Where did this place come from and how did it start? Read on!
The Past
LetsGoWings.com didn't start out with that name and it definitely wasn't seen as a long-term project. No, it was just a time-waster for a teenager with not much to do while living out in the sticks. The site, in its first incarnation, was founded by Matt Schwartz and called "Detroit Red Wings Center Ice". GeoCities.com hosted the site starting in September of 1996.
Starting out the site was nothing more than a cheesy tiled ice background with a picture of Steve Yzerman saluting the Joe Louis Arena crowd following his 500th career NHL goal. Over the next few months the design of the site was tinkered, but (thankfully) the Internet WayBack Machine is not the Internet Way, WayBack Machine, so you won't find any screen shots of those versions in the gallery to the right. Gradually the site starting posting recaps of the Red Wings' recent games and had gained enough traffic to be a finalist for the first annual GeoAwards, which were handed out to the best sites in its respective category.
The site existed on GeoCities for almost two seasons before taking up and offer to be hosted by PuckPlace.com as one of several fan sites of other NHL teams. It was at this time that the site changed its name from "Detroit Red Wings Center Ice" to "Go Wings!". Again, the site remained on this host for two seasons before accepting an offer to move a server hosted by HockeysFuture.com.
It was the year 2000 and with the new host came a new .com address. Naturally, with the site name of "Go Wings!", LetsGoWings.com was chosen, and the name change was complete. The site was hosted by HockeysFuture until 2006, when the site moved to its current home with inventhost.com.
The Present
The present of LetsGoWings.com is a long time coming, actually. During the lockout-lost 2004-05 NHL season the plan was to completely revamp the entire site during this "downtime", but life tends to alter those plans. I got married and had two beautiful daughters born in the span of 18 months. Needless to say, when it came to juggling a family life, full time job and rebuilding the website from scratch -- the website got the short end of the stick.
After an endless stream of missed deadlines, broken promises, endless late nights and never-ending upgrades, the new LetsGoWings.com web site is here -- giving you what I hope to be the best incarnation of the site in its 12 years of existance.
The goal of this web site has always been to be the one-stop comprehensive resource for your Detroit Red Wings news but also the place to go to interact with other fans around the country -- and the world.
The Future
The future of this site is to always be on the cutting edge, whether it's the best forum software, ease of use, news features, opinions or helping fans all over the world connect -- that's the ultimate goal. But that doesn't happen without a little help from you, the visitor here. You're the the lifeblood of this site, the reason it is still here today and still growing. So if you've got an idea on how to make this site better, feel free to drop me an e-mail!
