The 10 most-read pipes|drums stories of 2017

Andrew Bonar, 1966-2017

The passing of the immensely popular piper from British Columbia was an unfortunate and sad event. Testament to his likability is that news of his death was our most-read story of the year. Bonar waged a courageous battle against his terminal brain cancer but, pretty much from the moment of his diagnosis until he was no longer healthy enough, he worked to raise awareness and money for the disease. Bonar’s beloved Simon Fraser University Pipe Band organization, which he was part of for almost 40 years, demonstrated to the world the power and idea of a true pipe band family. Andrew Bonar’s memory and legacy lives on with his music and the charitable piping programs that he created.

And so, those are the 10 most-read pipes|drums stories of the year. Over the last 12 months, we brought you some 373 separate news stories, results articles, features pieces, expert reviews and interviews with piping and drumming luminaries – averaging more than one every day of the year. That’s not counting the blog posts, polls, and myriad other pieces that we hope you enjoyed. In total, we counted close to half-a-million separate readers and nearly three-million pages read.

That’s a lot of work and commitment to bringing you interesting and useful stories throughout the year. We thank you for your following and support. pipes|drums is nonprofit. We don’ pocket a penny from it and we sell nothing but subscriptions and advertising space. If you don’t already, we hope that you will subscribe to pipes|drums so that we can keep getting better to bring the best coverage of piping and drumming in the world.

As always, Stay Tuned.