Sounder at Heart's amazing 2014

Some pretty amazing things happened in 2014 for Sounder at Heart. There's a lot of new staff, which means expanded coverage of more niche things like the Reign and the Future, more diverse voices in the weekday Links, more photos, more infographics - more of everything really.

Your insatiable appetite for more is clear when looking at the numbers. The site earned more than 10 million page views (about 8% of all of soccer on SBN) from over a million unique users. Both of those metrics were up significantly from 2013 (47%, 12%). It is rather apparent that the readers want more.

That's also exhibited in the rate at which people are purchasing Sounder at Heart gear. There are more than 1300 SaH/Nos Audietis scarves out in the wild and several hundred shirts and scarves as well.

The comments here are exemplary. They demonstrate community and a desire to educate or entertain rather than belittle and fight. You are a reason everyone should read the comments.

Here's a brief look at the most read stories of 2014;

1. The 2013 spring salary dump. No, it does not make sense why this is the most popular salary story on the site in 2014.
2. Yedlin rumored to be heading to Roma on a delayed transfer.
3. MLS is getting better at holding onto/acquiring World Cup quality talent and that means it's a pretty decent league.
4. Yedlin's transfer is complicated. Oshan explained it.
5. DeAndre earned the Sounders a good number, not the biggest ever, but a good number.
6. While Didier Drogba rumors may come up every single year, you don't stop reading about it.
7. At one point the world was certain that Yedlin was going to Roma - we were wrong.
8. That transfer fee at one point looked to be record setting, it wasn't, but it was pretty close.
9. Tottenham emerges as the leader in the transfer saga. The Yedlin story was really popular.
10. Sounders FC was rumored to launch a USL PRO team. Eventually there were Boise shenanigans, but Sounders 2 are right in Tukwila.
11. Taylor Twellman speculated that Hanauer is going to move into a role to advocate for a Sounders specific stadium. That wasn't even a month ago, it still made the year's top reads.
12. Alonso only plays the game one way. That put him right in the middle of All Star Game controversy. Hone Badger don't care.
13. A different Drogba rumor - Count on one of these every transfer season until he retires.
14. 2014's Spring salary dump
15. Amazon's quidditch turf thing

This coming year is going to be pretty awesome. There is a new professional team (Sounders 2), a return to the CONCACAF Champions League, there's a Gold Cup, Olympic Qualifying, a new CBA, a pipeline of maybe yedlins and the Hydra remains true and powerful. You will make it awesome too.

We'll do some things together in real life (Sunday at 11 AM at the Berliner to raise money for the Neagle Foundation is the next opportunity for that). We'll interact on Twitter, Facebook, here in comments and through Nos Audietis. We may not be the heart of the Sounders, but we are Sounders at Heart.

Thank you for 2014.

Happy New Year.