For the last ten years the Miami Dolphins have invited a group of Miami Dolphins fans who run websites down to Miami. I am one of four people who have been to all ten of them. I used to run another Dolphins website that no one ever read but somehow the Dolphins found me. We would go down every year and I just would update my site enough to keep getting invited.  Around year four I met the 2 Michelle’s, two girls from NYC who had a Dolphins blog. I started watching games with them and after Tall Michelle moved Short Michelle and I founded DolfansNYC.

Last year was a really big one for us. We donated a ton of money to the Miami Dolphins foundation and ended up winning a “Webby Award’ for best community website. We also used the opportunity to reach out to other Dolphins fan sites and raise even more money for hurricane Sandy relief efforts. It was a pretty amazing trip.

This year was even better for us. We won the community webby again and we ended up raising $3000 already this year that we donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. We also donated another $300 to two Dolphins Cycling Challenge riders who are doing a bike ride to raise money for the Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of Miami. We gave Joe Philbin, Sam Madison and OJ McDuffie DolfansNYC shirts and OJ told us he might wear it to our #MetLifeTakeover event on December 1st! He posted a photo of himself wearing it on Twitter too!

We also got to meet Brandon Fields and John Denny who signed some stuff for us to raffle off and we also had John Offerdahl sign some stuff too. He spoke to us and promoted his Gridiron Grill Off which you should check out if you are in South Florida. That guy is always hilarious but he had just come from a food and wine festival and had a few drinks in him and he was so so funny. All of us were dying. That guy is a legend.

The highlight of the trip for us was when we presented new CEO Tom Garfinkel our Miami Dolphins Foundation donation. He seemed genuinely moved and invited us to his suite to watch the game. We were honored and got to watch the game at the 45 yard line with free food and 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell sitting a few feet from us. We talked to a bunch of the Dolphins marketing staff and they had told us that they were big fans of what we were doing in NYC and we had come up in meetings. We spoke to Mr. Garfinkel a little more in detail about what we were doing as well. The whole thing was pretty amazing.

In the end the game turned out very poorly and sadly we left Miami with a bitter tastes in our mouths but looking back in a few years we won’t remember this one loss to the Bills, but we will remember the experience and how we took another step towards taking NYC back from the Jets fans! DolfansNYC over everything!

Hope to see you guys tomorrow at Slattery’s Midtown Pub to watch the Patriots game. Win or lose we will have a ton of fun and we will have new DolfansNYC hats for sale! Phins up!

Check out our photos from Web Weekend X below!

[tylr-slidr]http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolfansnyc/sets/72157636982066955/[/tylr-slidr]

Short Michelle and I founded Dolfans NYC a couple years after becoming friends at a thing called Web Weekend. Web Weekend is an event the Miami Dolphins host every year bringing together people who run Dolphins fan blogs. I used to run a site called Bored With Losing and Michelle and her friend Tall Michelle ran a site called 2 Michelles. After Tall moved away from NYC we started doing Dolfans NYC as our full time Dolphins project. During the Web Weekend we also met a great guy named Tom Eddie. Sadly Tom passed away from Cancer and we come together every year and remember him. The best Dolphins website of the year is now called the Tom Eddie award.

For the second year in a row we are raising money for cancer research in Tom’s name. The Dolphins do a Cycling Challenge ever year and last year Dolfans NYC donated 200 dollars. I would like to beat that this year. To help get the ball rolling I found a sponsor that in exchange for mentioning them on the site will be donating $100 to the cause. So check out NFL betting on Top Bet and thank them for helping the cause.

Now I know times are tough but donating would not only be a good thing to do but it would help Dolfans NYC’s relationship with the Dolphins. When we donated $1000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation a couple years ago the Dolphins organization really took notice of our little club. Since then they have done a lot to help us and hooked us up with things like autographed memorabilia for our game day raffles.

When Michelle and I started this club we knew there were opportunities to make money with the club but we also knew we didn’t want to turn this into a money making venture. We do this for the love of football and we decided to put any money we made back into the club and then to donate the rest to charity. So this club from the beginning has been about helping others and I hope you guys can donate a little bit to the Dolphins Cycling Challenge.

So DONATE NOW and make sure when you mention Dolfans NYC in the comment section so the Dolphins organization knows it came from us. Thanks and Go Dolphins!

On Wednesday, the Miami Dolphins hosted a live chat with linebacker Gary Guyton, the third call set up exclusively for the fan websites invited by the team to attend the annual Web Weekend.

Guyton — who went undrafted in 2008 despite having the fastest 40-yard time at his position at the NFL Combine (4.47) — spent his first four seasons with the New England Patriots, starting 32 games, including all 16 contests in 2009 when he had 85 tackles and 1.5 sacks. Over the last two years, the 6-foot-3 LB recorded 110 total tackles, three sacks and three interceptions, including one pick-six. Following him on Twitter: @GaryGuyton59.

In addition to talking about his transition to a new coaching staff and defensive scheme, Guyton, as well as a member of the Dolphins Cycling Challenge staff, encouraged everyone to get involved in the third annual DCC, a two-day, 170-mile charity cycling event to benefit the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, on November 3 and 4. Both of Guyton’s parents are cancer survivors and he recently lost his grandmother to the disease, making the support the DCC gives to cancer research — $1.6 million raised over the last two years, with a goal of doubling that amount this season — a very important cause to him.

Please go to RideDCC.com to register as a rider, volunteer or a virtual rider; click here to help raise money in memory of our friend Tom Eddie.

On the football field, Guyton has been pleased with the continued growth and development of the Dolphins while putting in the long hours in preparation for the upcoming season. Coming over from New England, he talked to DolfansNYC* about the  difference in coaching styles between the two organizations.

“(They’re) great coaches – all of them on both sides of the ball are very knowledgeable in the game,” he said. “Getting in here, learning other things you may not have picked up from other coaches, it all helps you be a better player.

“I think right now, (Kevin) Coyle and (Joe) Philbin, we’re all here just working together. It’s a first step for us on defense, just to get in here and learn the defense. We’re all here to learn together and just (be) the best we can.”

No. 59 also told us that all of the Dolphins’ tight ends, led by the veteran Anthony Fasano, have been tough to cover.

“They all do certain things differently – all are good,” he said. “Any one of those guys can come in and do a good job for us to be a good role player.”
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