History Will Be Made promotional campaign is a winner for the NHL (and Young & Rubicam)

In this era of social media, you know you're onto something when people can't help but want to share digital files...story links...audio files...video files. You name it; if people want to share it, you've struck a chord.

That's the case with the National Hockey League's promotional campaign for the 2010 Stanley Cup championships; the History Will Be Made broadcast and in-arena video series.

Commissioned by the NHL's marketing department and developed by the global advertising agency Young & Rubicam, History Will Be Made is a winner.

When the series was unveiled last month, the NHL announced it would include six iconic moments in Stanley Cup playoff history.

“These are the moments from our game that have gone down in history as some of the most iconic in sports,” NHL Executive Vice-President of Marketing Brian Jennings said March 19th. "It’s that image of a flying Bobby Orr frozen in mid-air, when Bourque's 22-year journey finally ends with a championship, when Messier went from being a captain to 'The Captain.' The Stanley Cup Playoffs are where history is made, and this year will be no different.”

At the time, the NHL had plans for three other 30-second videos: one featuring former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Patrick Roy in his Calder Trophy-winning rookie campaign in 1986; one starring Stevie Yzerman scoring his double-overtime winner in the 1996 western conference final against St. Louis; and another putting the spotlight on Mario Lemieux in 1991.

This week, however, the NHL rolled out a seventh 30-second spot in the History Will Be Made campaign running across the league's national and local broadcast partners, NHL Network, NHL.com, in-arena, franchise web sites and various affiliated digital and social media websites. It featured 1984 vintage Wayne Gretzky, scoring a Stanley Cup final game winner for the Edmonton Oilers against the New York Islanders.

Gretzky actually had a cameo role in a Blues' uniform in one of the original six spots; watching helplessly as Yzerman raced away over the blueline before slapping his memorable winner. But no such vintage series is complete without Gretzky alongside Lemieux and Messier. Oversight or not, the NHL deserves credit for getting it right...better late than never.

More important, the NHL deserves credit for the campaign, period. It deserves kudos for the simplicity of the creative. Simple concept. Standard musical theme. A consistent three-part close, with 1. The specific storyline; 2. The campaign title; and 3. The NHL 2010 Stanley Cup logo.

It's what makes it work so well. It's what has allowed franchises such as the Vancouver Canucks to customize History Will Be Made videos starring Henrik and Daniel Sedin (two official versions so far, entitled "What if they hadn't called this "home"?).

Most importantly, it's what has created a buzz among the digital set, spawning more than 300 parodies in a little over three weeks. That means the campaign has captured the imagination of the young, interactive web set. And that's good news for the NHL and for Young & Rubicam.

The original six network-wide History Will Be Made videos, along with the seventh national spot featuring Gretzky, are listed below.

1970 - Boston Bruins: What if Bobby didn’t fly?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUnS5gq0BZ4&feature=channel

1984 - Edmonton Oilers: What if there was no Greatness? *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMVgbHa0Fd0

1986 - Montreal Canadiens: What if Roy played like a rookie?
http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=65895

1991 - Pittsburgh Penguins: What if Mario wasn’t so super?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxoxGXyolVM&NR=1

1994 - New York Rangers: What if Messier didn’t lift an entire city?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljv6f00E2nc&NR=1

1996 - Detroit Red Wings: What if Stevie Y didn’t inspire Hockeytown?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qc7fBl7vO0&NR=1

2001 - Colorado Avalanche: What if Bourque didn’t believe in one more year?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntccXmKmAxE&feature=related


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Could Michael Jordan become the next Mario Lemieux?

As he embarks on his tenure as a majority owner in the NBA, former basketball superstar Michael Jordan could do worse than to follow the ownership manual written by former NHL superstar Mario Lemieux.

In fact, it appears he may have already read the first few pages.

Lemieux, the only other living former North American superstar to serve as principal owner and governor of a major league franchise with his beloved Pittsburgh Penguins, was one of the people Jordan consulted with before closing his recent $275 million US acquisition of the Charlotte Bobcats.

The deal not only made Jordan the first former player to hold a controlling interest in an NBA franchise, it made him fourth on the all-time list of former athletes to serve as a majority owner in North American sport.  The other two are Papa Bear George Halas, Sr., who played, coached and owned the NFL's Chicago Bears over a period spanning seven decades last century and former Baltimore Colts player Jerry Richardson, who ironically is the founding owner of Charlotte's other big league team, the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.

The Lemieux ownership manual is a must read for Jordan because the former #66 is the only person to win the Stanley Cup as both player and owner. After winning two Cups in the early 1990s, Lemieux became co-majority owner of the Penguins in 1999, buying the franchise out of bankruptcy with Ron Burkle. Jordan would like nothing more than to become basketball's Lemieux and add a title with the Bobcats to the six he won as the most famous Chicago Bull in the 1990s.
 
The Super Mario playbook will show how you go from bankruptcy to supremacy in 10 years...from being precariously close to relocation to drafting next-generation superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to making back-to-back Stanley Cup appearances, culminating in a championship in 2009.

The playbook also outlines the approach behind selling out more than 100 consecutive home games (and counting) and gaining the kind of community and corporate support that allows you to build a new, $321 million US arena, the Consol Energy Center, which opens this fall and will help the Penguins make the most of the Crosby era.

Lemieux used his personna and profile to get that support in Pittsburgh. He used his experience playing under both the late Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman to understand how important it was for him to surround himself with hockey operations talent, including respected general managers such as Craig Patrick and Dan Shero. He used his credibility as a former player selectively, stepping up on occasion to inspire the Pens' lockerroom with a few choice words of wisdom.

They're wired differently and are different people, but Jordan has many of the same qualities. The same profile. The same championship pedigree. The same credibility as a former MVP and winner.

Even though he has less of a hill to climb than Lemieux did in 1999 and despite already overseeing basketball operations since 2006, that doesn't mean Jordan cannot benefit from using the Lemieux playbook to make the Bobcats successful, both on and off the court.

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Crosby's overtime goal makes instant Canadian hockey -- and Winter Olympics -- history

September 28th, 1972: Paul Henderson, assisted by Yvan Cournoyer and Phil Esposito, 19:26 of the third period, Canada vs. Soviet Union, Luzhniki Ice Palace, Moscow.

September 15th, 1987: Mario Lemieux, assisted by Wayne Gretzky, 18:34 of the third period, Canada vs. Soviet Union, Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ont.

February 28th, 2010: Sidney Crosby, assisted by Jarome Iginla, 7:40 of overtime, Canada Hockey Place, Vancouver.


Could it have been scripted any better for Team Canada and Canadian hockey? Could there be a better or more dramatic ending to Vancouver 2010?

A Sidney Crosby overtime goal to defeat the United States 3-2 to win gold for Canada in the marquee event of the 21st Winter Olympiad; a goal that set a new record for gold medals won -- 14 -- by a country at an Olympic Winter Games.

It was the single last action by an athlete at these Games.

Crosby's shot -- and commentator Chris Cuthbert's call of his "golden goal" on CTV and that of Pierre Houde on RDS -- becomes a defining moment in Canadian hockey history. It becomes an iconic flashpoint for our national heritage and culture, as it does for the game of hockey and Vancouver 2010 itself.

It immediately took its place on the podium of the biggest goals in Canadian hockey history.

That podium includes Paul Henderson's winning goal in the 1972 Super Series between Canada and the old Soviet Union, the 1987 Canada Cup winner over the Soviets scored by Mario Lemieux on a tic-tac-toe passing play from Wayne Gretzky and now Crosby from Iginla in overtime in the Vancouver 2010 final.

There will be debate about which goal goes down as the biggest. Henderson's rescued our hockey pride against the backdrop of the cold war era and did so on faraway ice in Moscow. It is often referred to as the most famous goal in Canadian hockey history and is dubbed the "Goal of the Century". Lemieux's was arguably the most beautiful and decided a memorable Canada Cup of three 6-5 games at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton.

To me, Crosby's goal carries the widest audience, the biggest reward and the largest impact.

The goals by pre-digital Henderson and Lemieux were watched on television and heard on radio in English and French. Crosby's goal not only comes on the three screens of the Internet era of TV, computers and mobile devices, it comes on the massive media and global television stage created by Vancouver 2010, CTV, NBC and official national broadcasters around the world. It was called in multiple languages on multiple platforms. And it was scored in overtime in the most-watched hockey game in history.

Henderson's won an historic eight-game exhibition series between the world's hockey superpowers. Lemieux's goal won the Canada Cup, the unofficial world cup of hockey. Crosby's marker won Canada the biggest hockey tournament in history and an Olympic gold medal. It also gave Canada a stranglehold on the gold-medal podium at Vancouver 2010 and set the record for most golds by a country in a Winter Games. Those are the biggest prizes of any of the three goals.

Yet what distinguishes Crosby's overtime winner from the other iconic goals in Canadian hockey history is its larger impact. Crosby was scoring not only for his hockey team and his country, but for the larger Canadian Olympic team of 203 athletes. His goal came in a 12-team tournament that was part of a larger worldwide competition featuring 2,700 athletes from 82 countries. It mattered to more than the two countries facing off.

That's why it'll hold special status as the most important goal in Canadian hockey history...and Canadian sport history.

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