthetics of site. I've recently seen so many well-constructed and beautiful sites that have completely turn themselves over to a format that is no where near as eye-catching or easily navigable. It's all about the numbers, responsiveness and core functions and less about looking good.

This will change in coming months & years as everyone feels the need to constantly refresh their look - and the new fads will incorporate form with function. The problem is that its a difficult thing to accomplish because there are so many different types of devices out there. Where one used to design strictly desktop sites for resolutions for a few different monitor sizes, now you have dozens of mobile devices you need to have your site respond to. And you wind up getting this type of garbage as a result

 

[Vitto79]

Weird how fogarty is on the list . The assumptions of vesey and buch making the team I see

 

[Nash Money]

Today's websites are so focused on a responsive design because figures suggest that over 63% of internet usage will be viewed on mobile devices. Unfortunately this is at the expense of the desktop design, which allows so much more freedom and design space.

I think this is spot on. When I went to the site, I thought I must have clicked a mobile version somehow and went to delete the "m." at the beginning of the address. I'm not a tech guy, but it is much more difficult to have a separate mobile version? I suppose it would be almost 2x the work to have the sites look very different/optimize each for the device it is being used on.

 

[The Gloaming]

The irony here being that the NHL website is a complete POS when viewed on my Nexus 6p. If it's optimized for mobile, then I'd really hate to see the unoptimized version.

 

[Boruto]

Just get the NHL app. There's not nearly as much of a use for the NHL website anymore especially if you don't like the design. They got rid of the headlines box and scores nowadays are freely available on various sports apps, team apps. The whole website redesign kind of missed the point of becoming information and multimedia friendly and turned into a bit of a new packaging scheme but with 30 grams less wafer sticks. It would be okay if they made the wafer stick packaging so that the sticks are laying down flat like in a treasure box but they keep doing the vertically crammed plastic tubs that makes it impossible to get the first wafer stick out without breaking and the whole thing just seems a lot less appealing when you can't see the entire wafer stick when you go to pick one up. The experience is really diminished.

 

[Trxjw]

Today's websites are so focused on a responsive design because figures suggest that over 63% of internet usage will be viewed on mobile devices. Unfortunately this is at the expense of the desktop design, which allows so much more freedom and design space.

Sites are also so geared up on SEO, analytics, data retrieval, the use of multimedia and social media that conforming to a rigid standard to push the page views up makes it almost a must to do so.

I'm currently in the midst of rebranding my company and we've tediously been working on a new website design of our own. The framework in which you have to design sites these days can be very rigid - if you want to keep the site truly responsive, and if you want to keep costs down.

For a large company like the NHL, they need to keep their entities as one and 30 teams need to conform. I can't stand the new design for the NHL home page and the new team design. While it may be an effective conveyor of multimedia (which obviously is their intention) I think its too plain and lacking any kind of pop.

I think we are in a bit of a phase these days where under the hood functions supersede the aesthetics of site. I've recently seen so many well-constructed and beautiful sites that have completely turn themselves over to a format that is no where near as eye-catching or easily navigable. It's all about the numbers, responsiveness and core functions and less about looking good.

This will change in coming months & years as everyone feels the need to constantly refresh their look - and the new fads will incorporate form with function. The problem is that its a difficult thing to accomplish because there are so many different types of devices out there. Where one used to design strictly desktop sites for resolutions for a few different monitor sizes, now you have dozens of mobile devices you need to have your site respond to. And you wind up getting this type of garbage as a result

Eh, desktop design doesn't need to be sacrificed to compensate for responsiveness. If you're running into that, I'm sure there are other factors at play. As far as keeping costs down, well, if you want a site that functions on millions of phones and tablets, as well as the mind-numbing total of OS, browser, and resolution combinations on desktop, you need to be prepared to pay for it.

The Rangers site isn't bad because it has to be responsive, it's bad because it's poorly designed and based on the NHL's ****** attempt to internalize a standard design pattern.