Exploring critical social issues in hockey
April 3, 2013 Leave a comment
It is the NHL’s trade deadline today, an event that not only sees players moved from city to city and team to team but that has also become a major television (and new media) spectacle on Canadian sports networks like TSN and Sportsnet. Hockey in Society writers have written about a number of relevant posts about this event and two of these are highlighted after the jump.
March 29, 2013 2 Comments
Source: BBC
Social media has naturally integrated into professional hockey. Not only can fans use social media tools to get access to information and to connect with other fans, but they can also play a role in the development of information surrounding the game. For example, fans can get up-to-the-minute injury reports for their favorite teams, but they can also provide their own review and analysis of games and share unique content with an online fan community. Social media has allowed fans to transition from simple consumers of content to more active producers and distributors of content.
The popularity of Twitter among professional hockey is evident based on the number of accounts held by fans, players and teams. Breaking news, trade rumors, and game analysis is regularly shared on Twitter making it a critical tool for individuals and organizations to get engaged with the game of hockey. Broadcast networks in particular, have used Twitter to supplement their television and web content.
January 9, 2013 5 Comments
Nice sweater, Gary. (Photo courtesy of CTV News)
When the big news broke over the weekend, media and sport organizations across North America began mobilizing their teams of journalists, marketers and social media gurus with a “War is Over”-type fervour. The company line, uttered in places as far reaching as Toronto, Detroit and Carolina, was that Sunday was a “great day for hockey.” Canadian cable sports networks provided seemingly around-the-clock coverage of the announcement, balancing negotiation figures and summaries with in-depth season previews and trade speculation (Have you heard? Apparently some Luongo guy might change teams). Behind the scenes, sponsors that attempted to capitalize on lockout-related angst throughout the coverage of the World Junior tournament are undoubtedly working tirelessly to prep a “hockey’s back!” campaign that will fall somewhere short of hypocritical.
But what struck me about much of the coverage of the apparent end to the lockout (don’t forget about that pesky ratification vote!) was the inclusion of countless sound bites from disgruntled fans vowing to boycott the NHL, at least temporarily. The burning question on the lips of seemingly every news anchor, reporter and analyst was: How can the NHL win back its fans? And in the days following the “Game On” announcement, we have been offered plenty of answers.
The Associated Press suggested reduced ticket prices, more special promotions, giveaways and autograph signings among other “fan friendly incentives.” Luke Fox over at Sportsnet wonders if a free ticket to your favourite team’s first home game or discounted TV packages might warm up the league’s frigid fan base. Even the jokesters from Sports Pickle recommended a few (ironic) strategies that the NHL might want to consider.
But I want to turn this question upside down. Instead of only asking what the NHL has to do to rekindle good will amongst its supporters, should the accompanying question be: what can fans do to resist?
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July 1, 2012 6 Comments
At noon EST today, the NHL’s free agency period opens. At a basic level, this means that players whose contracts have expired or been bought out, and who are eligible for unrestricted free agency (UFA), can begin fielding offers from NHL teams and are free to sign contracts as of 12:00 PM. But over the past number of years, this deadline has taken on increasing significance to teams, fans, players and media. TSN labels July 1 the “Free Agent Frenzy” and has a full studio panel of its hockey “insiders” breaking the news as signings go down. Sportsnet will offer a similarly hyped TV spectacle.
Back in February, Matt Ventresca wrote a great post that labelled the trade deadline “The Great Canadian Pseudo-Event.” Matt described the importance of media, in particular TSN, in making the trade deadline and other events into spectacles:
The trade deadline is a logistical technicality that passes virtually unnoticed in other sports, yet TSN (here is the marketing genius part) has transformed this non-event into one of the most anticipated days on the NHL calendar and has forced its competitors (most noticeably, Rogers Sportsnet) to follow their model of relentless, wall-to-wall coverage. In many ways, the trade deadline has eclipsed other hockey media spectacles like the NHL Draft and the All-Star Game (although TSN is also trying to change that with their “All-Star Fantasy Draft” gimmick) as must-see TV – or at least as a reason to spend 9 hours continually refreshing tsn.ca.
Free Agent Frenzy similarly smacks of a corporate-produced, over-hyped, pseudo-event. It feels as though TSN executives thought “Hey, let’s take a routine part of the NHL’s labour process and turn it into a massive TV spectacle. People will totally eat it up!” While I certainly feel that Canadian media networks like TSN, along with Sportsnet and the Score, were driving forces in the creation of the Frenzy, there are a variety of factors that have contributed to its massive surge in popularity. It is thus a bit of a “chicken and egg” scenario when attempting to determine the influence of the media and the mass spectacle of a psuedo-event. Read more of this post
June 30, 2012 Leave a comment
Proposed Markham arena (Image from: http://www.cbc.ca/)
Welcome to Hockey in Society’s Weekly Links post. This feature highlights articles or blog entries that are related to Hockey in Society’s areas of interest and that may be of interest to the site’s readers.
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March 26, 2012 Leave a comment
Image from: http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnhlexperts/Screen-shot-2012-03-21-at-8.53.59-PM.png
Welcome to Hockey in Society’s Weekly Links post. This feature highlights articles or blog entries that are related to Hockey in Society’s areas of interest and that may be of interest to the site’s readers.
Hockey Links
General Sport Links
February 25, 2012 8 Comments
Everyone remembers where they were when Martin Skoula got traded to the Devils
I think the powers that be at TSN are going to start wondering about me. It may seem to some readers that I can’t make up my mind whether to praise the Canadian sports broadcasting powerhouse or criticise them. In my last post about the World Junior Hockey Championship, I applauded the network for its stroke of marketing genius in turning the WJHC from an unheralded and overlooked event into a “holiday tradition,” while condemning them for the blatant overproduction of the tournament. And now we are mere days away from Trade Deadline Day, and I’m at it again. The trade deadline is a logistical technicality that passes virtually unnoticed in other sports, yet TSN (here is the marketing genius part) has transformed this non-event into one of the most anticipated days on the NHL calendar and has forced its competitors (most noticeably, Rogers Sportsnet) to follow their model of relentless, wall-to-wall coverage. In many ways, the trade deadline has eclipsed other hockey media spectacles like the NHL Draft and the All-Star Game (although TSN is also trying to change that with their “All-Star Fantasy Draft” gimmick) as must-see TV – or at least as a reason to spend 9 hours continually refreshing tsn.ca.
Despite our implicit understanding that deadline deals are almost never the blockbuster trades that will immediately make or break a team’s fortunes (Sportsnet’s list of Top Ten Deadline Deals will attest), it is quite difficult for anyone who closely follows professional hockeyto resist getting swept up in all the hype around the trade deadline. As our fearless editor Mark Norman pointed out to me, what’s really interesting here is how up front media companies tend to be about their unabashed and unashamed transformation of this non-event into media spectacle. Case in point: when the “breaking news” hit the airwaves regarding the sudden availability of superstar forward Rick Nash, the NHL on TSN’s James Duthie commented, “We will be covering this story until a deal is done or the deadline passes because, as you know, when it comes to the trade deadline, we will take a story and we will run with it.” This may have been merely praise for the depth of coverage TSN is able to provide on possible trades; but knowing Duthie and his penchant for sarcasm, this could also have been a subtle acknowledgement that months of relentless analysis and speculation on player transactions that may or may not happen is slightly absurd. Read more of this post
February 12, 2012 Leave a comment
Welcome to Hockey in Society’s Weekly Links post. This feature highlights articles or blog entries that are related to Hockey in Society’s areas of interest and that may be of interest to the site’s readers.
Hockey Links
General Sport Links
January 3, 2012 4 Comments
Image courtesy our friends at the Globe and Mail
“It’s a holiday tradition!” says TSN’s Bob McKenzie in this year’s edition of the network’s marketing campaign for the World Junior Hockey Championship (WJHC). This year’s advertisement features a number of former WJHC competitors from Eric Lindros to Theo Fleury to Darcy Tucker to Andrew Ladd exclaiming “I was there in [insert year of Canadian gold medal here].” Interspersed between these images are appearances from TSN commentators (such as McKenzie and the ubiquitous Gord Miller), past coaches such as Pat Quinn and the inexplicable presence of random fans extolling the virtues of various mobile devices (OK, perhaps we can explain this – type “vertical integration” into Google and you’ll see what I mean). But McKenzie is right; as evidenced by the 6.1 million fans who tuned in to watch Team Canada’s remarkable third period collapse this past January (notice how it is never described as “the Russians’ valiant comeback?”), TSN’s broadcasts of the WJHC are an essential part of the holiday season for many Canadians.
But how did this happen? The WJHC (officially known as the IIHF World U20 Championship) has been played annually since 1977, but few spectators (and even fewer media representatives) showed up to witness the likes of Gretzky (1978) or Lemieux (1983) lace up their skates for the Canadian side in the tournament’s early years. It was not until emerging Cable TV channel The Sports Network sunk its teeth into the tournament as a means to fill its otherwise vacant holiday programming schedule that the WJHC took off as a Canadian cultural phenomenon. As the always cantankerous Bruce Dowbiggin explains in the December 23rd edition of the Globe and Mail:
“Before the broadcaster [TSN] adopted its annual rite of Hockey Holidays, the tournament was a desultory under-20 fixture on the calendar of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Played by teenagers in backwater European burgs for the benefit of scouts, suits and sweethearts, most saw it as the Spengler Cup’s bookend, unloved and, until the famous 1987 brawl in Piestany, Czechoslovakia, unremarkable. But in this red-headed stepchild, the TSN brain trust saw programming opportunities at a time when the cable network didn’t have the extensive NHL contract it does now.”
Dowbiggin goes on to explain how the WJHC tourney is also viewed as a chance to see the stars of the upcoming NHL draft (for which, coincidentally, TSN has long owned the television rights), and how interest in the tournament outside of Canada is paltry at best (reinforcing our belief that Canada is the world’s most “hockey-mad” nation). This type of reasoning should not be new for any avid follower of the WJHC, or anyone who takes seriously the cultural politics of Canadian sport. But I, personally, am left wanting more. Would TSN’s stroke of marketing genius have occurred had they bet the house on another tournament or media property? Sure the WHJC gives us a chance to watch “great hockey,” but high calibre hockey can also be found at the NCAA Frozen Four, the Women’s World Championship, the CWHL, the Spengler Cup or the AHL playoffs (some of these are also showcases for future NHL talent). Yet none of these events inspire the fervour that characterizes our love of “the Juniors.” After the jump, I delve into the symbolism that underlies dominant understandings of the WJHC and do my best to provide some insight into the tournament’s popularity. Read more of this post
