NHL Pucking Up Its PR Crisis

The National Hockey League, in the midst of its fourth work stoppage in 20 years, needs to take the ice out of its ears.

With no agreement with the players’ association, and no realistic hope of one anytime soon, the league on Oct. 4 cancelled regular-season games through Oct. 24. Many fans have begun seeking bodies clashing on ice elsewhere, like the minor leagues, college hockey and, thanks to a just-signed television deal with ESPN, games played in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) of Europe and Asia, which has already drawn some of the NHL’s marquee players to its rosters.  Seven Flyers have signed with overseas teams, including stars Claude Giroux, Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov.

Yet the NHL and its top executives are nonplussed, even acting as if everything is business as usual.

As a 20-plus year public relations professional, and an avid hockey fan for almost twice that time, I’m both appalled and perplexed at the league’s lackadaisical attitude as its loyal fans go through pangs of withdrawal. These are the same fans who came back to hockey en masse following the cancelled season of 2004-05, a scenario which until then was thought to be a sport’s death knell. They are the fans whose enthusiasm for hockey has made a game played outdoors in a baseball stadium in freezing winter temperatures the hottest ticket in town each year the Winter Classic has been staged. And these are the fans who plowed $3.3 billion into the sport last year, ironically leading to the financial standoff the league and players are in today.

For fans on Facebook, the lockout doesn’t appear to exist. In a head-scratcher of epic proportions, the league is posting feel-good stories and fan surveys about which player was the best ever to wear a particular number, or which team captain or clutch goalie you’d rather have on your team. Posts like these aren’t helping anybody forget there’s a hockey deficit; they’re only stirring up vehemence among fans already angry that their sport has become, once again, the ugly stepchild among the four majors, and that the commissioner, Gary Bettman, is both ineffective and an effete elitist who’s out of touch with the fans…the Mitt Romney of pro sports.

The tenor of fan comments on Facebook is telling: “Who gives a damn? We want hockey back now!” and “The only posts we want to see here are updates on the labor negotiations” are typical. Scrolling through the responses, it’s apparent the vile has become epidemic, with such comments comprising about 98 percent of the total. There’s no way of knowing how many have followed through with their plans to “unlike” the NHL. Nonetheless, the “who’s better” posts persist, revealing that the league—or its social media director, and for all practical purposes they are the same—is incredibly tone-deaf.

Every major sport suffers from labor disputes and work stoppages from time to time. Sadly, fans have come to expect them each time a collective bargaining agreement expires. While the public may feel betrayed or angry by disputes among the rich and richer, they have historically been forgiving, especially if they feel the league and players have paid attention to their concerns, and came back stronger or with a better product. After replacement refs blew a call that decided a nationally televised football game last month, and the resulting hue and cry of fans, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pushed for two days of marathon negotiations leading to an agreement with the officials union. Then he issued a letter of apology to the fans.

Until now, though, no one has the feeling that the NHL cares, or is even thinking, about the fans. The scant updates about the negotiations have been channeled through the mainstream media, typically when one side or the other expresses frustration over lack of progress. Days, and sometimes weeks, have gone by without any meetings at all, and it’s a void that has been filled by sports columnists and bloggers echoing—and possibly inflaming—the fans. 

The league needs to control the narrative, providing updates of some kind even when there’s little to report—and when there is, letting the public know why they have not yet come to an agreement. It needs to reach the fans where they live, which is Twitter and Facebook. It needs to portray a strong, in-control executive, but one who at least acknowledges the suffering of the fans. It needs to adopt an attitude of reconciliation, and articulate a promise that today’s sacrifice will lead to a better tomorrow for all the stakeholders. 

Most importantly, it needs to open a two-way line of communication. When fans are cursing at you, threatening boycotts and calling for the resignation of your chief executive, a business-as-usual facade will only exacerbate the situation.  Any work stoppage is unfortunate, and will leave some disenfranchised, but it doesn’t have to put the fans on ice.

A version of this blog post was originally published on Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog (http://www.bulldogreporter.com/daily-dog).