From the headlines
Gary Bettman made headlines this week when he defended the league’s foray into digital board ads. While many fans have complained that the animated ads are distracting and often glitchy, Bettman pushed back on the subject, calling it a “non-issue” and insisting that the league’s internal polling proves that fans actually find games more watchable with the new ads.
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That struck many of us as odd. Sure, some fans don’t mind the board ads and everyone understands the desire for more revenue, but it’s hard to imagine how they’d made the game-watching experience better. But Bettman says he has the polling to back it up. Will he show us the numbers? No he will not, but when has he ever given you a reason not to trust him?
In an effort to turn this controversy into a teachable moment, I had my spies at the NHL head office infiltrate the market research department. They were able to smuggle out a list of Gary Bettman’s tips for keeping your finger on the pulse of your fan base.
Make sure your approval ratings stay over 50 percent by always remembering to give yourself a loser point for bad answers.
Fans are far more likely to agree with the statement “Nobody delivers a consistent board experience quite like the NHL” if you read it to them out loud and they mishear the word as “bored.”
If you think a fan’s answer might be wrong, just subject it to a long and tedious review process before overturning it without any explanation.
It’s like your mom used to tell you: If they don’t like you the way you are then they’re not your real fans and you shouldn’t care about what they say.
Experienced marketers will tell you that focus groups can often be primed to give more positive responses if you offer them a few encouraging words beforehand, such as “it would be a shame if anything happened to the Olympics again” and “nice league you have here, sure hope nobody comes along and locks everyone out for no reason.”
When in doubt, just tell any angry fans that you have a trade to announce.
Consider making sure hockey fans feel at home by constantly interrupting them every few minutes with another gambling ad.
If the feedback about those new digital board ads is really negative and you need some time alone, consider finding someplace where you can just go and completely disappear for a while, like right in front of one of those new digital board ads.
Hey this one might sound weirdly specific, but if you ever decide to solicit feedback from New Jersey Devils fans, maybe don’t do it on live television a few days after you tried to move their team to Nashville.
Before you look at the final results of any fan survey, be sure to run the numbers by whoever it is that keeps telling you that hockey is financially viable in Arizona.
While it’s important to concentrate your surveys on your most important customers, maybe try occasionally asking for feedback from literally anyone who isn’t Jeremy Jacobs.
Whatever you do, don’t include any Flyer fans in the survey, because no matter what you ask them they only ever scrawl “help me” on every page.
When in doubt, just say that 90 percent of the audience was actually cheering you.
If anyone accuses you of not listening to your fans, just pull out this line graph of your approval ratings over the years and show them how it always points … wait, has that really been upside down this whole time? Oh no. Oh man.
The three stars of comedy of the week last few weeks or so
The third star: This linesman — I get why he’d be upset, but not sure why he’s yelling at Alexander Volkov. He’s been out of the NHL for two years.
Puck hits the linesman right next to an ice-level mic lmao pic.twitter.com/zxBbL51zlI — Ryan Hana (@RyanHanaWWP) December 7, 2022
By the way, A+ no-sell by the announcer there.
The second star: This Wild fan — I know it’s a few weeks old but I can’t get “PUT SOME APOXIE IN” out of my head.
This fan was NOT happy about the ice maintenance delays in the Leafs/Wild game. 😂 pic.twitter.com/SHsr7fYHWk — TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 25, 2022
If that isn’t the go-to suggestion for every Minnesota Wild problem from now on then I don’t know what to tell you.
The first star: Roman Josi’s haircut — NHL team social media comedy skits are almost always death, but this one hits it out of the park.
The Captain speaks out after this weekend’s devastating loss pic.twitter.com/90zjvpnnI4 — Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) December 5, 2022
Three highlights:
– The delivery on “I have a lot of questions, but numbers one, how dare you” is pretty fantastic.
– I really need someone to explain what’s happening with the microphone here.
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– You might miss it the first few times, but the highlight of the video is the Tampa Bay Lightning getting absolutely wrecked for no reason.
Be It Resolved
The NBA is overhauling some of its major awards, updating them for the modern era by naming some after stars like Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon who are familiar to current fans. Predictably, that’s led to a debate over whether the NHL should do the same. After all, most of our awards are named after the trophy’s original donor or members of the old boys’ club. Should we be honoring legends like Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe instead? Or is this a case where the league should stick with its history rather than chase the latest fad?
And my answer is … meh. That feels weird, because this seems like exactly the sort of thing I should have a strong opinion about, but I can’t quite summon one. I guess my feeling is that I’m fine with the old names, but also wouldn’t object to an update.
As far as which awards would be named after who, I think Hailey and Other Sean pretty much nailed it with their picks. A lot of them would be pretty straightforward, although the Selke gets tough since Patrice Bergeron is still playing and Bob Gainey, even though he was the original inspiration for the award, didn’t really have the sort of point totals that voters seem to insist on these days. Other than that, most of them are easy enough. Wayne Gretzky for the Art Ross, Bobby Orr for the Norris, Wendel Clark for the Hart … the obvious stuff. Beyond that, I don’t have especially strong opinions.
Except for one: No renaming the Rocket Richard.
We don’t need to. It’s the only one that’s already named after a star player. Sure, Rocket Richard was an Original Six era star who most of today’s fans never got to see, but that’s all the more reason to honor his name. The same will be true of Gretzky some day, but unless we want to rename these things every decade or two, that’s the sort of thing we’re signing up for.
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And yes, there will be calls to rename the Rocket after Alexander Ovechkin, especially after he breaks Gretzky’s all-time record next week. That’s tricky, because he’s still active (and unlike Bergeron, probably for years to come), not to mention how his politics might play. It might be better to wait a bit on Ovechkin. If the league drags its feet on this, maybe it’s not an issue five or 10 years down the line. But if we want to do it now, let’s pass. Hey, in a few years maybe we can put a player name on the various first-team all-star positions, which would let us cover off Ovechkin, Nicklas Lidstrom and Sidney Crosby.
But don’t touch the Rocket Richard. It’s one that the NHL definitely got right, and we don’t get to see that happen often.
Obscure former player of the week
Hey, speaking of renaming the awards, this week’s obscure player is Dave Ritchie.
If the name sounds familiar, it might be because you’re an older Canadian and you’re thinking of the longtime CFL coach who was recently inducted into the league’s Hall of Fame. This isn’t the same guy, and our Dave Ritchie wasn’t a Hall of Famer. But he was a pretty good defenseman way back in the earliest days of the pro game, having starred with the NHA’s Quebec Bulldogs before joining the Montreal Wanderer’s for the NHL’s inaugural season. And he has a very cool claim to fame: He scored the first goal in NHL history, one minute into the league’s first game.
If you know your history books — which make a great holiday gift, by the way — then you know what comes next. The Wanderer’s arena burned down after four games, causing the team to disband. Ritchie joined the Senators for the rest of the season, then had single-season stops in Toronto and Quebec before returning to Montreal to play a few games for the Canadiens in 1920-21. That made him one of the first (and maybe even the first) players to be able to say that they had played for every NHL franchise that had ever existed, a club that it’s safe to say won’t be adding any new members anytime soon.
After a few more part-time seasons with the Canadiens, Ritchie ended his NHL career with 15 goals and 21 points in 58 games. He was only credited with six assists, which was a reflection of a time when they often went unrecorded. But it was one of those helpers that ties him back to the awards debate: Back in that first game in 1917, Ritchie was credited with the assist on a second-period goal by teammate Art Ross. That would be the only goal, and in fact the only point, in the brief NHL career of the man for whom the scoring title is named. Yes, the man whose name is synonymous with scoring in the NHL only ever managed a single point. And Dave Ritchie was the man who set it up.
Classic YouTube clip breakdown
We’re almost at the end of another year, which means that soon it will be time to make some New Year’s Resolutions. Have you been thinking about getting into better shape? Would you like to watch a video of a young Rod Brind’Amour that will make you feel like that’s completely and utterly hopeless?
Thanks to the indispensable NHL History Girl for posting this video a while back. If you don’t already, make sure to follow her on Twitter, unless you’re not on Twitter, in which case please teach me.
So yeah, Rod Brind’Amour likes to work out. You’re probably already aware of that, if you’ve heard any of the stories about him and/or ever looked at the guy. This is a story that first aired during his playing days, during the 2006 Stanely Cup Final against Edmonton, and it should go without saying that it’s going to get weird.
We start off with a zoom-in on Brind’Amour, followed by teammates who are either complimenting him or terrified of him. You can absolutely admire Brind’Amour’s dedication, but doesn’t it feel like he’d be a miserable teammate if you’re the sort of guy who likes to enjoy a donut every month or so? Nathan MacKinnon might insist that all his teammates eat 20 lb bags of chickpea pasta but at least he doesn’t make them curl them first.
The camera work gets a little uncomfortable here, but we can handle it. It’s a workout video, so we’re going to get some lingering shots of delts and biceps. I think we can all agree that we’ll be fine as long as they don’t go for a super-awkward closeup of his left nipple and yep there it is, you can’t unsee that now.
“He works as hard as any professional athlete in the world” says Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford, which is the most words I’ve heard him string together all year without dropping in a shot at Bruce Boudreau.
We also get to hear from an adorably young Eric Staal. Hey, do you notice how everyone but the athletic trainer are having their sound bites cut off midsentence? I’m betting that’s because he was the only one who didn’t immediately add “and the bad man scares me.”
We finally hear from Brind’Amour, and he immediately drops some motivational poster wisdom about quitting that makes you feel bad about yourself. A highlight package of his playoff work runs over more superlatives about his work ethic. We also get to meet Justin Williams, who’s so young that his hair has yet to achieve self-awareness.
Is it sad that 12-year-old Rod Brind’Amour had a more committed workout routine than I’ve ever had? You know what, don’t answer that.
Standing on a balance board, wearing ski boots, dropping weights and then catching them in mid-air. As one does.
We hear from another teammate, this time fellow future head coach Doug Weight. He says some very complimentary things, but is interrupted when Brind’Amour bursts into the room because he heard there was a Weight in there that he hadn’t lifted yet.
Weight gives us what is unquestionably the accidental highlight of the whole clip when he tells us “I think he has something in his body” followed by the producers doing an immediate smash cut to a Lance Armstrong clip. Um, no guys! Trust me! I’m from the future and this will not age well!
We close with a story of Brind’Amour in college getting locked out of the exercise room and then committing a break-and-enter so he could work out anyway, which again, very normal behavior.
And that’s it for our clip. The epilogue here is that the Hurricanes won the Final, followed by Brind’Amour clean-and-jerking the Cup out of Gary Bettman’s hands in a moment that a majority of fans polled by the NHL said definitely didn’t make the commissioner look wimpy at all. Brind’Amour is now the Hurricanes’ head coach, partly because he loves the franchise but mostly because he didn’t want to lose access to their weight room. His nipple could not be reached for comment.
Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected].
(Photo of Gary Bettman: Carey Lauder / USA Today)