Disturbing Trend

I'm not one to complain about things, but I started noticing a disturbing trend among NHL team web sites last week. New sites were being unveiled with strangely similiar layouts.

Turns out there's something to that. When the Buffalo Sabres unveiled their new site on Tuesday it featured that same design and included the following release.

The Buffalo Sabres would like to welcome you to the new Sabres.com. As of May 22, Buffalo became the eighth team to transfer to the National Hockey League's universal platform.

Buffalo joins the Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Edmonton Oilers, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues as a member of the new NHL network.

The new Sabres.com features improvements in photo galleries, the video player, a complete team registry and much more.

All team websites are scheduled to be converted before opening day of the 2007-08 season.

I know other pro sports do this. The MLB comes to mind first. And to some extent it does make sense because it also means uniform web addresses. For instance, Buffalo's site is no longer www.sabres.com, but rather sabres.nhl.com. And I like that but I also really liked the individuality of each team's site.

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there. For those Lightning fans out there, take your last looks.



Since all of the new sites will be phased in by the end of the summer, this version of the Bolts' site won't live on much longer. Enjoy it while it lasts.

By the way, this week after the Sabres, the New York Islanders also converted their site. If you want to visit the sites that have already converted, they are: bruins.nhl.com, sabres.nhl.com, hurricanes.nhl.com, bluejackets.nhl.com, oilers.nhl.com, panthers.nhl.com, kings.nhl.com, islanders.nhl.com, and blues.nhl.com