Katie Maximick

By KATIE MAXIMICK

(Jim Robson travelling by plane with the Vancouver Canucks. Photo courtesy of canucks.com.)

"I think of the terrible downer it was to hear on the plane flying back to Vancouver in the middle of the night after the Stanley Cup Final in New York that there was a riot on Robson Street. I couldn't believe it. And when we landed at the airport, there's a large number of armed soldiers around the plane... They thought there'd be some incident out there, and we couldn't believe it -- we didn't know what city we were in."

And that was how hockey legend and former play-by-play announcer for the Canucks, Jim Robson, remembers the 1994 Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver.

"[This year] I would hope that they celebrate responsibly," Robson says laughing when asked how fans would react if the Canucks win the Cup this year.

"If they did it that time they might try to do it again. I worried about the Olympics that way too, but the Olympics turned out to be great."

If there was a year for the Canucks to finally win the Stanley Cup, hockey experts are saying this would be it, although a rocky round-one series versus Vancouver's Achilles heel, the Chicago Blackhawks, has quite a few fans (and maybe the team), a bit nervous about these odds.

"This team is very good," says Robson. "Their record is probably the best ever for a Canucks team, but to say it's the best team ever  is a little early perhaps."

And he would know. Robson has been covering the Canucks since the NHL expansion in 1970 until his retirement in 1999. He is still active with the Canucks organization, and is often turned to for historical and present analysis of the team.

Robson didn't seem as convinced of this year's shot at the Cup as the rest of the hockey experts I talked to -- not because he doesn't believe in the team, but because he has learned to stay grounded.

After covering the disappointing loss to the Rangers in 1994, can you blame him?

"It was something to come that close to winning a Cup in a seventh game in a final, then losing by a goal," he says. "That's pretty hard to take."

"It's so difficult to get to that level even," he continues. "Quite often when a team does, it sags right after that if they don't win the Cup, especially nowadays because it's such a competitive league, so it's so difficult to repeat."

(90s nostalgia: Robson and current CBC play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson. Photo courtesy of canucks.com)

Robson has seen a lot of Canucks' playoffs in his day, and he has a unique take on the modern version of the post-season.

"Today you have 16 teams that go into the playoffs, and any one of those could win the Cup," he says. "Some of the fans here seem to lose sight of that. They think, 'Oh well automatically because they had the number one record during the season [they'll win].' Well, last year Washington was the top team in the NHL and got knocked off in the first round. That's how competitive it is."

And Robson has a good point. The pressure in Vancouver for the Canucks to take home the Cup this year is high; so high in fact that many fans are disregarding the team's regular season success, saying, "the playoffs are a different beast. There's only one prize that matters."

Ultimately that's true, but can we really disregard Daniel's Art Ross, the Presidents' Trophy, the goalies' Jennings trophy and the immaculate regular season simply because the Cup is what matters in the end? Robson doesn't think that's fair.

"There's so much hype about the sport through television and the media, and the way the team is sold, that there's such an emphasis on this Stanley Cup thing. And I think it's too bad in a way, because it's taking away from the enjoyment of the game, win or lose, whoever's playing," he says. 

"And the emphasis on the Stanley Cup takes away from a lot of accomplishments that might not be a Stanley Cup."

Regardless of whether or not the Vancouver Canucks win the Cup on their 40th birthday, this team has had a fantastic and record-setting season that both fans and the 2010/2011 team should be proud of.

If this really is their year, Robson knows there are many, many Canucks fans out there who have been waiting decades to witness it.

"It would be great for the long-time fans," he says. "There are some who go back to even prior to the Pacific Coliseum days who still go to games, or at least follow them. They would be extremely happy."

But he still hopes Canucks Nation refrains from rioting again.

"The majority would just be thrilled with it all," he says, then adds with a chuckle, "And they'd celebrate accordingly."

By KATIE MAXIMICK

Behind the black goatee and white smile of Karm Sumal is a brilliant entrepreneur with a heart of gold, and it was this heart of gold (and his longing for Canada to win it) that launched his blog, vancitybuzz.com, into local prominence.

“At first, Vancity Buzz was started for pure fun,” Karm said. “Then the momentum built and we continued to get inspired.”

“The negativity that surrounded the Vancouver Olympics fueled our fire, so we began highlighting the positives, as we felt they far outweighed the negatives. And here we are today.”

When Karm began to write positively on the Olympics, traffic to his website doubled and ultimately established Vancity Buzz as a go-to site for Vancouver events. Unlike some businesses around Vancouver and Whistler, Vancity Buzz’s success continued to grow once the Olympics were over, and a lot of that has to do with the man behind the website.

Karm uses his site and social media accounts to connect to his audience, rather than post strictly self-promotional content as some prominent bloggers tend to do. This means Karm’s audience is as unique and as personable as the man behind the website, and if you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Karm (perhaps at a Canucks Tweetup) you know he’s pretty charming, not to mention humble.

“In terms of popularity, that’s subjective,” he said about his rising fame. “The blog and Twitter are pretty much an extension of my personality, and I think it shows in my reach and demographics.”

And I’m sure a lot of Karm’s demographics must be male after the popularity of his weekly (and sexy) Humpday Hotties posts.

By the way, Karm’s Twitter account now boasts close to 12,000 followers, and has 2,400 connections on his Facebook page.

Vancity Buzz and charitable promotions

Rising popularity has its price. Because Vancity Buzz is so successful in terms of garnering attention for local events, Karm has to filter through a lot of emails on a daily basis.

“We get pitched, a lot,” he said. “Honestly if I said yes to everyone I’d have six postings a day on events alone. However, one thing we don't say not to are charity events."

And there are many small charitable organizations that get lost in the blinding limelight of big fundraisers and well-funded galas. Karm believes that it’s those little events that deserve the promotion on his website.

“It’s our way of giving back to the community. We can’t always donate financially or donate our time, but spreading the word is our way of giving a little back.”

"That’s what we provide – free exposure for charity-related events.”

On social media's ability to raise awareness

To gain exposure for deserving events, Vancity Buzz takes to Twitter, Facebook and their website to Tweet, link-out and profile them.

“I think social media has expanded the reach of [charitable] events,” Karm said. “Tweetups for charity are an amazing tool to raise funds or awareness for causes. I think the most recent example of that is the sled dog tragedy.”

Vancity Buzz uses all aspects of social media to promote its own quarterly charity event called The Buzz Entrepreneur Event where partial proceeds go to a chosen organization. The last event raised donations for Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver.

The next Buzz Event is on March 24^th at the Joseph Richard Lounge on Granville, hosted by VanCity Buzz and Reach Magazine. Partial proceeds will go to the Sunset Community Centre Daycamp for Kids.

So aside from a great smile, a humble personality and a big heart, what else makes Karm Sumal stand out above the Vancouver crowd?

How about drive?

“Our success is quite amazing thus far,” he said.

“However we aren’t satisfied yet, and don’t think we’ll ever be.”

By KATIE MAXIMICK

(2011 Five Hole for Food team from left: Jonathan Buyco, Richard Loat (founder) and Vic Lo. Photo by Dixon Tam).

When it comes to social media, SFU student Richard Loat could be considered one of Vancouver's youngest trailblazers.

With over 3,600 Twitter followers and 1,500 Facebook friends, Loat is undoubtedly one of the city's most popular Canucks bloggers and social-media celebrities.

What you wouldn’t expect out of a 21-year-old swimmer is that Loat created a registered not-for-profit society called Five Hole for Food when he was only 20.

Five Hole for Food takes Canada's love for hockey and uses this to raise donations for local food banks across the country. Last summer Loat and partner Vic Lo travelled across Canada to play high-profile street hockey games in nine cities, all the while raising donations for each city's food bank.

By using his popular social-media presence, Loat has been able to channel attention and attendance to his charity events.

"As a not for profit we have had to rely on social media to get the word out," Loat said. "It's been great because Five Hole for Food started, and continues to be driven, by social media and it is the network of hockey bloggers that came together to start this organization which continue to drive its success."

"Were it not for social media this organization wouldn't even exist."

Start-up ideas for an endless audience

Social media has given smaller charities like FHFF access to mass audiences, whereas before the invention of Twitter and Facebook, the only organizations that could reach a big audience were large ones with established funds.

"Apart from the networking aspect this year we've procured two of our sponsors just through social media," Loat added." We reached out to them on Twitter, and it resulted in the start of partnerships we hope will last a long time. It started by tweeting a corporate company about who to contact, and has lead to things that cold calling hasn't."

Of course using social media to raise awareness for a charity can have its limitations, seeing as your online audience is mostly under the age of 35 and lacks the monetary security of the 50+ demographic, but as Rich Crosby the director of UK’s Greenfield Communications puts it, “the best advertising always has been and always will be word of mouth.”

In his blog on social media and charity, Crosby writes:

“Don't underestimate the power of social media to reach a wide audience. Your charity will benefit by gaining new, young supporters who are full of energy while still reaching older supporters who are more likely to be able to support your charity financially because they aren't living off pasta and Red Bull.”

Regardless of social media’s popularity with young people, older web users are slowly discovering the benefits of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, hopefully meaning the gap between young and old users decreases and the amount of donations increases.

What's important for now is there are various social media tools out there to help people like Loat get their charities off the ground and network with an endless audience to benefit those in need.

Social media and the community

On Feb. 12, Loat and his FHFF team were the organizers behind the Olympic anniversary hockey games on Granville Street. A lot of those who came to play street hockey with donations to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank had heard about the event on Twitter.

(Vic Lo and Richard Loat pose with Mayor Gregor Robertson on Feb. 12 after the VIP "Relive it" hockey game. Photo by Dixon Tam)

"Saturday's event was great because it allowed us to really leverage social media," Loat said. "We had a VIP game and a Celebrity game and those two games had some fairly influential people on Twitter involved in our games. It was great to be able to share that with them and then walk away and tweet about the good times that were had." 

The distance between community, business and charity has shrunk with the far-reaching abillities of social media. No matter how far away, platforms like Twitter have made both organizing and donating as easy as the click of a mouse.

To sum things up nicely, social media has radically changed how not-for-profit organizations and charities get the word out.

"You can't say that social media has replaced traditional media, but it got us the buzz we needed to get noticed by those with some serious pull," Loat said. "It's helped make our events a huge success and ultimately it's the closest to an online version of "word of mouth" marketing."

"It's been great as well because it's allowed us to engage with people before we get to each city, after we've left and it has allowed us to keep relationships going despite distance." 

Loat and Five Hole for Food kick off the 2011 cross-Canada tour June 23 in St. John's, Newfoundland. You can follow FHFF's tour activity on their Twitter account.