We here at Japers’ Rink have always approached our participation in and contribution to this site as a largely voluntary activity – something we do because we love it and we love hockey. Our expectations for compensation have been fairly minimal and we’ve largely stayed out of labor disputes because, for us, we treat it as a hobby with the freedoms that come with that status.
That said, we strongly disagree with Vox’s recent decision to replace its California-based contractors with full-time employees (which you can read about here). The decision, spurred by the recent passage of the new state law regarding contract workers, resulted in all of the contributors to California team sites — including our three NHL communities, Anaheim Calling, Fear The Fin and Jewels From The Crown — being let go from their position with the network with no warning.
In protest of the way this matter was handled by SB Nation, and in support of those three communities (and all others impacted by this change), we will be joining many of our partner sites across the network and will be going dark on Monday. We will provide an open thread for tonight’s game, but will otherwise be holding off on our regularly scheduled content.
In the meantime, we thank you for continuing to support this site and making it easy for us to keep it going – and we appreciate your patience in this show of solidarity. We’ll be back with our usual content on Tuesday.