AllSports Oilers Section Opens Its Doors November 18, 1997

November 18, 1997. Many OilFans to this day will remember our first stint with AllSports.com. For MJ and Aubrey, being invited to join AllSports.com was like making the big-leagues as far as fan sites went. AllSports.com offered free hosting for us to maintain an Edmonton Oilers site. And what could be more important about joining AllSports.com? A messageboard! Sure the board back then didn't have all the bells and whistles and you didn't even need to login, but it was the first.

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Season 2 of coverage for OilFans.com including its first post-game articles. Aubrey Chau and Michael-John Kozak fielded all the road game reports while Craig Sherburne, a season ticket holder had graciously offered to do post-game reports from the stadium in the comfort of his upper deck seats. Now don't get carried away, this wasn't wireless Internet. It was a guy with a laptop going back home to send us articles via likely a dialup connection with a 28.8 modem!

The writers came and went during the 2nd season of OilFans.com. In the end, AllSports.com was good but somehow MJ just knew he could do something way better on his own. As MJ finished off his U of A schooling and moved on to new and better opportunities, so did OilFans.com.

Unlike the first era of OilFans, the logos and layout didn't move around much. Phase 2 here was content-building. Over 150 articles were published in a full season of coverage. The list of writers continued to grow. During this era, we welcomed some very familiar names on the new messageboard. Many of the same guys and gals that were around back in 1997 still remain on the site to this day.