We can forgive hockey fans for their misgivings about sideshows at their games. Little or none of this sport’s exceptionally proud fan base is built on the equivalent of football halftime shows or minor-league baseball giveaways.
But this is Christmastime. Surely we can reason with those who expect the rink to be a refuge from seasonal festivities. The holiday and the sport most synonymous with winter ought to be promotional allies. And they can be effective ones at that, provided their partnership picks its spots and knows its boundaries.
At every high-profile level, from junior to college to The Show, there are ways to make everything mesh. What works in which venue varies by location and target audience. But generally, sprinklings of Santa and snippets from the holiday music station put a worthy limited-time layer of holiday flavor on a hockey experience.
“Limited-time” is the key adjective. In a prior period, Dec. 26 through Jan. 6 was widely observed as the last 11 of the 12 Days. For the puck-hungry pockets of more secularized culture, that is when college kids unofficially extend the holidays by playing for wintertime bragging rights.
Then there are the ways hockey teams participate in the buildup to Dec. 25. Auction-fodder uniforms on an ECHL or AHL team. Hard-rock holiday highlight videos at any level. Reasonable respites from games altogether.
These are the ways hockey promoters, as Bob Wells may have put it, “help to make the season bright.”
10. Two-day college tournaments
After the protracted hype toward what is ultimately a 24-hour occasion, Christmas celebrators need something to turn to afterward. For puckheads, nothing slakes that spot quite like the return of college hockey in two-day tournament form.
With four teams convening on a campus or neutral site, a multitude of opportunities abound. Students with the means to travel can go watch their peers in a different setting as part of their winter break. Locals and visitors can make tickets a cost-effective stocking stuffer.
Anything to bridge the transitional week between Christmas and New Year’s. In 2017-18, there will be three of these events on the men’s side at Dartmouth, Vermont and in Pittsburgh. The Vermont women’s program will venture north to an exhibition showcase at Montreal’s Concordia University.
The Three Rivers Classic will once again kickstart college hockey’s post-Christmas slate by bringing four programs together at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena. (Photo by Jenn Hoffman/Pucks and Recreation)
9. WJC’s Boxing Day kickoff
For those lacking an excuse to leave the house as the yuletide décor tapers off, TV coverage of the World Junior Championship is an option.
Players selected to this prestigious 20-and-under tournament earn more than an unparalleled chance to woo professional scouts. They have a rare opportunity to spend at least one holiday season with a different kind of family.
Starting the games on Dec. 26 inevitably means converging on the WJC host site on or before Christmas Day. That dynamic opens the window to a multitude of alternative household approaches to the season. Any given player, coach or staffer might have an early family gathering or postpone for two weeks.
8. Ugly-sweater jerseys
As much as hockey fans can use the game for their psychological post-Christmas cleanup, the sport has its place in the holiday buildup as well. Predictably enough, minor-league teams will appropriate the season’s so-tacky-they’re-lovely customs.
Ugly sweaters are here to stay as part of your home or office Christmas party. Why shouldn’t they have a turn at the center of the local team’s home and workplace?
7. Santa jerseys
There will always be purists who decry any promotional jersey as sacrilegious or gimmicky. But one would likely placate a few of those purists by giving them a comparatively tamer color scheme.
More often than not, that is how a Santa-suit jersey measures up with its ugly-sweater counterpart. It can retain a given team’s color pattern, or it can substitute that for green and red. The logos could feature the jolly man wielding a stick or simply place a Santa hat atop the club’s normal crest.
Ultimately, though, these are harmless slices of fun for audiences predominated by families. No different than pumpkins for Halloween shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day.
(Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
6. Santa costume admission discounts
On occasion, this promotional offer can go awry, as it infamously did with the New York Islanders in 2003.
But the lesson from that debacle is simple enough. Keep the spectators in the spectator area.
Other than that, why not incentivize fans to flaunt the spirit of the season? There is ample creative potential if you extend the invitation to other holiday characters. For instance, if a rival team is in town, have a contest for Scrooges and Grinches in opposing garb.
5. NHL roster freeze
The nature of professional sports entails limited family time during the season. While the NHL does give every team a couple of consecutive off days at Christmas, that only accommodates so much.
Fortunately, the league bequeaths additional flexibility through its annual holiday roster freeze. The freeze’s cut-and-dry terms mean no external transactions within the designated time frame.
This year’s freeze spans a cool nine days, Dec. 20 through 28. In essence, no player will have to deal with a business-related life-changing moment until halfway between Christmas and New Year’s. Whatever they are celebrating, including an early “Auld Lang Syne” get-together, they can do so without distractions.
4. NCAA midseason respite
While the pros get a break from the ever-present prospect of moving, collegians get a genuine break from playing.
Not every student-athlete who celebrates Christmas will be home for the day itself. As noted, some are spending the better part of their post-finals break from school at the WJC. In other instances, teams with late-December tournaments may reconvene before the 25th.
But no one will get back in the game before savoring some protracted family time at some point. This year’s NCAA Division I women’s schedule features a full 12-day game-free block at Christmastime. A nationwide hibernation on the men’s side will run for 10 days.
3. Anthem singers becoming carol crooners
With holiday music, as with national anthems, assorted renditions are hit-or-miss. But quality is usually a safe bet with beloved professionals.
New England has long had the combined quintessence of both with Rene Rancourt. The long-time Boston Bruins anthem performer tends to vanish at the opening draw. But when Christmas is looming, he gifts the Garden masses the gift of extra vocals at intermission.
The way the fans engage with little or no prompting speaks to the custom’s merit. Ditto Rancourt’s reception when he fills gaps on his Christmastime schedule at college and minor-league venues around the region.
2. Trans-Siberian Orchestra highlight videos
Even before the live vocalist’s first shift, energizing canned music is a must on game night.
No one packs agents of adrenaline into Christmas tunes like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. For a pregame pump-up montage, almost anything from their discography works between Black Friday and Boxing Day.
“Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” “Wizards in Winter” and “Nutrocker” tend to be the top selections. All three have the right pitch of intensity for those simultaneously building up for hockey night and the holidays. Their rhythms also give light operators and video editors a worthy challenge to concoct a matching visual.
1. The Teddy Bear Toss
Let’s not even bother taking C-cuts around what might come across as a cliché. This is the season of giving, and the Teddy Bear Toss is the hockey community’s ultimate means of participation.
The custom is simple. Fans at participating junior or minor-pro venues bring stuffed animals or the equivalent to a designated game. When the home team tunes the twine, the toys make like lids when a home player scores thrice. (Or like a plastic rat in Florida circa 1995-96.) Crews collect the donations for subsequent cheer at local children’s hospitals and/or related organizations.
The general consensus traces the tradition back to the 1993-94 Kamloops Blazers. In the quarter-century since, the sheer spectacle has snowballed across the continent. Every year, it seems, at least a handful of teams proudly set a new franchise record for total toys tossed.
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