When Danny Mikol started recording his hockey games on a GoPro from the view of his helmet, he never thought it would reach so many people.

When Mikol played junior hockey for the Oswego Stampede three years ago, he started recording and posting footage from his games on to his YouTube channel to display his hockey career on a public platform.

“It’s a good way to mesh my passion for hockey and my passion for content creating and video editing,” Mikol said.”I’m surprised how many people this has reached.”

Mikol has over 17,000 followers on his channel. His posts average between five and ten thousand views per video.

He posted a video in 2017 that grew his channel significantly. The video got over 600,000 views and showed the perspective of being on the ice during a game. A three on three game where he got into a fight with the GoPro camera on his helmet led this video to go viral. 

Hockey YouTubers post a variety of videos, from training videos to gaming with EA NHL Sports. Mikol is among one of the few college hockey vloggers that focus on game day vlogs. His videos are comparable to the NHL’s “In the Room” series.

Danny’s mother, Tammy, said she watches every video he posts to his channel and enjoys watching him become even more successful.

“I’m very proud of him,” Tammy said. “Because this is all new to our generation, I was a little reluctant because I didn’t know much about it.  He’s been messing around with videos since 7 years old, so this is fun to see.”

Balancing the time commitment of a job, sports and academics leaves his time for content creating to be “packed in” his day-to-day routine.

“I don’t have a lot of down time since school started,” Mikol said. “I work about 35 hour weeks, and the only way I’m able to do this is because of my online classes, which really helps me balance everything.”

Mikol said the biggest time commitment for his videos comes with editing. He uses around five hours of footage and edits that into a 10-15 minute video with transitions and music.

Mikol plays on the Kent State Division III hockey team and is able to document the team’s journey on their first season in history. This year Mikol plans to set up GoPro cameras at each end of the ice so that he is able to record the full games and post the game highlights. 

“Growing up I watched a lot of YouTube for entertainment,” Mikol said.”Seeing other hockey YouTubers was definitely a big inspiration for me.”

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkmSuiowEwNQvWPi4IzNugw

Contact Dana O’Black at [email protected].