Parting is such sweet sorrow

Back in late June of 2010, I was an incredibly active SB Nation user, posting tons of comments and reading nearly every story on sites like Buffalo Rumblings, Mile High Hockey and Purple Row. At that time, SBN was planning on launching regional sites (these later fell out of use, but were actually a fairly popular batch of sites for a while on the network) including one for Denver. We had a launch party for the thing in every city, and SB Nation Denver's main man Russ — at that point of Purple Row fame — was there. At the time, I'd always fancied the idea of having my own sports blog for one of my favorite teams, and SB Nation had only recently started adding on MLS team blogs.

Near the end of the evening, I asked Russ if it was possible if I could add some Colorado Rapids posts onto the site, since the team was completely uncovered anywhere on the SBN network. I made sure to stress I'd do it unpaid, and he agreed that I should. July 4th, 2010 was the first game I covered in earnest for the network, a 1-1 draw against the New York Red Bulls in what could be charitably described as 'a monsoon'. After only a few days of Rapids coverage on SBN Denver, Dave Clark of Sounder at Heart got a hold of me and asked if I would be willing to run an actual team blog on the network. I leaped at the opportunity, and Burgundy Wave was very shortly born. (Here's my own secret shame: Despite years of complaining about how nobody can spell 'burgundy', I myself spelled it wrong in the first ever post on the site.)

So that's how all of this began. And this is how it's going to end, for me at least.

As of today, I'm resigning as Managing Editor of Burgundy Wave. My involvement with the blog hopefully isn't going to go completely kaput, but I will no longer be the main provider of content and the man in charge of personnel and editorial direction on the blog. Taking over from me will be John Rosch, the man I brought on as an assistant Manager this year.

I'm sad to be leaving this position, but many, many personal reasons eventually compounded upon themselves to force me to stop. I had always wanted to do so much more than what I did, and those things will, unfortunately, always end up undone. I'll leave with tons of fond memories, however, and plenty of reasons to love what I did while I was here.

That 1-1 draw on July 4th, 2010 was the first game I had been to that season, as my involvement supporting the team had dropped more than I care to admit since I had held a partial season ticket back in 2007 with my friend Armando. At that game, I got my first taste of the Supporters' Terraces and the BSG, Pid Army and Class VI, the first burgeoning Supporter's culture in team history that I'd felt compelled to join in on. I ended up meeting tons and tons of absolutely wonderful people when I began mingling with the Supporters' Groups, many of the people I'd call my best friends today, in fact, because of my decision to start this blog.

The 2010 MLS Cup was an extra-special experience for me having blogged my way through it. My very favorite bar in the city of Denver, the British Bulldog, became a regular haunt only after this blog had started. I've attended and covered three MLS Drafts and met tons of other amazing MLS fans because of this blog.

I thank you for reading all these years, and I hope you'll all stick around for years to come on what I personally think is the best god damn Rapids blog on the internet.

Thanks for the four-and-a-half years of great fun. I'll see you all at Dick's next season.