I have some very exciting news to share with you, the DobberHockey reader. (I'm sure you can guess from the title, read on)

Thanks to the tremendous growth of DobberHockey as a fantasy hockey source – in terms of features, content and, of course, traffic – there has been some interest from the bigger conglomerates in terms of acquiring the website.

I hate to say that I am selling out to “the man”, but I have always been very upfront about the fact that I have a price. As long as, after the sale is finalized, I can be sure that the focus and quality of DobberHockey continues to be strong under new ownership, I would sell for a price.

After approximately two months of negotiating, I am satisfied that the quality standards will be met. All of the rankings will continue to be updated monthly, all of the columnists except for one (more on that below) will be retained, and daily news will be reported in the ramblings. The forum will continue to flourish under new management – except the new company will have their own moderators working diligently to see to that things continue to run in a friendly, helpful environment.

As for the company in question, I am under the confines of an NDA (nondisclosure agreement) and am unable to announce it at this time. I can only say that they are in the sports media business, so they know their stuff. An official announcement will be forthcoming from them sometime in the next two weeks.

There are some conditions to the sale that I have agreed to that I wanted to explain to “Dobber Nation” personally. The first condition, and this is a tough one, is that I am to cut ties as of May 1, 2008. Not only will I no longer be doing the Daily Ramblings or the player rankings, but the Sunday article “The Dobotomy” will run for the last time on April 27, 2008.

I will also be unable to, under the terms of the agreement, participate in the DobberHockey forum. Granted, I could join anonymously and post that way, but trust me when I tell you that the consequences of doing that – if I were discovered – would be pretty hefty financially.

The final stipulation is, due to a possible conflict of interest, I will be unable to write about fantasy hockey on the Internet for a period of one year. There are some exceptions, most notably what I do for The Hockey News, but as far as taking on any new fantasy hockey endeavors, that cannot happen before May 1, 2009.

The new owners will handle the distribution of the prizes for the DobberHockey playoff pool, as well as the distribution of fantasy guides/lists/reports that you have ordered.

It has been a great run. Nearly two and a half years and DobberHockey was built from a casual little web page to a full-blown fantasy hockey must-read. Thank you everyone for making this a pleasure and helping to make DobberHockey a success. I made some good friends here and I am sure we will be in touch.

Dobber