On behalf of my pal Johnny Fonts and the fight against NF2

John Fontana is the Editor-In-Chief over at Raw Charge, where I am employed as writer/columnist/slacker, which means he is my boss. More importantly, he is my friend. As I approach the 10th anniversary of this humble page, there are very few bloggers out there who have been at it as long as I have. John's had Raw Charge up and running for 12 years now. That's the record, as far as blogs I know about.

"Today's the 12th anniversary of the founding of the site that became Raw Charge. I started writing a site called Boltsmag (named for a Rivals.com site that went by the same name) in part because of the lack of a current Tampa Bay Lightning web presence. You could find web sites from the late 1990's and the ultra-brief competitiveness of the club from 1996 / 1997 (Geocities and other ultra-early free web host sites) and that's about it.  It was easy to be exposed (via league-wide message boards) to the common stereotype of the time: how Tampa Bay didn't deserve hockey, how no one attended games and blah-blah-blah. That was another reason to show fans actually did exist." - from John's article at Raw Charge, link provided above

That's not the only reason he started the site:

"Around the time I decided to put together a web log devoted to the Bolts in February 2004, I was learning to walk again and physically rehabbing after multiple operations in late 2003. Web design was a way to pass the time while I got things back in physical order. Losing walking ability and lower body sensation wasn't caused by an accident or injury from something horrible or a petty incident of embarrassment. It was another physical complication to my life by way of Neurofibromatosis Type Two, a genetic disorder that had already slammed my life with deafness and other physical complications brought on by it." - ditto

You can support John and Raw Charge by visiting the site for all of your Tampa Bay Lightning news. You can support John and the fight against Neurofibromatosis Type Two by contributing to the Deke The Deuce campaign. All proceeds will go to AdvocureNF2.org, a non-profit organization based in Clearwater, Florida, "dedicated to advocacy and to strengthening efforts that expedite research contributing towards systemic therapies to treat and eventually cure NF2."