This has been an incredible year for women's hockey, and if we want the Victory Press to keep going into the future, we need to do a lot of things a little bit better, and we need your help!
What we need: Staffing
- We need at least one more staff writer who can cover PWHL games and the international game remotely or in person and provide regular news writing. I currently pay a $165/month stipend to each staff writer with the expectation that they can write something roughly once a week, and we can also reimburse or partially reimburse travel expenses. The ideal candidate for this position should have a working knowledge of women's hockey and the current media landscape and should feel comfortable working independently. The format for coverage of the 2024-25 women's hockey season will be determined among staff writers, including the new staff writer! Bring your ideas!
- We desperately need someone who can help manage our social media, including Twitter ("X"), Instagram, and Bluesky. I can offer an hourly rate for this type of work or a stipend depending on the candidate's needs and schedule. Duties would include writing and scheduling posts, creating graphics from templates, and writing alt text for accessibility.
Are you interested in working with us? Please reach out to zoe@victorypress.org via email.
Please include:
- A writing sample (if you're interested in becoming a staff writer)
- Examples of social media content you've created (if you're interested in becoming our social media manager)
(We definitely did try to hire another staff writer amid the 2024 season, but my life was wildly busy at the time and I didn't have time to complete that process. Everyone who reached out at that time whose application was of interest been notified that the position is still open.)
I loved working with James Domizio this season but due to scheduling conflicts he will not be returning as a staff writer next hockey season. We hope to publish more work by him in the future!
What we need: Funding
- We need the subscriber revenue to be able to pay people fairly for their work. Adding a staff writer and a social media manager comes at no small expense. We want to make it at least somewhat worth it for freelancers and writers to dedicate part of their time to the Victory Press. Currently our MRR still sits at $654 a month, which is a break-even amount with three paid staff writers and additional operating expenses.
- $700/month has been my ongoing goal since I started Victory Press and we have only ever exceeded that once and briefly. By exceeding $700/month, and even hitting $800/month, I can continue to pay writers, a social media manager, commission freelance work at a competitive rate, and reimburse travel expenses.
- Travel expenses are a big help since getting to women's hockey events is half the battle. Things like accommodations, airfare, and driving expenses add up. Nicole and I planned travel to the draft in Minnesota at our own expense. Nicole and Melissa traveled to Utica largely at their own expense and I was only able to partially reimburse costs. Our PayPal is always open for tips.
- We need about $400 USD to reimburse travel costs already incurred this tax year for Worlds.
- Our cost for attending the draft in St. Paul is about $500 USD (airfare and hotel).
- We are planning travel to cover the IIHF U18 Women's Worlds and senior Women's Worlds (in Vantaa, Finland and České Budějovice, Czechia, respectively) and will update you about costs once we start finalizing those plans. For Nicole to travel to Vantaa and Zoë to travel to České Budějovice, flights and accommodations will probably total around $2000-$2500 USD for both trips.
All of your financial support for the Victory Press goes towards paying writers, reimbursing expenses, and operating costs. Our PayPal is https://paypal.me/victorypress. You can subscribe at https://victorypress.org/#/portal/signup.
What we can do
- We have a slate of subscriber-only features planned for the offseason, including:
- A feature from Worlds about Team Czechia
- A retrospective on the inaugural season of PWHL New York: what went wrong, what went right, and what the future is going to look like (by me, Zoë)
- Coming VERY soon: a mock draft by Zoë of the first three rounds
- Even more PWHL features in the works
- Our free content will include:
- Season recaps for each PWHL team
- Draft analysis from the 2024 PWHL Draft
- Full coverage of the 2024-25 PWHL season
- We are beginning to plan our in-person coverage for the 2025 IIHF Women's Worlds and U18 Women's Worlds, which will include both free and subscriber-only content.
- More non-hockey-specific content, including:
- An article which is (I think) about the massive explosion of women's sports' popularity and visibility and how that continues to expose the contradictions of capitalism
- Op-eds and some individual sports coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
- We are going to re-stock our t-shirts for subscribers this summer in a wide range of sizes, with an all-new design, printed as always by an independent screen printer for a high-quality t-shirt that lasts. Subscribers can look for emails this summer (sometime in early July) requesting their t-shirt size and mailing address to receive the new design, along with other goodies!
- We will be consolidating our membership tiers to make subscribing and understanding what you are getting with your subscription a little more straightforward. We hope that by simplifying this and lowering the overall cost of subscribing that it will encourage more people to sign up and tell their friends.
- $1/month : a nice monthly tip! Comes with no regular benefits, but we really appreciate it if you can't give any more. (19% of our current subscribers support us this way!)
- $8/month : access to all new premium content ($8/month is currently our most popular tier!)
- $12/month : access to full post archive, future premium content, t-shirt in size of your choice, thank you card, and occasional surprises in the mail (stickers, postcards) (This tier at this price is new!)
- All annual subscriptions will receive a flat 5% discount.
- If you subscribe at one of the old tiers, you can continue to subscribe at that tier until you choose to update your subscription to a current tier.
- The $5/month tier will be discontinued.
- The $15/month tier will be discontinued.
- Look for this change to subscriptions to take effect on July 1, 2024.
Whew! So that's a lot of information. I'm currently in the middle of moving into a new house, and I'm also headed to St. Paul (along with Nicole!) to cover the draft and visit Minnesota for the very first time! It's going to be a wild couple of weeks. I'm really excited about the possibility of continuing to do this – for the first time in a long, long time. As always, we appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to continuing to provide independent sports coverage with your support.
