NHL Marketing Overload: The curious case of Crosby versus Ovechkin
by Cassie McClellan on Mar 25, 2010 7:00 AM CDT
Email
PrintSo...anyone tired of Sidney Crosby & Alex Ovechkin yet?
Because I am. What started out as an NHL manufactured rivalry has slowly morphed into a sort-of-kind-of an actual one. Maybe. To hear either of those two guys tell it, there isn't one at all. And while initially that had a ring of truth to it, that ring of truth has become more rote than anything else. I guess that's what happens when you have to answer the exact same question over and over and over again.
I'm not going to discuss last night's game because, frankly, I didn't watch it. I didn't have to. The subject matter was splashed everywhere the NHL is generally covered. You can almost watch those matchups through osmosis at this point.
See an ad, and you've seen the game. Does it matter who wins? Seriously? We're talking about CROSBY and OVECHKIN! That's all that really matters! Who cares about the actual game involved?
The NHL has successfully polarized hockey fans into two camps. Which, I suppose, can be considered to be some kind of rivalry. Either you love Ovechkin and you hate Crosby, or you love Crosby and hate Ovechkin. Take your pick. It doesn't matter what team you're a fan of, so long as you hate one and love the other. Or so the thinking goes....
There are a few of us out there who like both, and even fewer who dislike both. But we shouldn't talk about that. I mean, what's the point? Everyone's got to pick a side or else you're missing out. Or something.
This is the NHL's marketing at its finest. Or at its worst. I guess it just depends on your world view.
NHL marketing has always been questionable. Part of the reason is because players and teams have resisted marketing individuals for so long, and it's very hard to market an entire team. No one can make a corporation/business loveable. It's much easier to market a player or two and leave it at that. MLB has Derek Jeter, the NFL has Peyton Manning, the NBA LeBron James, and soccer has David Beckham.
Who does the NHL have? Wayne Gretzky! No...wait...he's retired. ...Right?
The one thing that all NHL fans can agree on is that the NHL has no clue when it comes to marketing. The teams don't do it very well on their own, and the league obviously doesn't know what it's doing. And when I say "marketing", I use that as an all-encompassing term: its image, teams, players, TV, radio, merchandise, tickets, etc.
Gretzky became recognizable in the US not because of advertising deals or even from winning championships. He became recognizable because he transcended the game with his skill. It was his accomplishments on the ice as a player that gained him recognition, and nothing else. And the same goes for Mario Lemieux.
This contrived rivalry between Crosby and Ovechkin may turn into the real thing one day, but never forget that it started out as an artificial construct - something that the NHL threw together in order to get people's attention. It started before the awards were handed out, and before the trophies were engraved with their names. Neither of them had accomplished much as players when the NHL jumped on the idea and ran it into the ground.
However, this whole experience does make me question what a rivalry really is. In my mind, a rivalry is created by two teams - by the players themselves. But the NHL is trying to convince fans that a rivalry is between fan bases instead of the teams on the ice. Which doesn't really make much sense to me.
The last true rivalry that I've witnessed in the NHL was between the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche. It started with the infamous Claude Lemieux hit on Kris Draper during an ugly Western Conference Finals in 1996, and went on for a good 5-10 years. It's since cooled off to the point that I don't really consider them rivals anymore, although most broadcasters would have you think it still is.
I can't think of two current NHL teams that genuinely hate each other as those two did. Oh, you have the long-standing/traditional rivalries like the Boston Bruins and Montréal Canadiens, Montréal and the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Philadelphia Flyers and just about everybody else, to name a few, but those are more out of habit than out of true spite. Sure, they can get heated, but it's more fun to hate them than actually hating them.
Despite that, every one of those rivalries were kicked off by something that had happened on the ice. It might have happened decades ago, but it still happened. It became ugly between players long before it became ugly between fans.
But a rivalry between fan bases? Without the players kicking it off first? That seems a bit backwards to me.
And that's what the NHL has done. Again. They've gone about this all backwards, as according to their standard operating procedure. Instead working with a true rivalry, they've magically created one of their own. Insisting for all they're worth that it's a real and true rivalry, of course.
So I don't know about you, but I'm going to sit this one out. Enjoy the ability and the passion of those two great hockey players as they compete against each other. As for me, I'm going to wait for a genuine rivalry to show up again.
It shouldn't be too long, right?
58 comments
|
Add comment
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
This contrived rivalry between Crosby and Ovechkin may turn into the real thing one day
Ummm….pretty sure it already has.
The NHL’s pimping of this rivalry upsets me as well. But you can’t even begin to deny last year’s playoff series and this year’s games have lived up to the hype placed on it.
And the reason why rivalries aren’t there naturally anymore? Because the new NHL does not like fighting, or more likely, doesn’t like fighting being the reason why people watch hockey, even though a lot of people DO. It’s like the people who watch NASCAR for the car accidents. You want to pull in casual fans? You want to pull two teams into a rivalry? LET THEM FIGHT! Get rid of the damn instigator.
Take the whole Matt Cooke incident – everyone from the NHL offices showed up to make sure retaliation didn’t happen in the next Pens/Bruins game except for the mandatory token “someone legitimately fights Cooke, they get 5 minutes each and everything’s okay again” fight. That would NOT have happened even 10-15 years ago. The NHL has largely homogenized the product for the sake of parity (not always a bad thing) and harmony, and it’s ruined what hockey truly is on the inside.
However, I don’t blame the NHL in the least for constantly pimping Sid and Ovie. You know what? Good. Good for the NHL to at least try and market legitimate star players. Yes, it’s backwards that they had to create a rivalry instead of letting it create itself. But it’s WORKED. You can’t really deny that. It wouldn’t work anywhere else in the NHL though, so the solution to creating legitimate hatred and rivalries again is to let them play. Get rid of the instigator and let the players police themselves within reason. Fire Colin Campbell and put in some new, simple, hard rules and sort of judicial system with teeth that operates with consistency. THAT is the true answer to getting rivalries back in the NHL.
"Grind now, shine later." - Wesley Johnson
fighting in hockey is such a sideshow. Its like two bears waltzing on rollerskates. It destroys the flow of the game, looks ridiculous and really doesn’t add to the sport in the least. you can point to guys like talbot who “took one for the team” vs philly last year like him donating a pint made them win the series but lets see them do it without the fighting AND the dangerous hits.
Suspend Colin Campbell!
another way for me to look at it: what happens if players fight in any other sport?
Immediate ejection, possible suspension in NFL
extended suspension in the NBA
Ejection, possble suspension in MLB
Red card, probable ejection in Rugby
red card in soccer
I’m sure you’d get kicked off the circuit if you tried it in golf or tennis.
Most of these sports are more popular in the US than rugby and soccer (gold and tennis) and the others are more popular worldwide. It’s definitely a correlation rather than causation, but why do these other sports out law it, even the sports that can be considered at least as violent as hockey?
Suspend Colin Campbell!
The problem is that the NHL cares more about its image than it does about the game. The fighting, the instigator penalty, homogenization – that all comes down to them trying to promote hockey as a family event. When, in reality, they out-price families so they’re unable to attend games, and sign TV deals with networks that don’t have a wide audience. Instead of trying to figure out the audience that they’ve got, they’re trying to water down the product so that it appeals to the widest audience possible.
There's nothing quite like the sound of a frozen puck hitting the glass. It makes me happy.
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community.
by Cassie McClellan on Mar 25, 2010 8:38 AM CDT up reply actions
I don’t see it as a watered down product, I see it as a much more skills based game. It’s much faster, more exciting. You want the NASCAR car crashes? These players are running into each other at 20 mph with just a layer of pads (on some of their body) softening a blow into the wall. The game is violent enough without a bunch of hacks and guys that can barely skate swinging at each other.
The “code” is ridiculous. Your guy hits our guy so our brute fights your brute and the game goes on? Lets look at the latest example of this, Bruins vs Pens: Thorton takes on Cooke and ends up with a misconduct for continuing the fight. The game ended up 3-0, pens. I’m sure Savard feels better knowing that a week later his team members were willing to stand up for him in the most meaningless way possible. I don’t know the statistics on this but winning a hockey fight rarely results in a game win (especially for the team I watch the most, the Captials), in fact, losing the fight tends to lead to a hockey win. Better yet, don’t drop your gloves and turtle and you’ve given your team (usually) 7 minutes of man up advantage and you’ve taken one of their players out of the game.
I have no problem with guys standing up for their team-mates, just do it with the game, not in some side show. Hit him harder, hit him again, and again, and again, oh yeah and beat his team, show some life.
Why not make the product appealing to a wider audience? Why be complacent?
Suspend Colin Campbell!
by snowburnt on Mar 25, 2010 11:36 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
How did you get from A to B on that one?
And the reason why rivalries aren’t there naturally anymore? Because the new NHL does not like fighting, …You want to pull in casual fans? You want to pull two teams into a rivalry? LET THEM FIGHT! Get rid of the damn instigator.
That’s your takeaway from the Crosby/OV battles? The epic playoff series. The undisputed Game of the Year earlier this season? Last night’s SO?
We need more fighting?? Lose the instigator??
I. Am. Depressed.
by garth the hoser on Mar 25, 2010 10:18 AM CDT up reply actions
They should probably do some dual marketing deals to poke fun at the “rivalry”. have them like cut each other off trying to get into subway and be the first in line and then have the cashier tell them theres two lines or something stupid like that. it could turn into the annual manning commercials visa puts out.
Suspend Colin Campbell!
Not a rivalry?
Capitals and Penguin fans hated each other long before Crosby/Ovechkin. As a Caps fan I care more about the outcome of the game than what Crosby or Ovechkin do but they seem to do a lot more when the face each other. Being a fan of one wouldn’t be as much fun without the other.
As you know Cassie--
From out discussions in the Bolt’s gameday threads, I hate both of them. For this reason (although there are other reasons I hate both of them as well).
I am sick and tired of having Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin shoved in my face by the NHL and being told these are “the faces of the new NHL” and are the best things to come along since slice bread. Puh-leeze. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF IT. Leave me alone and let me pick my own “faces” of the NHL.
I have come to a conclusion... Martin St Louis = waterbug on meth...
Sorry. Check spelling BEFORE posting dummy.
That should read “From OUR discussions….”
I have come to a conclusion... Martin St Louis = waterbug on meth...
by Tina Robinson on Mar 25, 2010 8:58 AM CDT up reply actions
The NHL has successfully polarized hockey fans into two camps. Which, I suppose, can be considered to be some kind of rivalry. Either you love Ovechkin and you hate Crosby, or you love Crosby and hate Ovechkin. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter what team you’re a fan of, so long as you hate one and love the other. Or so the thinking goes.
Not for me. I happen to like both players – AND im a rangers fan. Im old enough to appreciate that each is a superb hockey player, and love watching both.
But honestly, in faulting the NHL for “manufacturing” a rivalry here is a bit of a stretch. Yes, the NHL kicked off the Crosby marketing before he was even an NHLer…but thats not surprising. They took the hyped being created by hockey people and turned it into marketing. To fault them for that is silly. Yes, they were probably a little late to the really push Ovechkin, but to fault them when they do is silly. The Washington/Pittsburgh rivalry was there on the ice long before they became two of the premier teams in the league, and now they are led by two of the premier players in the league. To fault the NHL for trying to push that is silly.
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://glensathersucks.com/
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo
I happen to like both players – AND im a rangers fan. Im old enough to appreciate that each is a superb hockey player, and love watching both.
Me, too — AND I’m an Islanders fan. This sort of agreement is unholy.
I just like watching great players play — particularly when they have strong teams around them. And I appreciate that Crosby and Ovechkin have such different styles. The NHL marketing focus on these them, and partisan fans insisting one or the other “sucks” or whatever — that’s all just background noise to me.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
Sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more about this not being a rivalry. Caps/Pens has been a rivalry since at least the 1980s. It has ebbed and flowed like any other rivalry, but it’s at its most heated right now since the years when they met seemingly every year in the playoffs, and that’s saying something.
For someone coming from the outside to tell the fans of these teams that what they’ve been seeing for god knows how long isn’t a rivalry is pretty presumptuous.
if there’s one thing both fan bases can agree on it’s:
this is a huge rivalry going back 20+ years now
The Flyers suck
Kung-fu Rink Rabbit
Donate to the Rink Pledge Drive for SAVES FOR KIDS! Ain’t nothing [wrong] about giving $5 so a stranger’s premature baby can have the time on a respirator they need.~Gould Old Days
Montreal/Toronto is a completely contrived, CBC fuelled rivalry nowadays. There has only been one single important game between the two teams in the past 30 years, and even that one turned out to be inconseuqential (last game of the 2006-07 season). The teams have no trouble making trades, they’ve had European captains up until just recently when they both decided not to have a captain, and they both haven’t been all that good for a while. People have to find lame excuses to build up hate in this ‘rivalry’ just to keep up appearances. Montreal has Boston, Toronto has Ottawa. They don’t have each other anymore.
When the NHL came out of the lockout with the ‘rivalry-inducing’ 8 games against each divisional opponent schedule, I kept thinking they had it wrong. The best way to create rivalries is to have playoff series against each other. I have way more fire to lobby towards Carolina than I do towards Toronto, because of the intense playoff matchups in 2002 and 2006. Of course, even that is fading with all the player turnover since.
But I must agree with the general sentiment here… Pens/Caps is a legit rivalry. The Patrick Division teams hate each other. And the playoff series last year was ridiculous.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
It’s certainly a rivalry. What I am sick and tired of is how the league markets it like a boxing match. Plenty of skilled guys on both teams that deserve mention. The way the league acts the games are a steel cage match between 2 players.
"You ever use smelling salts, every time you type a bad blog?" Brooks Laich
I agree, but the NHL isn’t marketing the game to people like us, we’re going to watch anyway. They’re marketing to the 85% of America that couldn’t name a player on the Pens or Caps other than Crosby or Ovechkin and hoping that they’ll watch a game or two because they’ve heard of one of those guys.
The reason they can’t is because those are the two guys the league and their broadcast partners hype. Shoot the Nothing But Crosby (and Ovechkin) network is the worst. Plenty of ways to hype a matchup between 2 great teams. I never hear its Derek Jeter vs David Ortiz. Yes, those guys may even get a mention in an occasional spot, but the focus is on the teams.
"You ever use smelling salts, every time you type a bad blog?" Brooks Laich
by Carl Putnam on Mar 25, 2010 10:56 AM CDT up reply actions
When the NBA promotes Cavs-Lakers, they promote Lebron and Kobe. Same with the NFL, Pats-Colts and Brady-Manning. As for basbell, you’re right, but the Red Sox and Yankees have so many household names that it wouldn’t make sense to market just two players (most hockey fans might say the same about the Caps and Pens, but not most average sports fans). The NHL hopes that Ovechkin-Crosby becomes their Bird-Magin and rejuvenates the sport like those did with the NBA, I’m not sure it’s going to work, but that’s their plan.
Oh, and NBC sucks, everybody agrees with that.
You are right, but I still hate it.
What is funny though is that once the Celtics-Lakers rivalry got established the marketing and the in game commentary became much more focused on team aspects. They talked about McHale, Chief, DJ, Byron Scott, Worthy, etc. I exclude Kareem because he was already an established guy by that point.
"You ever use smelling salts, every time you type a bad blog?" Brooks Laich
by Carl Putnam on Mar 25, 2010 11:17 AM CDT up reply actions
Most sports team broadcast promotions I hear are in the form of, “Watch as [name] and the [team]s take on [name] and the [team]s!” Hockey’s really no different.
it’s kind of like how they bill a football game as a duel between quarterbacks, “watch Drew Brees take on Peyton Manning!” In reality, the two are never on the field at the same time (unless there’s some extreme trickery going on) and are never directly competing against each other.
If you check the shift charts on any Pens/Caps game there isn’t much time when Sydney and Ovechkin are on the ice at the same time.
Suspend Colin Campbell!
But a rivalry between fan bases? Without the players kicking it off first? That seems a bit backwards to me.
Soccer fans would disagree with you. So would fans of most regional or crosstown rivalries — to name just one example, Yankee fans and Met fans hated each other and each other’s teams long before the teams ever played a meaningful game against each other (although, granted, there was some carryover from the Giants’ and Dodgers’ World Series runins to help start that off).
Really, most rivalries in modern professional sports are fan-driven and a little bit contrived — drafts mean it’s unlikely players will have a historic connection to the team they end up with, and player mobility in the free agency/cap era means roster continuity is tough to maintain. That’s what makes rivalries like Detroit/Colorado so special — they’re so rare nowadays — but it doesn’t make the others inherently wrong in some way.
That 17-year-old Hokie sitting in the rafters in Greensboro didn't see any of this coming.
I’m getting tired of the I’m getting tired of Ovechkin and Crosby articles.
by et_pitt on Mar 25, 2010 10:44 AM CDT reply actions 5 recs
Me too. Rec’d
Cheers, Complaints, homerism and bashing of mediocre pop musicians in 140 Characters
"DO NOT get stuck behind Kyle Wellwood in the buffet line. This isn't really etiquette, but it will prevent you from starving to death"- Down Goes Brown on Etiquette for Jason Spezza's wedding
by Kevin Sellathamby on Mar 25, 2010 10:59 AM CDT up reply actions
Yeah, that was sort of my point with this – tho I was feeding the monster even as I wrote it. Oh well. Better luck next time, huh?
There's nothing quite like the sound of a frozen puck hitting the glass. It makes me happy.
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community.
by Cassie McClellan on Mar 25, 2010 11:06 AM CDT up reply actions
What really helped create rivalries in the old days was the playoff format. When you played intra-divisional teams first. You wound up playing teams you saw a lot.
"You ever use smelling salts, every time you type a bad blog?" Brooks Laich
by Carl Putnam on Mar 25, 2010 11:20 AM CDT up reply actions
Nah, fans of the teams involved like the rivalry because it’s real. We don’t like articles that say it’s fake or tiresome.
The Caps-Pens rivalry is real.
The NHL and the media most certainly invented the Crosby vs. Ovechkin rivalry.
Do you know that for sure? That Crosby and Ovechkin had no deep-set “I have to beat that guy because of who he is” drive? I don’t know enough about Ovechkin’s attitude, partially because he plays the cool cat in any situation possible, which makes it hard to read what’s really going on in his head, but I have little doubt that Crosby identified Ovechkin very early on as a foe to surpass. That’s just the way he is.
I think it’s the other way around – Ovie identified Crosby as a foe to surpass. But that’s just my opinion.
"Grind now, shine later." - Wesley Johnson
Yeah, I’m not trying to minimize Crosby’s competitive drive here at all. I just think that with Ovechkin coming over from Russia as the “outsider”, his drive is to be better than Crosby, who was anointed as the “Next One” at a young age.
"Grind now, shine later." - Wesley Johnson
they both hate to lose, they both hate to be upstaged by anyone. One having success just fuels the other to be better.
Don’t let that “playing hockey is so much fun! Where’s the vodka?!” fool you. Ovie is one competitive SOB.
Kung-fu Rink Rabbit
Donate to the Rink Pledge Drive for SAVES FOR KIDS! Ain’t nothing [wrong] about giving $5 so a stranger’s premature baby can have the time on a respirator they need.~Gould Old Days
Oh, I realize that’s most likely the case. That his public persona indicates otherwise simply says to me that he’d rather keep his thoughts to himself.
Or at least in Russian. He’s a bit more expressive in the interviews to Russian outlets.
by Gin and Tonic on Mar 25, 2010 10:47 PM CDT up reply actions
I love what this rivalry has turned into.
For me, it’s not so much Ovechkin versus Crosby but rather Caps versus Pens. I don’t care that this is being marketed and hyped up. This is just something I enjoy as a hockey fan. More often than not, these Caps-Pens games are extremely entertaining. I love it.
Here's to all us girls who love hockey...and the men who play it.
by Brad_Richards_Rocks on Mar 25, 2010 11:18 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Problem is its marketing as mano y mano. It would be nice is Geno, Baks, Fleury, Semin, etc. got a little love now and again. The marketing is akin to bad reality TV. The more excited people are for both teams and multiple players on both teams than you get even more interest because people get how it all plays out. Hopefully as time goes along this will naturally occur.
As for the game themselves, I’m biased, but I think they are great.
"You ever use smelling salts, every time you type a bad blog?" Brooks Laich
by Carl Putnam on Mar 25, 2010 11:27 AM CDT up reply actions
This rivalry is indeed contrived.
It follows the conflict model that is embraced by contemporary electronic media in everything from political coverage to “reality” programing. The question now becomes: who are they going to pair Stamkos with. Or does the Tampa market make him irrelevant in the league’s eyes?
"Never mistake motion for action." - Ernest Hemingway
I really believe that Crosby and Ovechkin don’t much care about besting the other when it comes to individual awards. They want to win those awards, certainly — both has the drive to be recognized as the best player in the game; it just seems like a ‘me vs the league’ battle rather than ‘me vs him.’
On the other hand, they play for the Pens and the Caps. Between the geographic proximity of the two cities and the number of times that the two clubs have met in the postseason, the rivalry is fairly substantial. It is the club vs club rivalry that should — and probably does — fuel a personal rivalry between the two stars.
The irony of how hard the NHL pushes Ovechkin is that he is not only the poster child for some of the best aspects of the game, but also some of the worst. Pundits like to point to a lack of respect amongst players in the NHL for the litany of questionable or dirty hits that have apparently inundated the game in recent years. Well, there aren’t many players with less respect for his opponents than Ovechkin. Not just the litany of dirty hits, but his habit of showing up his opposition with contrived celebrations as well.
I guess that would put me in the Crosby camp, but frankly, I absolutely despise the media-hype machine that surrounds him. Crosby the person seems a likable enough fellow, but the Crosby the media invented pisses me off to no end.
Nothing would make me happier than to see the Pens and Caps both eliminated in the first round so that the media and the NHL are forced to remember that there are other players, teams and stories out there.
I got it!
It’s time for a Rick Nash v. Jay Bouwmeester rivalry!
I mean, with these two trash-talkers it would be like The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, circa 1999! They can’t get enough of the spotlight, they’re eminently hateable characters, you have the ability to go from heel to face and back again, and they’re in very glamorous markets.
So, which is? Team Nash or Team Jay-Bo?
Make your choice
Proprietor of Hockey Wilderness - We take Minnesota hockey WAY too seriously.
by nathaneide on Mar 25, 2010 12:21 PM CDT reply actions 4 recs
As a Wild fan who would gladly trade every member of the team in a package deal for either one of these guys, I have never understood why anyone outside of the two cities would hate either one of them. Well, except for when they are playing your favorite team, but you know what I mean.
As for rivalries, I think there are still some out there. Canucks vs Wild is sort of on a simmer right now, but after the 2003 playoff series with Todd “The Idiot” Bertuzzi flapping his gums about fans wasting their time buying tickets because there would never be a game 6, the physical play, Bert and Brad Brown staring each other down… Now days it is Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows going after Bouchard, Cassie’s own (sorry) Mathias Ohulnd breaking Koivu’s leg…
The flip side is Canucks fans hate Cal Clutterbuck and Derek Boogaard (maybe more guys, but I’m not sure).
It is still there, but it hasn’t had much of a chance to boil over lately. Although watching John Scott feed Alex Bolduc knuckle sandwiches right in front of his own bench earlier this year was pretty sweet.
I’m kind of curious to see just how long this rivalry will play out for. I mean, even when Crosby helped Canada win gold it was almost perceived as him one-upping Ovechkin again, as if he did it by himself. So even if Ovechkin wins a cup, which I firmly believe he will do one day, it will once again trace back to Crosby and how the two could possibly compare. It’s annoying beyond belief, but I guess it’s also doing its way to turn them both into household names in a way. Both were held to only an assist each last night but it was still an exciting game. I think that’s a small victory in a way. It doesn’t always have to be about them.
Follow the Penguins on SBN @ Pensburgh.com and twitter.
Both players are very good, no question,but I don’t care for either. Crosby has no class, socking a player in the crotch from behind when he has a teammate already holding the guys head and pounding on it is just one example of many cheap shots by what I consider a SPOILED BRAT. Ovechkin’s Treatment of the girl at the Olympics was also disgusting behavior for a mature adult. Plus the guy always looks like a greasy bum. I’ve seen a lot of guys that look great with a 5 o’clock shadow but on him it just looks grungy.
Yesterday on NHL NETWORK they spent 11 minutes on the game highlights from the Cap/Pens game including player post game interviews, each of the other games played received less than 5 minutes of coverage, then at the end of the program they again aired the post game DRIVEL…….
Maybe if Sid was actually competent in dealing with the media spotlight, we could have more enjoyable marketing campaigns.
Ovi has the language barrier, but the man is funny as hell. I don’t think Crosby is even capable of being funny. Maybe if he were, we could see some Peyton Manning-style publicity.
by HarryNeale'sGarden on Mar 26, 2010 10:56 AM CDT reply actions
Something to say? Choose one of these options to log in.
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on From The Rink
In Association With
Latest Puck Daddy - NHL from Yahoo! Sports
- Watch Ilya Kovalchuk’s Game 6 goal for Devils, a.k.a. power-play porn (VIDEO)
- Devils look to eliminate Rangers in Game 6; Hal Gill’s broken tibia (Playoff Puck Previews)
- Conan O’Brien joins long list of LA media that don’t really know what’s going on with the Kings
- For Los Angeles Kings, when does rest become rust for Stanley Cup Final?
- Dominik Hasek wants NHL return; Tortorella on Game 6; Nash to Boston? (Puck Headlines)
Latest stories and headlines from NHL.com
- Scotty Bowman receives Order of Canada
- Simon Gagne enjoying LA Kings' success, returns to practice after concussion absence
- Gagne back at practice, enjoying Kings' success
- First-place Knights go sight-seeing while awaiting Memorial Cup final
- NHL Network and NHL.com unveil comprehensive coverage plans for the 2012 Stanley Cup Final
