Greetings and welcome to the Raw Charge. The Raw Charge is the newest SB Nation entry in its NHL coverage and is devoted to the Tampa Bay Lightning as well as general opinions and news pieces regarding the National Hockey League and occasionally postings about Tampa Bay sports in general.

--  John Fontana, March 17th, 2009

I am happy to report that "The Raw Charge" never caught on.   And I am also happy to report Raw Charge and it's budding community is doing well at it's first anniversary.  Thanks to readers and the rest of the Boltosphere for your support!

It's the most maddening week in pro hockey each season:  The NHL trade deadline.  Stay up to the minute on news, speculation and coverage on all 30 NHL franchises at the SB Nation NHL trade deadline hub.

This will also represent Raw Charge's open thread for discussing league transactions today.  Feel free to post in comments.  We'll be running stories throughout the day with any major happenings with the club.  

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I'd like to extend a warm greeting of the season to all NHL fans, the hockey blogosphere and the rest of SB Nation. 

This is a general open comment thread for the next day or two (seeing some people will spend time on here looking for news or wanting to talk hockey while others won't be around).  We're also including our blogroll after the jump and encourage you to check out sites that we link to there.

Merry Christmas everyone.

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(with the new season here and a growing group of interested fans hanging out around the site, I thought it woudl be good to repost this story from earlier this year -- jpf)

There's a wide and diverse community of Lightning fans out there on the Internet, spanning the globe.  Everyone's got a different take, or a different news tidbit that they may want to share.  A different perspective or a different argument regarding any number of aspects with the Lightning franchise.

And the thing is, you're able to do more than comment on posts that we put on the front page here at Raw Charge.  You're able to create your own blog posts as well.

They are called FanPosts.

FanPosts are story entries put together by members of the community -- that means you -- the person reading this right now.  The software behind Raw Charge and SB Nation, much like other community blog sites, allows you to create your own blog story for the world to read.  And depending on what you've written and how good the post is, it may just be promoted to the front page.

Of course, there are some things you need to know about FanPosts first:

1. FanPosts should be original content.  Don't just copy and paste a story from another source (like many do on message boards).  If you want to highlight a news story, a quote or a video, that's what FanShots are for (more on FanShots at the bottom of this post).
2. FanPosts should not be one-line stories.  Or only two-line stories for that matter.  If you only have a short comment to make, you should wait for an Open Thread on the front page to share that comment.
3. FanPost's should be relevant to the Tampa Bay Lightning or hockey in general.  This does not mean Off Topic posts aren't allowed, as the off-season is a slow time for hockey talk, but they need to be tagged as such in the title.  Absolutely no political stories will be allowed. 
   
4. FanPosts (and FanShots) aren't places for unsolicitated bulk advertisements (SPAM).  Posting advertisements as FanPosts/FanShots may lead to your FanPost/FanShot being deleted and  your account suspended/banned.  This doesn't mean blog-authors can't cross-post their content on Raw Charge, this does mean you can't just waltz in here and say "Take a look at my post at my site" with a link to your story. 

Excellent posting tips about writing a FanPost can be found on Dallas Stars blog Defending Big D.

For more help on FanPosts (how to do it), check out this tutorial from SB Nation.

What are FanShots?

FanShots are promotion of single images, videos, links, or quotes in posts.  The difference between a FanPost and a FanShot is the amount of content.  While FanPosts are supposed to be lengthy stories, FanShots are quick-hit posts.  They are a great means to share breaking news, or highlight quotes from players or columnists or other blogs.

For a more at-length definition of FanShots and usage, take a look at Gaslamp Ball's post about FanShots which provides a good how-to. 

Much like a great FanPost, depending on how good or pertinent a FanShot is, it might very well be promoted to the front page.

The Year in Hockey Blogs: Top 10 stories, trends and scandals [Puck Daddy]

SB Nation Hockey Named Top Story of the Year by Puck Daddy [SB Nation Blog Huddle]

Congratulations to all of the hockey bloggers on SB Nation! And a big thanks to the NHL, Yahoo Sports, Google News, and all of the rest of the hockey media that links to our quality stuff. Thanks also to our head hockey blogger in chief, James Mirtle, for keeping us motivated and in line - and the SB Nation staff for giving us a great opportunity.

Keep coming back this summer for more stories and insights. And check out the other hockey blogs on SB Nation. You might want to start with James Mirtle's blog, From The Rink.

With just over a week (as in, just a few hours until we hit the seven day mark) until the 2009 National Hockey League Entry Draft, SB Nation has a central source for all things Draft in the coming days.

Check out the SB Nation Draft Hub, which shows the latest posts from fellow SB Nation hockey blogs about the draft.  Rumors?  Trades?  Prospect profiles?  It's all there.

Bookmark it, spread it, share it...  And count the hours until Gary Bettman addresses the crowd in Montreal to begin the 2009 NHL Draft.

...which doesn't mean I will be blogging more often but I was tired of the old design, big time, for Boltsmag.

As it stands, it's not easy to find comments unless you visit the permalink for the post. That should be corrected with time.

BUMP AND UPDATE 10-07-2008: Some aspects of the site are still not working and I can't quite remedy them until next week. I'd appreciate it if people can either use the contact form and report errors on the site or try to leave a comment (I can't guarantee comments will get through with thanks to anti-spam software).

To Boltsmag readers, my friends and acquaintances on the Tampa Bay and Hockey blogosphers... I wish you all a safe and happy new year.