Why It Was a No Brainer to Join Canis Hoopus

Oct 5, 2022 - 10:30 PM

Editor’s note: Please welcome Mitchell Hansen to Canis Hoopus! We will play a major role in both our Wolves and Lynx coverage. He’s a veteran in the content game who has been a fantastic writer for years, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to add him to our incredible team. He provides unique perspective as someone who covers both teams and has worked for both the Wolves and Lynx, so he is the perfect fit to round out our lineup!

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of basketball and either playing or tuning in to watch games as much as possible. While growing up, I would oftentimes race home after school, quickly eat dinner, throw on my No. 21 Kevin Garnett blue trees jersey, and immediately head downstairs to turn on whatever game was on TV (more often than not a Minnesota Timberwolves game) while shooting hoops on a little plastic hoop in my parents’ basement.

Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

It’s safe to say I’ve always been obsessed with basketball, growing up around the mid-to-late period of Garnett’s tenure with the Wolves before exiting for the Boston Celtics (we don’t have to talk about the years following that departure). Since I was so sinfully uncoordinated and not good enough to actually play the game, I decided to do the next best thing – follow and cover basketball while writing about it as much as I could.

Shifting from attempting to play the sport to now covering it, I’ve been lucky to write for some sites and publications throughout my career that have allowed me to share my obsession of basketball. After making a few other stops to this point, I have decided to take on a new role with a site I’m thrilled to announce I am joining Canis Hoopus.

With Canis, I will help in covering the Timberwolves throughout the NBA season while also teaming up in coverage of the Minnesota Lynx during the WNBA year. To say I’m excited and thrilled to join this team would be an understatement, and I can’t wait to share my obsession of this sport with you all as much as possible.

With that said, allow me to introduce myself to you, provide a bit of background on who I am, what you can expect from me, and why I’m thrilled to be joining this talented team.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

… “My name is Hov, oh, H-to-the-O-V.”

OK, I’m sorry. I’ve always wanted to do that. Get used to pointless, unfunny attempts at jokes on this site from me from time-to-time, and prepare to be disappointed every. single. time.

With that out of the way, allow me to introduce myself to you and offer a bit of who I am. As I write this, I have spent nearly 10 years writing in the sports world and I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it along the way.

Growing up in Central Minnesota and later attending St. Cloud State University for college (Go Huskies!), I got my start in the sports writing world while working for the local newspaper, the St. Cloud Times, as a part-time sportswriter. After working in that role throughout college, I got what I viewed as my “big break” in 2016 when I was hired by the Wolves and Lynx organization to be their Web Editorial Associate for a little over a year. To me, that was an opportunity of a lifetime to work internally for an organization I grew up around and to get the chance to be around both the Wolves and Lynx on a daily basis.

I always had an interest in writing about the NBA, but quickly grew a strong interest in covering the WNBA as well, and it didn’t hurt that the best team in the league and one of the best teams in WNBA history resided in Minnesota at that time. That role reassured me that this is what I wanted to do, and I am forever thankful for that opportunity opening doors for me to get to where I am right now. It also didn’t hurt to be part of the Lynx 2017 WNBA Championship team, which will forever be one of the top moments and times of my career.

Outside of those experiences, I’ve had the pleasure of working and writing for other sites and publications which have somehow put up with my awful puns and attempts at jokes while continuing to cover the great sport of basketball. I’ve worked for sites such as Zone Coverage and FanSided covering primarily the NBA and WNBA, also currently writing for Winsidr covering the WNBA on a national scale as well as the Lynx, and Sports Betting Dime covering the NBA and WNBA from a betting angle. All of those sites have provided me avenues to produce content that is not only informational and statically focused, but also stories that are more column and human-interest style content.

All of those experiences, even though I will continue with a few of them, lead me to this next opportunity with Canis – an opportunity I’m thrilled to take on and share with all of you throughout the NBA and WNBA seasons.

Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images

Why Canis Hoopus?

To simply answer that question of why Canis, I say why not? To be honest, this opportunity is one I am lucky to take on, joining a team of crazy talented writers and reporters whom I have followed since entering the sports writing world.

Throughout the years, you get very familiar with the local writer and reporter scene in the Twin Cities area while covering a team. There is a decent-sized crew of writers and reporters in the metro area and beyond, but it feels small and close-knit at the same time. That has been the case with this crew at Canis, as well as others who work for other outlets. I have even worked at other places with some of the writers currently on the Canis team, just another reason that made the decision to join the site a no-brainer.

Whether it’s Wolves or Lynx coverage, the entire team at Canis is one that is right up there with the best of them, both in terms of actual coverage and the writers filling out the team providing content on a daily basis. I have followed all their work for many years, and I have had the chance to either follow or get to know them over the years as well. I can tell you one thing – the team that has been built at Canis to cover the Wolves and Lynx is one of the most talented groups of writers I’ve been a part of. I feel lucky that they want to welcome me onto the team, and I can’t wait to contribute to the coverage and content to the best of my ability.

The team at Canis is impressive, and I’m not just saying that because this uncoordinated, pun-loving, and awful joke-spewing crazy guy is now joining the group. I’m lucky to be joining such a talented group of writers, and we hope you enjoy the content we will provide year-round as well.

Me joining the Canis team isn’t the reason you have now decided to read or follow the coverage that is and will be provided on these pages, but I hope I can contribute to the collective group that results in you continuing to come back. If I can bring aboard a new following, that’s icing on the cake. This decision was a no-brainer for me, and I’m happy to be on board this talented team. Like how I was growing up, I am here to enjoy basketball as much as I can. I hope you join me and our entire team as we do that together throughout the NBA and WNBA seasons.

Follow Mitchell Hansen on Twitter at @M_Hansen13.