For almost seven seasons now I have (on my own time and choice) “hosted” a game called #AvsTwitterPsychic on Twitter dot com. It’s a game day tradition that many people were invested in for all of the very best reasons. I don’t hesitate at all in saying that #AvsTwitterPsychic brought out the good in social media.
Things have now became somewhat complicated though. I wanted to reach out to all of you and address this. Last night the Avalanche chose to sponsor and monetize their #AvsTwitterPsychic tweet.
Addressing the social media aspect of things. Is it possible to legally “own” a hashtag? Absolutely not. But we all know who was as close to owning the #AvsTwitterPsychic hashtag as much as it could possibly be owned. It was us, the Colorado Avalanche faithful. We built it up to be something very special. It was something which couldn’t be ignored. #AvsTwitterPsychic even trended nationally on Twitter for some games. I NEVER wanted this to be about me or to be mine. I purposefully and intentionally created it to be ours. We are the people, fans, and friends who I have always lovingly referred to through the years as #TeamAvsPodcast.
Let me make something extremely clear, I had absolutely no idea the Avalanche was going to take what we created together and do what they decided to do with it. This, in no way, feels good, right, or fair. We were left a little blindsided, frustrated, somewhat confused, and definitely disappointed.
Let me also be clear in saying that I don’t feel like I am owed any compensation for anything I’ve done over the years. I chose to do it and have absolutely no regrets. Too much good has come from it.
So, friends, I’m honestly not sure what happens from here. I don’t know if we can “fix” this, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out. What I do know though is how much I appreciate what we’ve created together. It’s obviously very special and it has been a huge sense of pride for me and us. It’s all that I hoped it would become and so much more. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your time and passion with me and with each other. All of the tweets of support (even from fans who don’t play the game but happily follow along and appreciate all it brings to the Avalanche community on game days) were amazing to read last night. The Avalanche rave about how great their fans are and I would never disagree with that. We simply want the team to be great to us in return. I don’t think that’s too much of an ask.
Here’s to hoping this doesn’t happen again in the future.
Again, you are appreciated, #TeamAvsPodcast.
Thanks for your support and take care,
Jay
