Welcome to the new BCLionsDen.ca, or as we’ve been shamelessly flogging it in recent months, “Version 2.0”.

As you can see, I have given the site a face lift, and changed our format by entering the realm of the blog/content management system. Over the past few years the blog has become a popular and effective tool in the world of social media, a field that I am growing more interested in. For that reason, I wanted to create a fan site that was more of a magazine style and see where it will go. The new site has been a large learning curve, with headaches and challenges, but a lot of fun one as well.

We want you to feel like you’re sitting around in a room with friends, talking about the BC Lions and the CFL. This country has some great football writers, like Lowell Ullrich but they can’t express the raw views of you the fan. They can interview the players, the coaches, write reviews on games, but they have to remain somewhat neutral in their analysis and reporting, while fans have a strong attachment to their teams and have no such limitations. While we want your true opinions, we also want you to respect that players and coaches are human beings, and personal attacks of any kind won’t be tolerated on this site. The ultimate goal would be to have players see what we’re trying to create here and feel comfortable to participate on the site, interacting with you the fans.

Another goal of the site is to celebrate the players and personalities that have been involved with the BC Lions over their 50+ year history, by compiling as many alumni profiles as we can to make sure these people that have provided us with memories as fans are not forgotten. This area of the site is still in the works, and now that the main design and content is done we’ll be concentrating on adding these alumni profiles as we can find information on former players. If you’re a former player and could help us with pictures or information about your career, we would love to hear from you.

I am very pleased to have my friend Dennis Prouse writing for the site. Dennis is a transplanted BC Lions fan living in Ottawa, and has been coaching amateur/minor football for many years. Dennis has great insight on the technical aspects of the game and you can look forward to his contributions soon and throughout the season.

Our forums are still here and we’ll also have desktop wallpapers, schedules, fan profiles, tailgate information and a great resource of links. You can also follow updates to the site on Twitter.

I do apologize however. I simply ran out of time in my efforts to get all the sections filled in, so there are a few areas of the site that will come online when I finish them and add more content.

All told, I’m happy with the end product, and I hope you are too! Tell your friends and fellow Lions/CFL fans about us. Your participation is vital to our success and growth!

So welcome to BCLionsDen.ca 2.0, and ROAR YOU LIONS ROAR!

Brian (Orangeshoes99)