NHL ices short-lived Hot for Hockey marketing campaign after poor reception
The NHL is putting its “Hot for Hockey” audiobook campaign on ice. Less than a week after the NHL started releasing a series of short stories in audiobook form that feature current players in real-life NHL storylines through the lens of a romance novel, the league has discontinued the marketing initiative, Front Office Sports reported.In fact, the NHL has wiped Spotify completely of the seven 30-to-90-second audio stories that had already been released last Thursday, most of which received negative feedback on social media.The NHL was trying to capitalize on the popularity of the hockey-themed romance novel trend as well as the new interest from fans of the hit shows “Heated Rivalry” and “Off Campus.” Initially, Sports Business Journal reported that the NHL planned to release these short stories throughout the season, but the league told Front Office Sports on Monday that the marketing campaign was only meant to be a one-week thing associated with the start of the season. A league spokesperson did not explain why the stories were removed from Spotify. “As a start of the season concept, these were matchup specific posts created by authentic authors, illustrators and voice actors designed to run during our opening games in the first week.Our marketing now is focused around many other activations including our Hockey Hits Different celebrity campaign, tune-in messages and other initiatives,” the league spokesperson said.No actual romance was involved in the audio stories, but they did evoke a similar feel to the style that hockey romance novels are meant to convey.
The SBJ report announcing the campaign indicated that the league had contracted popular hockey romance authors to write and narrate the stories released by the NHL. Among the first installments released was one featuring Jack Eichel and another that included Sebastian Aho. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters in Pittsburgh that the “data is overwhelming in terms of new fans t...