Long-time readers of Wisconsin Prep Hockey will remember the dark times. The days when we had to beg for funds near the end of the season to cover state tournament expenses. 

There were even seasons when we charged the Wisconsin Hockey Coaches Association for managing their team pages, rosters, and stats.

Several years ago we stopped charging teams for hosting their schedules, rosters, stats, and news articles. Our advertising revenue covered our expenses and left enough at the end of the season to cover our trip to the state tournament to that coverage.

With our new mobile friendly site design this season, our site is a lot easier to navigate and use for the majority of our users (about 70% of our site traffic is from phones, not computers). Unfortunately in the transition to a mobile-friendly design, we lost a majority of the ads on the site for the majority of the season.

After complaining to Sports Engine support until we were blue in the face, we got some of them back, and hopefully we won't need to ask for donations next season.

But next season is next season, and this season we do need to ask for donations.

Our "staff" of three-and-a-half volunteers have personally seen and written about 56 of the hockey teams in Wisconsin this year, including 20 of the 28 girls teams. As the regular season and playoffs continue, that number will only go up.

That is all on our dime. We like going to games, taking pictures, and writing about them. If we didn't like it, we wouldn't do it.

But, over the course of the year, the gas, miles, meals, and occasional hotels ads up, and this year we don't have enough money to cover our trip to the state tournament.

So, as I said before, we're asking for your help. Whatever you can donate is greatly appreciated. It will help us fund our coverage of the state tournament and keep the site running through next season when our ads should all be working again.

If you want something back for your donation, I have also attached our sponsorship proposal. You or your business can sponsor a team, conference, or division page, as well as our Top Six rankings and our Game of the Week.