I am back from my New Year's trip up to the mountains and I have some good news to report: 1) I didn't break any bones while attempting to navigate my way down the bunny slope 2.) I was crowned the 2008 Ultimate Iron Ref and will be writing a monthly post on HHR. Some say that defense wins championships, I say it is posting pictures of horse on horse action.

When I first started my epic quest for blogging glory and pseudo Internet fame, I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell of getting out of the first round, let alone winning the whole thing. At the time, I was writing a tiny little blog with virtually no readers that couldn't decide if it wanted to be a general sports blog or a hockey blog and I was up against some very talented writers.

Thank you to everyone that voted or helped spread the word. A big thank you is owed the other blogs that helped promote my efforts: Mass Hysteria, Hub Hockey, Yahoo! Sports Puck Daddy, Cornelius Hardenbergh, Japers' Rink, the late great Jumbotron, and anyone else I may have forgotten. Thank you to Swaz, Barnes, Blaha, Jay, Kristin, Anks, and everyone else who badgered their friends and co-workers to vote. Last but not least, I want to thank The Chief and everyone over at HHR for letting me be a part of this. I look forward to defending my title in '09.

I know you are probably tired of me telling you to vote, but HHR is in the running for a Weblog Award for Best Sports Blog.