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September 23, 2005
Dan Barnes
Edmonton Journal
My NHL includes Winnipeg.
My NHL is too fast for a lumbering journeyman whose signature moves are clutch and grab. In my NHL, every game is 5-4 in overtime and punctuated by a great heavyweight fight, or two. My NHL is compelling, even in January. In my NHL, there is no neutral zone trap and no Don Cherry.
Maybe that's not your ideal. However you see it, the league brain trust wants you to think about the NHL in current terms. Not the way you did before the lockout, but with careful consideration for all they have done to change it.
For months the league has operated under the belief that if they rebuild it, you will come back; if they offer you an ownership stake, you will care again. Not about the game, because they know hockey fans will always care about something so integral to life up here. They want you to care about the NHL, something you found a way to live without last year.
That's what the recently launched "My NHL "marketing blitz is all about. According to their hype, this campaign will be more extensive than anything fans have seen before. Bigger than the fatuous "Game On" for instance. Better than the innocuous "The Coolest Game on Earth."
"My NHL" is designed to convince fans they occupy a position of power, that their passion and loyalty, which was tested beyond reasonable limits by the 301-day lockout, is "the life force that sustains hockey." The first ad in the campaign, which was launched this week in New York, depicts hockey players as warriors preparing to do battle in front of their adoring fans. There will be four more spots, all equally dramatic and ostensibly empowering for fans.
Maybe you buy the message, maybe you don't. But you have to admit the NHL is attempting to change for the better. After four pre-season games, no one knows that better than members of the Edmonton Oilers.
On Thursday, we asked some of the players to test out the league's new slogan and deliver their own punchlines.
"My NHL...is a special teams game, for now," said Georges Laraque. "My NHL ... will put the game back in the superstars' hands," said Ethan Moreau.
"My NHL ...is more skilled," said Rob Schremp.
"My NHL ...is entertaining, fast, emotional and competitive," said Steve Staios.
Their NHL has emerged from a bitter dispute and undergone radical change, much of it aimed at placating fans who were unhappy with the product long before the work stoppage. Take the shootout, for instance. The inspiration for that gimmick came right out of the nosebleeds.
"From a hockey purist's stand point, do I love the shootout? No," said Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish. "Do I understand why we've got it in the game? Yes. Fans like it. You see the reaction it gets. It's quite incredible.
"Coaches are going to be forced to view the entertainment aspect of the game and give it more importance in terms of constructing your technical plan. Coaches will be under some pressure to play more of an up-tempo game."
Fans may well learn to love all the other new rules as well but the reparations do not begin and end on the ice. Some teams cut ticket prices. Most teams are allowing fans more access to players through specialevents. If "My NHL" runs in concert with sustained and tangible efforts like that, it may not be seen as mere propaganda.
NHL Fans Association president Jim Boone told league personnel in July they could ill afford any empty gestures.
"I was saying to them they have to do something significant to say 'we're sorry.' I told them it's time to throw the fans a bone," Boone said.
"To date this is the only thing I've seen. I don't know if a glitzy marketing campaign is enough. That seems like something you do to go after new fans in the states. It doesn't seem geared to apologizing to the existing fan base."
"You've got to be careful that it's not seen as a deliberate attempt to pander to the fans," said Craig Hyatt, an assistant professor of sport management at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.
"It has to be something that comes across as authentic rather than a gimmick...It could go either way."
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