This is Brian S from Pension Plan Puppets, and this fundraiser is addressed to readers who follow my prospect reports on the Toronto Maple Leafs' kids as they work their way up through junior, Europe, and the AHL.
I watch a lot of Toronto's prospects over the season, and I rely exclusively on what streaming options are available. In Sweden, Koblar and Johansson will be playing in leagues where I will have to rely on streams that I cannot go back and rewatch. Thankfully, they're early in the day so I can set my computer to record them and then I go back and rewatch as I need. Plesovskikh and Obvintsev in Russia are in the MHL and VHL, which saves their games as YouTube videos I can rewatch at any time.
The big issue will be Toronto's prospects in the CHL, of which there are 8 this year. Now that the OHL and WHL have announced they will be on FloHockey/Victory+ respectively, things are getting tricky. First, the economy and my financial situation are not great. I've already cancelled a lot of the subscriptions I had to prospect outlets and likely won't renew them at any point this year. They all add up.
To that end, I'm setting up the GoFundMe specifically and only to cover the cost of an annual FloHockey subscription, which is listed at $225.99 after tax. This is actually somewhat good news because it's cheaper by about $100 than what the previous CHL streaming app subscription cost, and it comes with AHL, USHL and some NCAA games.
Side note, $226 doesn't sound like a lot but I'll be honest without getting into details... that is a lot for me these days, and I am cutting corners everywhere. But this is my one big hobby, and I'd like to hang onto this to the extent I have been in previous years (more on that below).
So, here's what everyone will get if I don't have the subscription vs if I do.
Without the subscription, how many games I can watch will be reduced by a lot. I will only be able to record and watch one game per time slot. Here's all the problems with that:
- Six of the eight CHL prospects are in the OHL in the same time zone.
- Five additional prospects are in the NCAA which is also the same time zone, maybe one hour later.
- Some WHL games start a bit earlier than 10 pm, meaning I can't watch/record them until the OHL game I started watching is over.
- All of these leagues condense most of their games to the Friday-Sunday weekend. There will be a lot of days when all six of the OHL and all five of the NCAA prospects are playing on the same day, at the same time and I will only be able to watch one of them.
- Two of these 8-13 prospects are among Toronto's top guys – Danford and Hopkins, both the same time zone.
- Four or five of the others in the CHL are among the more interesting players not in the top prospect tier – McCue, Nansi, maybe Fellinger, Holinka and Mayes.
With the subscription, I can narrow my choice to recording one of the NCAA games (if there is one) and then rewatch the CHL games at later days and times when there's no other conflict. So if I have this subscription, I would estimate that I would expect to watch 3-6 additional games per week from just that weekend period over the rest of the week. I'm bolding that to make it clear exactly what it is the subscription pays for.
A smaller extra is the subscription will also allow me to go back and watch games and highlights of prospects for the next NHL draft, including the profiles I write after Toronto has made their new selections. Assuming they played in the leagues that FloHockey has partnerships with, anyway. I won't play this up much, because Toronto only has like three picks as of now and none before the third round.
If you don't think that is worth pitching in anything, I completely understand. I'm assuming there are plenty of others in a similar situation as me. If you do like the idea of me seeing and writing more about Toronto's prospects, and you can afford to, please consider pitching in!