Los canadienses lo consiguen mientras que 80 por ciento-más de americanos no. And yet, ironically enough, some of the most durable relationships between hockey and the American community occur south of the Mason Dixon, at the minor pro level. Texas, for instance, once had a minor pro league all of its own and today fields seven of the CHL’s 17 teams.

Understand, too, that the aim here isn’t to dislodge the NCAA hoops tournament from its Swiss Bank account perch; rather, contemporary professional hockey that features the young virtuosos that it does ought to be able to better the cooking channel numbers on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Even if the chefs are playing poker while the lasagna bakes.

[Timing in life is everything, and this morning The Onion has a riotously humorous mockery of the NHL's television plight up on its site, featuring the Commissioner announcing a new broadcast agreement with the Food Network.]

Last year Reebok promoted its new wonderkid, Sidney Crosby, with a 30-second television advertisement striking in its sparse production values but so compelling in its cumulative subtleties that it fairly ran on a loop on Versus and regional networks the entire season. I saw the spot perhaps 425 times last season, enjoying it as much in April as I did in October. It’s worth, I think, a reminding look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94j-gjc8W0A

Maybe the spot moves you like it did me, maybe it doesn’t. But is there any denying that Reebok unearthed an ageless essence of our grand game in a way the NHL seldom ever has? A few years ago, Mastercard gave us a similar “reverence of spirit” treatment in an ad that featured a boy and his father stomping through prairie snow toward a frozen playground, their sticks and skates hauled over their shoulders. These “postcard” impressions of hockey’s roots, searing in their splendor, have few rivals in sports; they ought to be fixtures in marketing campaigns.

Why is it that corporate America can at times magnificently honor hockey while the NHL most often profanes it? Remember the NHL ’s multi-million “Re-launch” ads of last season, proudly debuted by the Commissioner at some swanky New York restaurant for the press last autumn? Bare-chested, scar-free, shiny-and-authentic-toothed actors (as opposed to authentic hockey players), introduced by indecipherable Asian poetry and billed as warriors of some sort, were pre-game massaged to loud music by pinup tramps in unintentionally satirical excess. Good breeding and taste prevent me from YouTubing a sample for you here, but Bettman should have been impeached for authorizing those.

Shakespeare told us “To Thine Own Self Be True.” Hockey’s return to the sporting mainstream has its own salvation within, if only its leaders would recognize it.

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Posted at 10:49 am. Filed under Central Hockey League, Fighting, Gary Bettman, Hockey, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Ron Weber.
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9 Comments

  1. maruk wrote:

    Nice post and a welcome respite from tired, pointless whining about local media coverage.

    The virutes of this game are many, and all should be promoted. A comprehensive ad campaign with at least three prongs, one for “postcard” ads, one demonstrating the best the game has to offer in terms of action, and one for humourous ads.

    As to the latter, the current ads aren’t a bad start [though it would be nice if an anvil would fall on Sid's head when he answers room service's call, but I digress]

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 11:25 am | Permalink
  2. usiel wrote:

    I don’t think there is a magic bullet for marketing the NHL…I think it will most always be a sport that is mostly about gate/merchandise revenue. Hockey is not an easy sport to understand its beauty..it takes time unless one grew up with it. It took me a whole season back in ‘87 watching the capitals to understand the amazing game as a watcher/fan.

    To me the NHL should just concentrate on refining the ‘game’ that is true to the spirit of the sport and not how it is perceived by non-hockey marketing execs.

    The only marketing advice I would give is to market the violence/skill/speed. Sure the nu-NHL has killed of the non-hockey playing fighters but there is no reason that that element of the sport couldn’t be used. We’re all gladiator fans at heart, hah.

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 1:35 pm | Permalink
  3. Rage wrote:

    Nice post, but a reminder that I learned while earning my MS degree:
    You do not need to denigrate the work of others in order to celebrate your own work.

    There is no need to repeatedly harp on the tomfoolery of other sports’s athletes. Hockey gets a pass on all its fighting, Cam Janssen-ing, McSorely-ing and Bertuzzi-ing. Speak to the game’s strengths, not others’s weaknesses.

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
  4. pepper wrote:

    Definitely the postcard aspect of the game should be trumpted, rather than attempting to polish up the rough edges of the game to create a temporary shine to catch the attention of a casual passerby.

    For what its worth, my girlfriend at the time didn’t know a thing about hockey, and we sat down to watch a game early in season just after the lockout, and of course we saw the much-maligned myNHL warrior promo ad nauseum. I found myself quite embarrassed to say I was a fan of a league that promoted itself in this manner and squirmed in my seat.

    Obviously my companion was not impressed with the ad campaign. Despite it, and due to my persistence, she grew to like hockey after seeing the real emotions of the game - the passion of Ovie’s scoring celebrations, the fury of Hanlon’s expressions shouting at the refs from the bench as if he’s about to explode, the “C of red” of the Calgary fans, Clark’s swift return to the ice from a dental nightmare, Ryan Smyth crying at the airport upon leaving the City of Champions for the Island, the sheer joy of someone getting his first NHL goal, the humility and civic-mindedness of the hockey player.

    That’s my NHL!

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 2:25 pm | Permalink
  5. usiel wrote:

    Pepper, completely agree and felt the same way with that lame NHL warrior promo junk. I’d rather have seen the old funny espn promo commercials.

    The need to bring back that wire camera for the games as the highlights using that would be different…

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
  6. pucksandbooks wrote:

    Rage: I don’t know that my referencing other pro sports in a derogatory fashion can be fairly tallied as “repeated”; of OFB’s nearly 800 files published since last October, I’d wager, comfortably, that fewer than a dozen in total have singled out the roughnecks in other arenas. Is that excessive? Admittedly, I’m the likely author of at least ten or eleven of them. Or . . . is heightened sensitivity to it a telling symptom of our culture’s conspicuous tolerance of the deviancy. Fair question, no?

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 4:58 pm | Permalink
  7. OrderedChaos wrote:

    Neat aspect of that Crosby ad: the rink shown is CFB Halifax, a.k.a. Canadian Forces Base Halifax, Canada’s east coast navy base and home port to the Atlantic fleet.

    Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 9:05 pm | Permalink
  8. Rage wrote:

    P&B, fair enough. There have only been a dozen out of 800+ articles that have mentioned the misgivings of other athletes. That said, there have been two (or three?) in the past three weeks. One of which was focused entirely on the problems with the NFL/NBA/Bengals. I’m not against you pointing it out (I was the one who corrected you about the number of Bengals who’ve been arrested), but let’s also not paint an inaccurate picture of our favorite league.

    We have plenty of on-ice behavior that is far worse than anything in the NBA (nothing in the NBA since Rudy T being slugged in the face rivals what Simon did last night), and rivals (at least) what happens in the NFL. Baseball has its fights, if you can call them that, which I guess are similar.

    And the bench clearing aspect of it is meaningless, since only 2 or 3 people actually fight anyway. The rest is for show.

    Friday, March 9, 2007 at 11:18 am | Permalink
  9. Rage wrote:

    Oh, and as for your question, it is far to profound for me to understand it. I’m an engineer with adequate to good speaking skills; can you dumb it down for me? :)

    Friday, March 9, 2007 at 11:19 am | Permalink

One Trackback/Pingback

  1. Hockey Blogs Today | National Hockey League Digest on Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    [...] On Frozen Blog flexes some business mind muscle and offers up the charge that league’s marketing plan is terrible. I must agree that the product is spectacular and the sheer speed and entertainment value is unrivaled in any other major sport. [...]

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