Hockey-crazed daughter leads David Taylor into webmaster role for Taos Youth Hockey
Webmaster of the Week: July 11-17
Name:
David Taylor
Site:
Taos Youth Hockey
Position:
Hockey Director, Webmaster
Use of platform:
Registration, Sitebuilder, Tourney
Background:
Taylor grew up in the Longview area of east Texas, where football is the undisputed king. “I was taught the bible of football, and that is all you need in life,” he said. That mindset changed when Taylor moved west to Taos, New Mexico for college. He earned a a degree in business administration and management, had a daughter, Breanna, with his wife Melissa Vigil and discovered hockey as a cool alternative to football. “She started skating as soon as she could walk,” Taylor said about Breanna. “She was six when she started playing hockey. She wants to be the first woman in the NHL.” With Breanna hooked on hockey and his wife working at the Taos Youth and Family Center as Administrative Coordinator, most all of Taylor’s waking hours were being spent at the rink. So he volunteered with the Taos Youth Hockey Association and took over as hockey director last August. He also includes registrar, bookkeeper, USA Hockey American Development Model coordinator, coach and webmaster among his positions.
What he does:
Taylor, who has a background in information technology, decided one of his first projects was to help move the association’s website off its old platform and partner with Sport Ngin for its technology needs. “It was this atrocity,” he said. “You looked at, and you couldn’t understand it was a hockey website.” The Coyote Classic, held in March, is the association’s biggest event and Taylor treated it as such by managing it with Sport Ngin’s Tourney software. He entered boxscores from all 39 of the tournament’s games and created a tournament results page that allows viewers to see statistics for each division (Squirt, PeeWee and Bantam). “It’s a labor of love,” Taylor said. “The kids love it, the kids are into technology, and our sponsors are starting to buy into it.” Speaking of Sponsors, Taylor built a Sponsors page that not only prominently displays the association’s business partners but also lists in detail the benefits of Taos Youth Hockey Association sponsorship, including the sponsor-friendly features of its new website.
Making his mark:
In the Resources section, Taylor built a Parents page that is intended to become, “a depository for all teams to share travel tips and information about each league destination or tournament destination.” Using the tab element, Taylor created a tab for 10 cities along with an all-encompassing Tournaments tab. Using the code element, he added Google maps showing the rinks in each city. He also added the Weather element (the forecast for Albuquerque is a high of 98 degrees as this is being typed) and, most importantly, added a Comment Stream to allow parents to share their tips and experiences for each city.
