The Hockey Show - Episode 733

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with a full house in the UMFM studios! It's always good to have fun guests join us who have a lot to talk about, and we have that tonight with two guests who are joining us. However, we also will add another voice to the fun as we welcome a young lady who wants a future in broadcasting to sit in with us for this show and, possibly, more in the future. In short, the studio's chairs will all be full tonight as we hit the air, so get ready and take your seat tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason and Sophie welcome back two of the people making a difference in Manitoba as Shay and Les from Sledge Hockey Manitoba are back to chat about everything happening on the development side of things! We'll chat with them about summer developments, tournament results from last season, growth of the programs, making new connections, bringing home hardware, and the always-persistent challenges that they face in trying to grow sledge hockey enrolment and participation in Manitoba! It should be another very interesting show with lots of news from two of Sledge Hockey Manitoba's most important people in Shay and Les, so we'll get into everything happening on the sledge hockey scene tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason and Sophie chat with Shay and Les from Sledge Hockey Manitoba about summer fun, growing numbers, winning hardware, having fun, attracting talent, making connections, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Another Idea Blows Up

I'm not one to celebrate failure because I often see the importance of learning from one's mistakes, but I will celebrate another failure by the NHL when it comes to capturing popular culture in a marketing campaign. The NHL certainly brands itself as being modern and hip, so seeing it follow a trend that it once held in such contempt makes this failure all the better. After all, if the NHL had wanted to make inroads with this specific marketing effort, they could do so by being a better organization morally and ethically. Since that seems like too much work to do when it comes to simply making money, the NHL opted to go in a different direction that ended with this idea blowing up in their faces once again. That quiet sound you hear in the background is me screaming "I told you so."

On October 2, the NHL decided it was going to publish romance novel-inspired short stories starring the league's players on audiobook platforms as part of their new "Hot For Hockey" marketing campaign. The first set of stories that made it onto audio platforms like Spotify featured players like Philadelphia Flyers' Trevor Zegras, the Carolina Hurricanes' Sebastian Aho, and the Las Vegas Golden Knights' Jack Eichel. If you're reading this and already thinking this is a bad idea, you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg sticking out of the water.

The NHL decided to collaborate with popular hockey romance writers on this project who could "romanticize" the players with these stories. The stories were then hyped in 60- or 90-second ads that appeared to be nothing more than bids to get people to watch the actual games, and the stories themselves were nothing close to hockey romance stories as the players weren't paired with romantic partners. The story arc for Trevor Zegras is as follows:

"Trevor Zegras came to Philly looking for a fresh start. But after battling with Pittsburgh in the playoffs last year, he found out how gritty things could get. One heated summer later, Philly's pretty boy is looking a whole lot grittier."

There is A LOT to unpack in that short paragraph, and none of it even has to do with Gritty, the Flyers' mascot. If you downloaded the story thinking you were getting the NHL's version of Heated Rivalry, you signed up for the wrong set of stories, but there's a large chunk of ignorance shown by the NHL's infinite big brains in floating this idea.

For a league whose rosters currently feature three men named in an alleged criminal case for sexual assault, romanticizing players in the league is definitive proof that the NHL is completely out of touch with its fanbase. Two prominent hockey romance writers, Emily Rath and Chelsea Curto, both declined participating in the project with Rath posting on her social media, "Yes, the NHL contacted me to participate. And I have never turned down an offer so fast."

Lacey Conine, the founder of Double Hockey Stix, a business that makes a clothing line for underrepresented hockey fans, says she initially thought news of the NHL's romance-centric audiobook campaign was satire, telling Wired's Kate Taylor, "I had so many comments of people just being like, 'This is disgusting. We hate this. What is this? How is the NHL this tone deaf?'" And she's right.

With the Dallas Stars announcing that they were cancelling Pride Night this season, it seems entirely disingenuous of the NHL to try and ride the coattails of Heated Rivalry's momentum. Using the romance-in-hockey theme is something that can be done by people not associated with the NHL in terms of writing fiction, but adding real players to the mix opens up a can of worms that no one wants.

In 2023, Alexander Wennberg, and his wife, Felicia, posted on social media about an influx of "predatory and exploiting" comments after the Kraken posted content aimed at TikTik's BookTok scene. Earlier this summer, there was an alleged inappropriate relationship between a billet mom and a teenaged player in the OHL. Of course, there was also the online abuse to which Connor Hellebuyck and his wife, Andrea, were subject as one of his reasons for his trade demands out of Canada. This kind of behaviour cannot be glorified through the romanticism of young NHL players, and the NHL was insane for even trying to capitalize on that. Someone had to see this coming, right?

Well, fast forward to today, just four days after the NHL's marketing wizards launched the audiobook stories, and this campaign has been shelved by the NHL. In full spin mode, the NHL said "the episodes were meant to be a limited-time offering" in their reason for removing them from audio platforms. In what has to be the biggest "yeah, we didn't think this one through," the NHL's four-day campaign might be the most limited of limited-time offers they've ever done.

That didn't stop NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman from celebrating an opportunity, stating, "I will tell you the data was overwhelming in terms of new fans that we acquired last year who were first introduced to hockey either through 'Off Campus' or 'Heated Rivalry.' And if new people want to come and be a part of game, we’re thrilled to have them."

Again, open your eyes, Gary. While both TNT and ESPN spouting off about female viewership being up 66% and 106%, respectively, the NHL celebrating "Heated Rivalry", which is about two gay hockey players, becomes laughable when the NHL is seeing teams cancel Pride Games and having players openly refuse to wear LGBTQ+-inspired clothing. "Off Campus" might be the one the NHL can support because of their lack of concern towards promiscuity, fighting, and domestic abuse, but that might be giving them credit where it simply isn't due. They didn't earn these fans through any effort on their own.

"If the NHL is trying to reach the female fan base, which is obviously what this is an attempt to do, there are so many better and stronger ways to do that," The IX Sports PWHL senior writer Melissa Burgess told the AP. "Honestly, it's the best thing the NHL could do is scrap it, put it in the past and make it a distant memory."

At the end of the day, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there wasn't one person asking for the NHL to do this. Like any business, the NHL always wants to expand its market share to capture the largest amount of female fans it can, but marketing itself and its players as some sort of romantic heroes in hyperbolized scenarios is only going to attract ridicule. This was one area of hockey into which the NHL didn't need to wander, yet someone in their offices pitched this idea well enough to make others go, "We can profit off of this."

Four days is all the "Hot For Hockey" audiobook campaign lasted. That was literally 96 hours too long, but at least the NHL came to its senses quickly before they "found out how gritty things could get".

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Tour May Continue?

Back on August 10, I wrote an article about Russian star Evgeny Kuznetsov signing with Sibir Novosibirsk where I joked that he could "suit up for every team by age 44 if he keeps up his current pace" of switching teams. I'm completely in the camp that Kuznetsov doesn't read HBIC, but it feels a little coincidental that Kuznetsov left Novosibirsk after just eight games yesterday. According to several posts on Instagram, it appears that Kuznetsov's father's health is behind his sudden and surprising departure from the team, but that will mark the fifth KHL team he's skated for in his career. Will he reappear elsewhere?

I take nothing away from Kuznetsov if he is spending time with his father during this time. Kuznetsov doesn't need the money that the KHL pays, and having him play with his father's health weighing on him likely wouldn't have been good for Sibir Novosibirsk who needed him at his best. My hope is that his father recovers because no one needs that kind of dark cloud, so here's hoping he's back on his feet soon and Kuznetsov can get back to playing hockey somewhere.

Assuming his father lives in Chelyabinsk where Kuznetsov was born, Kuznetsov could sign a deal with Traktor Chelyabinsk once his father recovers in order to remain closer to him. Kuznetsov got his start with Traktor Chelyabinsk back in 2009, so it would be a homecoming of sorts for the once-prolific scorer. Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg is three hours to the north of Chelyabinsk as well while both Ufa and Magnitogorsk are just over three hours away. The last two teams, however, have already had Kuznetsov on their rosters last season.

In short, the 34 year-old is running out of options quickly if he wants to remain close to home to be near his father for health reasons.

Others, meanwhile, have suggested that Kuznetsov's departure from Sibir might have something to do with the fact that Sibir is a bad team. Currently, Sibir sits with a 3-7-0-2 record for eight points which puts them at 11th out of 11 teams in the KHL's Eastern Conference. They've surrendered the most goals in the Eastern Conference and the third-most in the KHL, and have only scored more than two goals in three of their 12 games thus far. It's been a rough start so far.

I'm not here to suggest that Kuznetsov gave up on Sibir Novosibirsk, but winning once in their last five games when they were tied or led going into the third period certainly isn't a selling feature to a guy like Kuznetsov. The lede photo is of him in street clothes early in the second period of an October 29, 2025 game between Ak Bars Kazan and Metallurg Magnitogorsk after Metallurg head coach Andrei Razin benched him for poor play after the first period. I'm not saying these situations are the same, but Kuznetsov doesn't do himself any favours when he leaves a team without a clear explanation for his departure.

Whatever the reason is for him leaving Sibir Novosibirsk, Evgeny Kuznetsov is, once again, a free agent. With five out of 22 KHL teams off his list, will he add a sixth team this season or will he return to one of his previous teams? If his father's health doesn't improve, will he return at all? Here's hoping the elder Kuznetsov's health recovers so we see Evgeny Kuznetsov back on the ice somewhere in Russia.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Major Uniform History Day

Imagine for a moment that it's the fall of 1974. Colours are changing on the trees, leaves are beginning to fall, and the fashion world is wearing earth tones and flared- and wide-leg pants. There were design changes to the Ford Mustang and Pontiac Firebirds, Lamborghini introduced the world to the Countach, Richard Nixon had just resigned as President of the United States due to the Watergate scandal, and the UPC Barcode to scan products at stores was still in its infancy. The world was a different place 50 years ago as Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career home run record, People magazine first appeared on newsstands, and Chinese farmers discovered the Terracotta Army.

We're going to focus on fashion, though, and specifically on the NHL because October 4, 1974 is a day where something happened in a preseason game that maked a major moment in uniform history as per a social media account called KingsUniHistory. As per that account, the LA Kings "wore their gold home uniform with forum blue pants for the first time in 4 years in a preseason game against the Golden Seals". I know that a lot of people will read that and think, "That's not very significant," but it was because the Kings began wearing gold pants at the start of the 1970-71 season with their gold jerseys, meaning that the "forum blue" pants were used exclusively with their purple road jerseys throughout the decade!

If you know anything about me, I much prefer hockey uniforms to have contrasting pants colours to break up the monochrome look that happens when pants and jerseys match. The Kings actually wore that contrasting uniform style from their first time on the ice until the end of the 1969-70 season as shown to the right, and that looks all sorts of correct compared to the single-colour gold choice they opted to wear in 1970-71 and beyond. Make no mistake that there were some questionable uniform decisions made in the 1970s by a handful of teams, but gold-over-gold by the Kings is a head-scratcher.

The gold-over-purple combination would only be worn on October 4, though, as the Kings continued to use their gold pants throughout that season. As the KingsUniHistory account describes, "It was the only time this uniform faced California's all teal 1974-76 road uniform," meaning that every other date between 1974 and 1976 featured the all-gold Kings versus the all-teal California Seals! Finding any sort of record of these games is next to impossible, however, but we'll go with KingsUniHistory's knowledge that the gold-over-purple only saw the all-teal Seals once in the preseason on October 4, 1974.

The other major note is that the Seals' all-teal look also debuted in this game as the California Seals went from their Oakland Athletics-inspired kelly-green-and-gold look in 1973-74 to their uniform their new look for the 1974-75 season. With Charlie Finley selling the team in 1974, the colours were swapped to a more traditional west coast feel by the NHL who owned the franchise. That all-teal look debuted on October, 1974 in the preseason game against the Kings as well, so there were two major uniform events that on occurred that day!

You might be asking if the Kings, in their first gold-over-purple game in four years, won the game against the Seals, and they did not. They didn't lose either, though, as the game ended as a 1-1 tie. As shown to the left, Mike Murphy opened the scoring for the Kings before Seals' rookie Wayne King scored off a rebound to square the score, and the final score would be recorded as a 1-1 preseason tie. Just for fun, the California Seals found a way to break through for a win two days later as they downed the Kings by a 5-2 score on October 6, 1974.

The rivalry was already starting to simmer between these California rivals as they battled for west coast surpemacy, and the weird part was they weren't even in the same division in 1974! The California Golden Seals would play in the Adams Division that season with Boston, Buffalo, and Toronto while Los Angeles was in the Norris Division with Montreal, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Washington. Both the Adams and Norris Division played in the Prince of Wales Conference that season. The NHL cared not for your geography lessons.

I searched everywhere for reasons as to why the Kings wore their purple pants on October 4, 1974, and I can't find any site or newspaper article with a reason for that uniform decision. I will say it's the right one, though, because the gold-over-gold uniform was a bad look, even for the disco era. As for the Seals, they wouldn't last past 1976 so they never saw the Kings in purple pants again.

How often do we get a uniform debut for one team and a one-game uniform note for the other in the same game? Not very often, and that's why October 4, 1974 was a major uniform history day!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Two Touchdowns Is Enough, Right?

Being that this is a Sunday, any other season would see The Rundown make an appearance in this spot. With HBIC only a few articles away from hitting 7000 on this blog and because I'm a man of my word, that's not appearing here today despite us being one week out from the Canada West regular season beginning. I do want to rekindle one thing from The Rundown, though, and that's my dislike of teams running up scores. I know that coaches don't want teams to develop bad habits by letting up, but being up two converted touchdowns on a team should be a sign that one has scored enough to win a hockey game, right?

Pictured above is Boston College and Stonehill who met this weekend for Stonehill University's home opener. The Skyhawks came into the came with an 0-2 record after dropping both games against Syracuse in western New York by a combined score of 7-1, so the Skyhawks were looking to bounce back at home against one of the best teams on the east coast in the Boston College Eagles who were kicking off their season with a game at Warrior Ice Arena yesterday.

Again, I cannot stress this enough, but running up a score against an opponent just makes good teams look bad. Setting a program record for goals scored would be fun if the game was close in score, but Boston College not only set a program record, but an NCAA record for the largest goal differential in NCAA women's hockey history on Saturday. I already have a sour taste in my mouth about this game.

Prior to this season, Boston College and Stonehill had only met once for a regular season game, and the Eagles came away with a 5-1 win on September 28, 2024 which was the game from where the lede image above was taken. Lily Geist scored Stonehill's lone goal that day which tied the game at 1-1 just 4:14 into the first period, but that would be as close as the Skyhawks got in that September game.

Saturday saw Boston College score early, score often, and score a lot more than just five goals on the Skyhawks. In fact, it took the Eagles just 12:13 to score five times in this game as they took a 7-0 lead into the first intermission, a 10-0 lead into the second intermission, and they'd retire to their locker room after the game's final horn with the scoreboard showing the score to the right. So I have to ask what would possess Boston College to run up the score like this in a non-conference game against a clearly weaker opponent? What exactly did this score prove other than Boston College is in a different tier of hockey teams than Stonehill is? Is Boston College proud of this score? How does this blowout help them be better?

Boston College used three goaltenders in this game as Avah Sedore stopped five shots in the first period, Bailey Callaway was the busiest of the Eagles' goalies with nine stops in the middle frame, and Bella Pomarico stopped six shots in the third period to keep Stonehill off the scoreboard. In contrast, Stonehill's Nicole Schumm stopped 11 of 16 shots she faced before being pulled after the fifth Boston College goal at 12:13, and Maria Duffer was thrown to the wolves as she made 32 stops on 44 shots. Again, how does this help either team?

If you believe in karma and that kind of stuff, know that the "Hockey Gods" frown on this sort of score and that Boston College likely has some sort comeuppance awaiting them down the line. I'm not wishing any player harm in any manner, but you know that Boston College will be in a tight game at some point where they need a goal and the puck simply won't bounce their way. Don't say I didn't warn you when the Eagles need a win in the Beanpot or the NCAA National Championship and some weird bounce leads to a goal against them.

Stonehill opens their NEWHA Conference schedule against Saint Michael's College this weekend, and they'll likely play with a little snarl after yesterday's game. Boston College will be in Worcester, Massachusetts for a game against Holy Cross where they'll find stiffer competition. Both teams will likely forget about yesterday's game in quick fashion for different reasons, but you have to wonder if this blowout will have an effect in future years when it comes to having these teams play again. If Boston College is just going to beat up Stonehill, why would the Skyhawks agree to play the Eagles?

Blowout scores do nothing for either program when it comes to tactics, strategies, and positives to build on as the season begins. Stonehill will likely watch a lot of video to see where things went wrong while Boston College will go back to work full of false confidence after posting two converted touchdowns and a field goal.

For outsiders, though, this is a bad look for the NCAA when it comes to how far apart these teams may be in terms of talent, recruiting, and execution. I never expected to be talking about a 17-goal difference between two teams in a single game, and I assure you that I never want to be talking about that kind of disparity again.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!