The Hockey News to offer full archives online soon?

[reckoning]

I recently picked up the latest THN special edition magazine. The theme for this one is a look at 100 various covers from their history. Other magazines like Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone have done similar issues. But what caught my eye was the following quote in Graham Rouston's column:


"All the past issues dating back to 1947 have been digitized, and they will be available to our subscribers in the coming months. As well, we are working on making the entire archive searchable"


This has been rumoured for years, but now it looks like a sure thing. This would be huge for a lot of history buffs on this board who enjoy researching and looking up stuff online. I would love to go through every issue from the 1970s.

I guess the only people who might not like this are those who spent money buying back issues and building their own collections. I can totally understand that. I felt the same way about all the money I spent on albums and CDs over the years that kids today can listen to on Spotify for $10 a month.

Click to read more...

 

[tabness]

sure hope so... finally

I got a collection of complete years from like 1986 to 2002 but a searchable digitized database would be a huge plus.

I'm a big fan of physical media in general but when it comes to the print copies of The Hockey News I actually want to offload most of them (maybe keeping a select few issues).

Wish something like this would come for the other hockey magazines lost to time now...

 

[seventieslord]

sure hope so... finally

I got a collection of complete years from like 1986 to 2002 but a searchable digitized database would be a huge plus.

I'm a big fan of physical media in general but when it comes to the print copies of The Hockey News I actually want to offload most of them (maybe keeping a select few issues).

Wish something like this would come for the other hockey magazines lost to time now...

I'll believe it when I see it. I'm sure it's been at least 5 years already since they started collecting email addresses of people who want to be informed the minute the archive is ready.

 

[member 83027]

"All the past issues dating back to 1947 have been digitized, and they will be available to our subscribers in the coming months. As well, we are working on making the entire archive searchable"

Only downside I see with a search is if you are looking for a particular player it could give unwanted results especially for the years when they used player stats, rosters & transactions.

Hopefully they make the index available that was created back in 1990. It only goes through 1986-87 season but it gives a little summary with the keyword looking for.

This has been rumoured for years, but now it looks like a sure thing. This would be huge for a lot of history buffs on this board who enjoy researching and looking up stuff online. I would love to go through every issue from the 1970s.

It has been talked about for a number of years and going back to previous THN owners.

He put it in print in the 2019-20 yearbook.

"It is being digitized and will become available later this season to our Gold members at no additional cost."

Of course it did not happen. That's ok. Things happen for whatever reason. There was never any public mention of the delay until the 100 cover issue. It was to be available to Gold members. How many people either subscribed or bumped up their subscription level because of that?

Not saying it will not happen but based on history I guess I will believe it when I see it.

PS.... Word is supposedly they are re-scanning a lot of years from the original THN archives. Let's hope that is correct. The 1970's were from microfiche converted to pdf and the quality on a lot of them is poor. I only mention this because you mentioned going through the 70's issues.

 

[member 83027]

Wish something like this would come for the other hockey magazines lost to time now...

The upfront work is done for that. The backend which I do not have the time, energy, smarts, knowhow, legal expertise with copyright law, etc.... would need to be done.

I would love to see it all available online that prevented mass downloads. If someone is willing to take on all the backend stuff I am all ears.

 

[seventieslord]

The upfront work is done for that. The backend which I do not have the time, energy, smarts, knowhow, legal expertise with copyright law, etc.... would need to be done.

I would love to see it all available online that prevented mass downloads. If someone is willing to take on all the backend stuff I am all ears.

I would like to see this material become available for research. Is that your prime objective as well? I don't get the impression that you have any other motivations, such as money, glory, etc. It sounds like you also want to stay out of legal trouble. Fair enough, We all do.

My question for you (and for anyone else who is reading) is, after all this time, is there anyone living who'd care whatsoever that these old magazines were scanned and being used by historians for research? And could they ever mount a serious case against you if you only made them available at no charge?

Certainly if you charged people for access, you'd attract some attention from someone, eventually. But for free? It's not even a blip on anyone's radar.

Next question: You mentioned preventing mass downloads. Can you explain why this is a concern? Are you looking for a way that readers can only access it on their screens, similar to how magazines offer digital subscriptions? Is there a reason that you would object to readers of this material being able to download it for home use?

Magazines employ specialized reader apps because they are protecting their content from being pirated, cutting into the profits that they are making on current issues. But to protect this content... why go to the trouble? You would not be protecting any profits by doing so.

Is there perhaps a concern that someone else could take your hard work and make money from it? I would not count on it. Personally, I am probably in the top-5 most interested people in this content. And I would not even pay for it. This is not to say it's not worth it. I'd pay a copyright holder money for access to it, just like I pay for THN or others pay for access to newspaper archives. (But who/what/where is the copyright holder? Do they even exist?)

It should just be put on a server, free to download. Google Drive or Dropbox. Interested parties will download it and share it for free with other interested parties. The more it disseminates, the less likely it becomes that anyone could ever take it and profit from it. Within 24 hours of you announcing it's available, the likelihood of some profiteer convincing anyone to pay him anything for it drops to practically zero.

And in the unlikely event that it becomes known to someone who actually holds copyright to any of this, that it's being shared for free online, and thinks they're being damaged by this content being "out there", and cares enough to try to do something about it, well, we have no idea who put it on that server back in 2023. Someone did. Wasn't us. We just downloaded it. No money changed hands. And if they manage to get it taken offline, all the people who wanted it already grabbed it, and can share it privately going forward.

You don't need to tell us how old you are, but you've said you remember the Blues' first season, so you're likely a senior citizen. It bothers me to think that someone could do such excellent work liberating the history of 20th century hockey journalism, preserving it for the potential use of future (and current) generations, and it could just end up sitting on a hard drive on a shelf for the rest of that person's life. And then what? Discarded? Shelved for decades more by survivors who have no idea of, or interest in what's on it?

You have the chance to be the Robin Hood of vintage hockey research material. If I was in your position I would be jumping at the opportunity to have such a legacy. Damn the consequences! There won't be any.

 

[tabness]

The upfront work is done for that. The backend which I do not have the time, energy, smarts, knowhow, legal expertise with copyright law, etc.... would need to be done.

I would love to see it all available online that prevented mass downloads. If someone is willing to take on all the backend stuff I am all ears.

There is obviously the online reading software like Zinio or whatever for magazines to provide read access without the ability to easily download, but yeah, it would likely have been rolled custom and not gonna be shareable. It would be a pretty big effort to create and maintain the scaffolding for such a project for such a niche audience, and then of course there is always the issue of copyright strikes.

The legal issues seem pretty insurmountable, or at the very least, simply not worth the massive effort, it would be a nightmare to deal with the copyright stuff with a bunch of these publications which were run by now defunct (and maybe transferred) organizations.

I would pay big for this content personally, but I'm probably a rare example in this already niche thing.

 

[nabby12]

I would like to see this material become available for research. Is that your prime objective as well? I don't get the impression that you have any other motivations, such as money, glory, etc. It sounds like you also want to stay out of legal trouble. Fair enough, We all do.

My question for you (and for anyone else who is reading) is, after all this time, is there anyone living who'd care whatsoever that these old magazines were scanned and being used by historians for research? And could they ever mount a serious case against you if you only made them available at no charge?

Certainly if you charged people for access, you'd attract some attention from someone, eventually. But for free? It's not even a blip on anyone's radar.

Next question: You mentioned preventing mass downloads. Can you explain why this is a concern? Are you looking for a way that readers can only access it on their screens, similar to how magazines offer digital subscriptions? Is there a reason that you would object to readers of this material being able to download it for home use?

Magazines employ specialized reader apps because they are protecting their content from being pirated, cutting into the profits that they are making on current issues. But to protect this content... why go to the trouble? You would not be protecting any profits by doing so.

Is there perhaps a concern that someone else could take your hard work and make money from it? I would not count on it. Personally, I am probably in the top-5 most interested people in this content. And I would not even pay for it. This is not to say it's not worth it. I'd pay a copyright holder money for access to it, just like I pay for THN or others pay for access to newspaper archives. (But who/what/where is the copyright holder? Do they even exist?)

It should just be put on a server, free to download. Google Drive or Dropbox. Interested parties will download it and share it for free with other interested parties. The more it disseminates, the less likely it becomes that anyone could ever take it and profit from it. Within 24 hours of you announcing it's available, the likelihood of some profiteer convincing anyone to pay him anything for it drops to practically zero.

And in the unlikely event that it becomes known to someone who actually holds copyright to any of this, that it's being shared for free online, and thinks they're being damaged by this content being "out there", and cares enough to try to do something about it, well, we have no idea who put it on that server back in 2023. Someone did. Wasn't us. We just downloaded it. No money changed hands. And if they manage to get it taken offline, all the people who wanted it already grabbed it, and can share it privately going forward.

You don't need to tell us how old you are, but you've said you remember the Blues' first season, so you're likely a senior citizen. It bothers me to think that someone could do such excellent work liberating the history of 20th century hockey journalism, preserving it for the potential use of future (and current) generations, and it could just end up sitting on a hard drive on a shelf for the rest of that person's life. And then what? Discarded? Shelved for decades more by survivors who have no idea of, or interest in what's on it?

You have the chance to be the Robin Hood of vintage hockey research material. If I was in your position I would be jumping at the opportunity to have such a legacy. Damn the consequences! There won't be any.

LOL! What a sales pitch.

 

[sr edler]

Damn the consequences! There won't be any.

You'll have to bail out Blues when he ends up in jail.

 

[seventieslord]

You'll have to bail out Blues when he ends up in jail.

Glad to do so. Bail can't be more than $100. Not a flight risk. Happy to contribute!

 

[HolyGhost]

I used love the draft previews

 

[reckoning]

Looks like it's finally up.
archive.thehockeynews.com

Don't know how long the free preview will last.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Well done!

Re: the free preview, I think you only get so far before you have to sign up. For instance:

Honestly, for $3/month or thereabouts, it's not a bad deal.

 

[norrisnick]

Well done!

Re: the free preview, I think you only get so far before you have to sign up. For instance:

View attachment 758843

Honestly, for $3/month or thereabouts, it's not a bad deal.

Makes sense. It doesn't take long to scrape a website.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Me explaining to my wife why we shouldn't go out this weekend...

 

[Brodeur]

I might crack for an annual digital subscription. I buy the Future Watch and Draft Preview a la carte every year, so it might be worth it to get the archived stuff too. It'll be fun to dig through some of the early 90's stuff from just before my fandom really took off.

 

[Victor Z]

Can someone who has a subscription let us know whether these archives are full issues, or just cherry-picked articles?

 

[nabby12]

Can someone who has a subscription let us know whether these archives are full issues, or just cherry-picked articles?

Full issues.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Should be quite a trove for research and/or a great trip down memory lane.

 

[vikash1987]

Great to see that the archive is up and running! I’m definitely getting a subscription for this!

 

[Victor Z]

Great to see that the archive is up and running! I’m definitely getting a subscription for this!

I did too. Or at least I've tried to. Selected "1-year Digital" here:

Hockey News

Did that a week ago ("allow 24 hours for processing") and they still haven't sent a login, and have ignored my inquiry about that.

Looks like customer service isn't really their thing.

 

[wetcoast]

Should be quite a trove for research and/or a great trip down memory lane.

I got a full subscription in the late 70s with my paper route money, before then I used to get a copy or 2 from a real jerk of a teacher who berated Denis Kearns from the Canucks after every single home game he went to.

I used to read them cover to cover and memorize all of my hockey cards as well.

I will definitely subscribe to this and go down memory lane.

 

[reckoning]

I did too. Or at least I've tried to. Selected "1-year Digital" here:

Hockey News

Did that a week ago ("allow 24 hours for processing") and they still haven't sent a login, and have ignored my inquiry about that.

Looks like customer service isn't really their thing.

Yeah, I'm having the same issue. Subscribed a week ago, charge went through on my credit card, still no access, won't respond to e-mails.

 

[SealsFan]

Ditto, sprung for the digital sub just to get the archives, no updates from them yet.

When available, I'm going right to the Jan. 11, 1974 issue for the Seals' only feature article that season, which I remember vividly - "It's All in the Mind with the Golden Seals", about how they hired someone to teach the players "Mind Dynamics", a positive-thinking exercise....

 

[reckoning]

They responded to me today, and the archive is working. Hope everyone else here got their access sorted out.