So you want to write for Battle of California...

Maybe you're a long-time reader and fan who thinks he can write well enough to take over for Earl or Rudy. Maybe you've never really read Battle of California but you're an aspiring writer with a lot of hockey opinions looking for a way to build her portfolio and get her work seen by a huge audience. Maybe you have a severe head injury and no longer know who you are or why you do things.

Whatever your reason is, if you think you might want to join the Battle of California Super Mega Writing Squad!!! then this post is for you.

I'll repeat this at the end of the post, but anyone who wants to apply should send me an e-mail. You can find my e-mail address on my profile page here.

Most of this article will be about what we are looking for in a writer, but first I'll briefly touch on why you should want to apply to fill the stinky, moist thrones soon to be vacated by Earl and Rudy.

Why the hell would you want to write for BoC?

1. It's good experience.

If you ever want to do anything professionally involving any sort of writing, blogging for Battle of California will help sharpen your skills. You will learn to write under the pressure of deadlines, for actual readers, with the expectation that you will be mocked for any mistakes you make by the friendly/hostile community here (more on this later). BoC will make you a better writer or break you in the process.

2. You can build your writing portfolio/expand your resume.

When you're applying for a writing job, it's a big deal to be able to provide links to pieces you have written that were actually read by a sizable audience, especially when those pieces are affiliated with something respectable like SB Nation. You'll also be developing skills (such as deadline-based writing for publication, HTML use, social media promotion, community management, and corporate buzzword deployment) that will look great on a wide variety of resumes.

3. It's really fucking fun.

The most important reason. You will get a chance to publish your stupid thoughts about hockey, and the world will read them! I write stuff like this, and then people read it and share it and tell me it's funny. There is no greater high on Earth, except for sweet sweet heroin.

So those are some reasons you should all be falling all over yourselves trying to join the BoC team. Here's something that SHOULDN'T be part of your calculations: money. Don't apply for this job looking to get paid because 1) You won't, at least not for a long time and 2) Even if you do ever get paid it will be such an insultingly small sum that you will get more joy from watching the check burn than you ever possibly could from cashing it.

Now that that's all out of the way, let's move on to some details about what we're looking for from our new writers...

# 0 A dedicated fan of the Kings or the Ducks

This is an absolute requirement. Don't bullshit me. We're not looking for other Sharks writers or fans of other hockey teams. That's now how we do things here.

#1 Basic writing skills

There's no way you will get to write for Battle of California if you can't write a coherent English sentence. Have some respect for yourself and for the language, and learn to write like a god damn grown up.

What's that? What about Spade?

Uh...well I guess we're grandfathering the "coherent English sentence" rule in; it's like helmets in the NHL.

#2 A Sense of humor

This is a comedy website nearly as much as (or possibly more than) it is about hockey. You don't have to be a joke-based writer to work here, of course, but you need to be comfortable with people in the comments making fun of everything you write, even if it's something you really worked hard on (haha "hard on" - oh and you should also be comfortable with dick jokes). If you want to write for us you should probably understand why this article is hilarious and why this one was very popular and why the people just love State Rape.

You'll need thick skin and a quick wit to thrive in these waters. Writing for Battle of California is sort of like a trial by fire, only instead of fire it's people peeing on you. This is what makes our community special and, I think, the best group of shit-talkers to be found anywhere on the hockey Internet.

#3 Reliability

You need to write a lot when you write for Battle of California. You should be prepared to post something every single gameday for your team during the season, offer your opinion on any breaking news regarding your team year round, and write random garbage during the off-season to keep people reading.

This place is fun and stupid and everything, but writing for us actually takes work. I've been writing for 2 1/2 years and have averaged about 14 posts a month during that time. That's a whole lot of typing, folks.

Bottom line: you probably shouldn't apply to write for us if you don't have a fair amount of time during your day to waste writing about your favorite hockey team.

#4 Opinions!

As a triply-redundant SB Nation blog, the number one thing we have to offer is our unique perspectives. If you don't have strong opinions about hockey issues that you want to share with the world, I don't really know why you would want to write for us.

#5. Something special