In 2008, I started a podcast called The Rink. It was a two-person show talking about hockey. The tagline was ‘Hockey talk without the entitlement.” I know, it rolls right of the tongue. We had guests occasionally, but it was mostly just the two of us. This was when we had to describe podcasting as being like radio on the internet, and there weren’t nearly as many services as there are now. There were a lot of questions around how to even listen to podcasts. It was the wild, wild west out there.

We did alright with the show. For what we were doing and all the difficulties we had to overcome, the numbers were good. I was happy with them. We were filling a need in the ‘market’ of general hockey talk. There weren’t that many hockey radio shows out there, and only a few podcasts. We enjoyed doing the show and the listeners liked what we did.

I was in Vancouver for a few weeks, and I was talking with a listener, Ryan, and I asked him why he listened to the show. He said:

Every episode has one special thing in it. I don’t know what it will be, I don’t know when it will happen, but it is always there.

That has always stuck with me. I didn’t actively try to put one special thing in every episode, but it made sense to me. We cared about the show, and we cared about doing a good job. I think it was a natural outcome.

I want to talk about One Special Thing. I’m elevating it to capital letter status; I believe it’s that important. I’m going to talk about it in this blog, and other things I think go into making things that are interesting and worth creating.

Along the way, I hope that we can make things that are better, that we care about, and that people feel are worthy of their time.

Because I want to make things that are worthy of people’s time and attention. And I want to help other people make things they are proud of.