Things might have started out a little tetchy—but that’s to be expected when almost three hundred thirsty writers(!), editors and online publishing folks arrive for an awards ceremony at the Gladstone Ballroom and it looks like only one of the bars is open. The queue’s length was a tad uncivilized and produced some grumbling, but fortunately for organizers of the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, the mood eased considerably when one editor discovered they were also accepting drink tickets at the Gladstone’s adjoining Melody Bar.

Chalk it up to the journalism profession’s powers of investigation .

This was the third installment for COPA, produced by Masthead Magazine, and the first at which the Toronto Standard was in the running. We are, after all, only six months old, but went into the evening with five nominations, the most of any online-only consumer publication. And in simply being there, we can say we learned one thing in the ongoing debate between the merits of online versus print: online publishing awards are discernibly rowdier and more partisan (though good-naturedly so) than their newspaper or magazine counterparts.

In the end, the Standard team was pretty chuffed to win the top prize for Best Site Design, as well as Best Video/Multimedia for our Made in Toronto series (we included a link to “The Bookbinder” film with our submission). We were also pleased to pick up Silver for Best Site Overall, losing out to our colleagues at Torontoist. On top of our three awards, Standard columnists Ivor Tossell and Bert Archer were honourable mentions in the Best Blog sweepstakes. Special mention to Ian Daffern and Tate Young, producer and director respectively of Made in Toronto, and the team at Playground Digital who helped in the creation of our site.

There you have it: two golds, one silver, and a couple coulda beens… not bad for basically a newborn!