Welcome to the new home of The Production Line!

Oh NOW that photo makes sense…

Welcome to the new home of The Production Line — complete with our own non-blogspot domain! Maybe now we’ll stop having our posts eaten as we’re just about to bitch about getting jailsexed by the Shetuzzi or making up Las Vegas Lebda stories. Please take a few minutes to update your bookmarks, blogrolls, RSS feeds, and Google Reader subscriptions. The feed – and home page – will continue to have the full content, because nothing pisses me off more than having to “click here to read more.” I have officially exhausted my vast vocabulary computer lingo.

You’ll find us at www.TheProductionLine.US — NOT .com. Trust us, we wanted .com. But the clown who owns it (and is just sitting on it) wanted four grand for it. So… we tried. It just wasn’t going to happen.

We’ve got a lot of exciting news to share, so I’ll cut right to the chase. We’re beyond thrilled to announce we’ve added a third member to our little cabal here. Our real-life good friend (nay, brother) Chris Hollis will be joining us as of today after having done an incredible job at Motown Wings — and Winging it in Motown before that. The Production Line is extremely lucky to have such an incredible writer, brilliant hockey mind, and world-class man on its team. Both “original members” of TPL (or “classic gangstas”) had an instant connection with Hollis and within minutes of meeting him knew that there was an opportunity for something special if the three of us put in the effort.

We also have Hollis to thank for this wonderful new site. He built many of the elements (some that we’ll explore in a little bit) to make it far fancier than the old TPL was (Blogger Templates FTW!). The banner, however, is courtesy of our good friend Sara — you may know her as @thetinnishflash — and she did an AMAZING job. In fact, she’s designed more than one for us and we couldn’t decide which one we loved most so we’ll be rotating.

Back to business… not only are we merging our site with Hollis’, we’re proud to announce that the Red Wings podcast — formerly known as The Obstructed View — has also found a new home. You’ll still have the show you’ve grown to love, but it’ll live right here at the Production Line so there’s no need for a second bookmark to keep track of. The podcast has been re-branded as The Production Hour (despite the fact that it’s NEVER just an hour, but  “happy hour is longer than an hour, and no one seems to mind.” Touche, salesman.) The format is going to be switched up a little bit, too, but I’ll let Hollis pass along those details, as he’s still your host and point man for that project.

If you haven’t already, please take a second and follow @TPLhockey on Twitter and fan us on Facebook. Not quite sure what we’re going to do with the social media, but that’s where all the kids are hanging out. Fret not, all three of us will continue to tweet from our personal accounts, but only the TPL Twitter will be sending the post’s feed. Because it’s uber-annoying to get four tweets in a row with the same link. You know who you are.

Anyway, to access our Twitter and Facebook pages — as well as the RSS feed — click those nifty buttons in the upper right hand corner. Directly below them thangs is a tabbed box. Ask Hollis how badly I wanted that. I almost blew the whole partnership on my crazyperson obsession with it. But it worked out, because it’s FULL OF WIN. The first tab is our blogroll, the second is the categories the posts will be filed under, and the final is a direct link to a PayPal account. Under no circumstances should you feel obligated to use this button, but Hollis ain’t cheap… that was a paying gig we tore him away from, and we had to promise him a decent petty cash account.

All joking aside, we’re hoping to find a handful of sponsors for The Production Hour — and the site as a whole. If you’d like to send a few bucks to help cover hosting fees for the massive podcast files, we’d graciously accept it. But the exciting part of this kick-ass button is that periodically we’ll be hosting fundraising events — like the H2H pledge drive last February. Rest assured, we’ll still be your home for the H2H2 pledge drive — just like last year. Boom, built in PAY UP SUCKA! button for when Bertuzzi goes all December ’09 on that ass.

Below the banner on the LEFT side of the page, you’ll find a few more tabs. You can use the About Us page to send us individual e-mails (fan-mail and hate mail equally accepted and expected) or a question/comment for podcast. We’ll be having some guests on the show from outside of the Wings blogging community, and I’m sure they’d be happy to answer some questions and engage in discussion.

So look around. Make yourself at home. Take off your shoes, stay awhile. We’ve been excited about making this announcement for months, and we know you’ll enjoy all the fun new developments at TPL.

So, with that, I’d just like to welcome Chris Hollis into the fold — we’re unbelievably lucky to have acquired a free agent of his stature. Boogaard (6.6 lol) be-damned, this is the best move of the summer.