Welcome Aboard

Welcome to the new and improved 'At the Hive'! Feel free to kick off your shoes, lay back in that chair, and have your daily dose of Hornets delivered fresh to your home, shack, apartment, or Spanish villa. New readers can expect the biting wit, in depth analysis, and jasmine fragrances that made the original site legendary. Old readers (understandably) will probably expect none of those.

I wrote these words as part of the first welcome message, at the end of last season: "We’ll be here for one of the Hornets’ most important upcoming [seasons] in recent memory... an unprecedented age of terror shall be unleashed upon the unsuspecting Western Conference. This is the beginning of a new era for the Hornets- C. Paul, D. West, T. Chandler. What other team has not one, but three of the most talented young players in the game? That’s right… none! The rise of the Hornets has begun."

Indeed it has. So, a little bit about myself. First, no, I am not a psychic. I'm merely a rabid Hornets fan and have been so since the end of the Glen Rice/Muggsy era and the beginning of the E. Jones/A. Mason age. You can get my attention via use of the clever moniker 'atthehive'. My co-writer is Junsier. The origins of our Hornets' fandom (i.e., who was a Hornets fan first) has been hotly debated, but let's just say that I'm winning at the moment.

Now let's address the 100 pound gorilla in the room (he's malnourished) and the question all of you have been dying to ask: "Why the move? I miss typing 'dot wordpress dot com' into my browser seventeen times a day."

• The Brand: SB Nation is the best/most well known sports network out there. I've been reading their MLB blogs forever, and I think their NBA wing can become as just as popular.
• The Community: I really hope that the move from Wordpress to SBN transforms this from a website into a community. If you haven't already, go register now. Once you've registered, click on the "JOIN NOW" button underneath the logo. I thought it might be cool for the inaugural members to have floating Hornet player heads as avatars... so if you'd like one, let me know which player in the comments. I'm CP3, but Junsier will switch to Jamal Mashburn if anyone wants David West.
• Game Threads: I realize everyone and their pet iguana is holding open game threads these days (Yahoo!, HP, H247 all do a fantastic job). That said, we'll also throw our hats into the mix for 3 reasons: the new SB Nation software allows for auto-refreshing comments, the comments are threaded (so you can respond to earlier comments cleanly and without disrupting the flow of conversation), and once you're logged in, hitting the 'z' key takes you to any comments you may have missed.  So if you're free game day, come by and drop in a few words.
• FanShots and FanPosts:  Using FS's, you can post stories, polls, original analysis, etc. FP's are the same, but for quick video, pictures, or even quotes.
  

For any other questions, check here . My e-mail address remains the same (atthehive [at] gmail [dot] com). When I started the website last year, I was concerned that there weren't enough Hornets fans for the site to survive. Instead, readership has increased immensely through the season, I've gotten e-mails from readers in Brazil, Canada, China, and Australia, and we just hosted a very successful Chris Paul Blog Day if you missed it. Let's take this to the next level!