The ten most viewed stories of 2011

So it's a little cliché to do a end of year review but I wanted to give people an idea of what the ten most viewed stories of 2011 were even though this page has only existed since February I present to you "The ten most viewed stories of the year"  This is based on views for the entire year and amazingly enough one of the top 3 posts was only posted a few weeks ago.  We have everything from NHL teams surprising famlies with early homecomings to a six year old girl making a Christmas card for all soldiers.

I am also asking our members to vote for the "Story of the year" out of all these on the poll below all the links!

10. Father honours sons memory with travelling hockey jersey :
The story of Murrary Marshal who made a tribute jersey from his sons Calgary Flames jersey and wanted people to wear it to the games to keep his sons memory alive.  I had the honour of wearing this to a Flames game one night against the Chicago Black Hawks and was honored that Murray asked me to be a part of it.

9. Why I respect the Boston Bruins & Bobby Orr :   Just a simple write up I did about something very special the Boston Bruins did for the family of a fallen Canadian Soldier.  This was the first Bruins related Boston Bruins story I posted and the "Surprise Puck Drop" was just out of the top ten too

8.  A Soldiers Tribute - The Thankasoldier Bike - The story of WO Al Murray's bike that he had deisgned using the banner from our web site.  This was such an honor for him to want to do using our logo that a soldier would want to drive around and proudly display our banner on his motorcycle was truly overwhelming.

7.  Portraits Of Honour - The Faces  : made a new YouTube video for the Portraits Of Honour and it features a poem called "The Faces" written by Dan Gray specifically for the Portraits Of Honour. The video clip featured in it was taken by the "Canadian Heroes" group when the POH was visiting Hamilton, Ontario.

6. The All Star Dad Contest : I was approached by the wife of a soldier who wanted to nominate her husband Cpl Ian Spingle for the Dove Canada All Star dad contest, the prize was a trip for their family to the Grey Cup in Vancouver.  They suprised me after I won as they had one extra spot and I got to go along with them on this trip.

5. My Battle with PTSD : After creating a YouTube Project called Operation you are not alone I wanted to share my personal struggles with PTSD after an attack that happened to me in 1994 that I kept inside for many years and then decided to get help for it.

4. MCpl Elton Adams - What A Soldier Left Behind : This video features a song written by Elton Adams when he was on tour and I did a write up about him and the story of the song and linked to the YouTube video which now has over 41,000 views on YouTube.

3. Who Inspires you - Jody Mitic on The Ellen Show :  I saw a link on The Ellen Show's website about requesting people to submit who they find inspirational.  I instantly thought of MCpl Jody Mitic who lost both his lower legs after stepping on a IED in Afghanistan and is one of the most inspirational people I know.

2. Cassy's Card - The thing that amazes me about this post is that I only posted it eight days ago on December 12th and its the second most viewed post of the entire year.  I received an email from the mother of this little six year old girl who created a card she wanted all soldiers to see and the response has been amazing.

AND THE NUMBER ONE VIEWED VIDEO OF 2011 IS........................ 

1. Raw - Unedited footage from Afghanistan - Funker530  This YouTube channel features unedited footage of a soldiers tours in Afghanistan.  It is truly some of the best footage I have seen on YouTube and it doesn't suprise me one bit that its #1 on the list.  I interviewed Funker530 for this story and have featured his posts on my blog on several occasions.   "What you won't see on the news" took people on a tour of an outpost in Afghanistan and 

So there you have it, our top ten most viewed stories of 2011 and now it's time to vote for your favorite of these ten. Please leave a comment and tell us which story you liked the most and why, if its not on the list you can leave a comment also