Like He Never Left

Well, it took 3 posts to deviate from my intentions of sharing insights related to the growth marketing of hockey, however tonight's events have certainly proved significant enough to make an exception.

After what seemed like an eternity, tonight marked the first opportunity of the season to marvel at the gifts of Sidney Crosby. Having watched Crosby from the time he was named the Most Valuable Player at the Canada Winter Games as a fourteen year old (a tournament almost exclusively for sixteen year old major junior rookies), I have never been able to succinctly articulate what makes him so special. Tonight it became clear: Nobody does things as quickly as he does. Combine that with the fact that his overall skillset is more diverse than any forward in the game, and you have the consensus best player in the world and a once in a generation talent.

While most highlight reels will focus on his two goals, Crosby's first assist exemplifies his ability to make high-degree of difficulty plays almost instantaneously. On the play, Crosby is able to make a backhanded pass 40-plus feet across the ice that arrives flat for a Brooks Orpik one-timer. 

Oh yeah, that pass was made on ice that had seen 17 minutes of action prior to the 2-0 goal. Therein lies Crosby's understated genius.

Crosby is unlikely to ever threaten any of Wayne Gretzky's scoring records. However, The Great One never had to face defensemen possessing the sheer size and physicality of Zdeno Chara or opposing forwards with the checking ability of Pavel Datsyuk. No disrespect to the Brian Trottier's of the world, but I don't think Trots could do this. 

Not to mention, I haven't seen too many goalies that look like this in between the pipes nowadays. 

 

Sorry, Panger.

Love him or loathe him, Sid the Kid is back and the game of hockey is infinitely better (and more marketable) for it.

Welcome back Sid. Keep making us '87s proud.

Yours in hockey,

JK

Why it Can Work – The “Gretzky Effect”

August 9, 1988 marked a truly historic moment in the proliferation of the sport of hockey. In the wake of the Edmonton Oilers’ fourth Stanley Cup of the decade, the game’s star attraction, Wayne Gretzky was for all intents and purposes sold to Bruce McNall and the Los Angeles Kings for the sum of $15 million. Previously thought of as a Canadian game played north of the border and in the far reaches of the Northeast and Minnesota, hockey had arrived in Tinseltown aboard a private jet on the arm of Janet Jones.

With new uniforms (black and silver, much to the chagrin of Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis) and a new superstar in tow, the Kings rapidly ascended in the California sporting landscape to stand alongside the Showtime-era Lakers at the height of their popularity. Hockey was not only relevant, it was downright cool.

While the Gretzky-era Kings never managed to capture the franchise’s first Stanley Cup, the team’s legacy has perhaps yet to have been fully realized, even 15 years after Gretzky was dealt to the St. Louis Blues.

The success of the Kings in the early 1990s fueled not only the establishment of their cross-town rival, the (then) Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, but also gave rise to a generation of youngsters that gravitated toward the ice rink and not the football field, baseball stadium, or basketball court.

In seasons prior to the lockout, states like California, Florida, Texas and Arizona simply didn’t produce hockey players. The 2005 NHL Entry Draft marked the beginning of a seachange that has continued through this past summer’s draft. Exactly 17 years after Gretzky’s arrival in Los Angeles, players hailing from Southern California and other “Non-Traditional Hockey Markets” (NTHMs) began to hear their names called from the draft podium en masse.

This growing trend, or the “Gretzky Effect,” became most apparent in the 2010 Draft, where two players from the Los Angeles area (Bennett & Etem) were selected in the First Round. This doubled the number of 2010 first-rounders hailing from Sweden and Finland.

So it appears that it took the Gretzky Effect 20-years to have a demonstrable impact in the form of homegrown NHL talent. With the Sunbelt expansion of the early to mid-1990s, more prospects are sure to emerge from NTHM’s. While a club can claim to have cultivated a strong following, we can all agree that the most self-sustaining fanbases are comprised of fans who actually play the game. These are the fans that will endure losing seasons, draft-day busts, rebuilds, and salary cap casualties. In cases like that of Emerson Etem, some of these young fans might even suit up in the colors of the team that they grew up watching.            

With all of this in mind, shouldn’t the NHL and its member clubs look to expend greater resources toward cultivating hockey players and not just paying customers?

Yours in hockey,

JK    

Welcome

As Atlanta's Phillips Arena sits vacant in the wake of the re-location of its former National Hockey League tennant and with the long term viability of franchises in Florida, Dallas, Columbus, Nashville, and Long Island very much in doubt, hockey "insiders" and fans alike have been provided with considerable ammunition to assert that hockey will never become more than a regional sport in the United States.

The American Sunbelt might never become a true hockey hotbed (pardon the pun). The NHL might never rise to the level prominence attained by the NFL. The nicknames "Sid the Kid" and "Alex the Gr8" might never hold the same reverence as "Air Jordan," "Tom Terrific," and "Hammerin' Hank." However, I remain, and always will be a staunch believer in the growth potential of a game that combines the physicality of football with unmatched speed, skill and dexterity.

I've created this blog as a space to share anything and everything related to the growth-marketing of professional hockey - from macro-level NHL initiatives like the Winter Classic to game-experience enhancements such as the recent installation of lightning-shooting Tesla coils in the St. Pete Times Forum. With the compilation of marketing techniques and innovations highlighted in this space in mind, perhaps a formula does exist to successfully weave the sport of hockey into the fabric of American society in a way in which few of us could imagine while sitting in a half empty arena, wondering why nobody seems to care about a Coyotes-Stars game.

Yours in hockey,

JK