Month: August 2018

Summer Reading: Heritage Jerseys, History, and the Forcing of Both

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

5949__national_hockey_league-misc-2004

I think I’m tired of the “Heritage Jersey” scheme that Adidas is going on about. The NHL has gone into the NBA territory by having fancy names for their alternate jerseys. While the idea of nostalgia is a great one and one that is a proven moneymaker; the fact we’ve seen some of these jerseys in the recent past proves that the NHL is all about the retread– as if you haven’t figured that out by who participates in the outdoor games. Already, we’ve seen the St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils, Arizona Coyotes, and the Anaheim Ducks (…kind of) that have put out their “heritage” jerseys. I’m sure we can expect the Capitals, Maple Leafs, and possibly Flames to join this trend.

While it’s nice to have this retro flare– it’s really all fake. If the NHL really cared about the “heritage” aspect of these jerseys; why wouldn’t they want to show off the Colorado Rockies or Kansas City Scouts jerseys that are the actual heritage of the New Jersey Devils instead of their white “Christmas color’ jersey motif.

Therein lies the problem with the NHL and the way they present their history. Sure, it’s the whole “to the victor goes the spoils,” but at the same time– you can’t bury the history of team’s past. Hell, those are the jerseys and logos that it seems that people crave. However, the NHL doesn’t want you to remember the past as it was. They want you to remember the history as they present– which is a raw deal for everyone involved.

Rarely do you hear about the Cleveland Barons, Kansas City Scouts, Hamilton Tigers, or St. Louis Eagles due to those teams not making any kind of positive impact in their few years in the NHL proper. People get force fed the “original” six forever and day, but that’s not really the history. Hell, they’re more like the surviving six over anything else. But that’s not what the NHL wants to portray, which I can understand. With the exception of the NBA, you don’t see many leagues touting the teams that have fallen off their radar. You might get fans talking about those teams, but rare to see the leagues promote the dead teams that relocated.

You rarely hear about players from the old days either. The lack of publicity that Joe Malone gets from the NHL is sickening, especially when you have baseball still hold up things that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig did. Malone was one of the greatest players and the greatest goal-scorer of his generation, but the NHL really doesn’t do much to profile their players before 1950. Newsy Lalonde is really talked about for his name, but his goal-scoring prowess was up there with Malone, but you only get his nickname of Newsy as something to remember him by rather than the 124 NHL goals in 99 games over his career and 288 goals in 207 games if you combine the NHA and NHL totals. But the NHL doesn’t even give them a passing glance unless they have to– which is rarely.

The idea of having a team historian is a thing that seems to be a hot topic amongst fans with some teams putting it to use. Granted, some of them have put in the work and then were unceremoniously shown the door after the fact, but the team got what they wanted. In all honesty, it seems that the need for a historian could be a “flavor of the month” for some teams and the league itself. With the NHL Centennial over, you have to wonder how much they’ll promote Dave Stubbs’ work since the history isn’t something they need at the forefront anymore.

Jen Conway (AKA NHL History Girl) and I discussed this on the FOHS Overtime on Patreon, so if you want to shell out of few duckets to hear it– then by all means. All the money goes back into the Media Faction for shows and stuff like that.

You can bet we’ll see more “heritage” jerseys– many of which we have seen in the past, many of which won’t be the real heritage of the team. It’s this idea of history that’s great in theory– but when you put it into practice and you dig up things that aren’t all rosy; that’s stuff people don’t want to hear or pay attention to– so they turn it and it becomes a waste for many. Here’s hoping that many hockey fans can take the good with the bad, but with how things work in this social media era– it’s unlikely to happen.

Summer Reading: Barracuda Nostalgia Sparks Idea For Other Retro Nights

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

DlEVJWZUcAApq1I

With the announcement of the San Jose Barracuda having jersey/theme nights to honor the affiliates of the San Jose Sharks past, it made me wonder if more teams should go and do it. Nostalgia is a helluva selling point for people, both in-arena and online. A gimmick like this creates a lot of buzz and could move a lot of tickets and a lot of merchandise to help out a team.

On the flip side, it’s a bit morbid. It’s a showing of failed teams, possibly failed markets, and while it’s nice– could rub some people the wrong way if they are bitter enough about losing their team.

Regardless of that, however, and regardless if you asked my opinion or not– but here’s some teams who I’d enjoy seeing honor their old affiliates. Of course, my top pick would be the Capitals to show off the old Richmond Robins, Baltimore Skipjacks, and Portland Pirates jerseys….but a team like the Hershey Bears wouldn’t give up their tradition to honor someone else’s– especially since they have outlasted those teams.

So– in no particular order:

–ANAHEIM DUCKS: First in the alphabet, first one on this list. The Ducks have had some great affiliates– the short-lived Baltimore Bandits and Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, but they weaved their way through some solidly established teams, like the Syracuse Crunch and Norfolk Admirals. However, if there’s one team I want to see again, it’s the Iowa Chops. One season wasn’t enough and if the San Diego Gulls wanted to move merch, that’s the way to do it. Of course, the Gulls are at the top of attendance and probably merch, so they don’t need that big of a boost.

–NEW YORK ISLANDERS: While the Bridgeport Sound Tigers are the longest affiliate the Islanders have had, the stops they’ve had along the way has been great and aesthetically amazing. The Thoroughblades are represented again (as seen above), but also the gaudy Salt Lake Golden Eagles jerseys, the early Lowell Lock Monsters jerseys, and the Utah Grizzlies‘ jerseys with a giant shoulder patch would really steer the memories, especially from the IHL fans.

–CAROLINA HURRICANES: Including the Charlotte Checkers, the Hurricanes have only had five affiliates– but what affiliates they have been. The Beast of New Haven could have the worst logo of all time, the Cincinnati Cyclones, Lowell Lock Monsters, and Albany River Rats add to the memorable logos of affiliates past for the Hurricanes.

–PITTSBURGH PENGUINS: What’s not to like about the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins as the Muskegon Lumberjacks, the Baltimore Skipjacks, or the Broome Dusters….jacks. While the motif is pretty much the same in the black and gold, the older logos would be solid in a modern setting.

–MINNESOTA WILD: While the Iowa Wild is the third of the AAA-affiliates for the Wild, the Houston Aeros look would be nice– but why not add some ECHL flavor?? The Louisiana IceGators looks would be solid, same with the Texas Wildcatters, Mississippi Sea Wolves, and Johnstown Chiefs; though it seems like a better option for the Allen Americans to do with their new ECHL affiliation with the Wild.

There’s plenty to go around. Minor league teams change like the tide, though thanks to teams owning their affiliates and markets being very solid in the industry– that’s slowed down a bit. Maybe there’s entire weekends that could be “Turn Back the Clock” weekends to bring back a little retro flavor and put some much needed attention onto the minor leagues. Anything in the name of a good gimmick.

Seventeen Years Ago, It Started in a Garage

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

0_head1200x200.jpg

In a garage in Lanham, Maryland- Broadcast Monsters Inc. had created their own, totally in-house hockey internet radio show out of the ashes of another hockey show. They had created shows for a year in a market of streaming media which was very untapped and created a format of “archived, on-demand streaming” which predated the podcast format and allowed people to not have to worry about appointment listening.

And on this date (August 8th) in 2001, the Face Off Hockey Show was born. It was supposed to be a hodge-podge debate show in the same vain as Pardon The Interruption, but it soon morphed into four friends getting together to talk about their life….and then occasionally hockey when it warranted.

Sure, I write something like this every year, but it still amazes me that we get another year older for this show that probably shouldn’t have been with everyone of the hosts moving locations a couple times for those years (which you can hear in our Patreon Extra Shows). For 17 years, we’ve been doing an average of a show a week– some weeks we have extra shows, some weeks someone is sick or technology gets the best of us and we don’t have one. Yet, since 2001– a month before the iPod came out– we started a show that’s still going today. Hell, it’s what gave me my most notoriety and allowed me to do what I’ve done since 2001.

This show has been with me for just under half my life. Hell, I haven’t been in a relationship as long as I’ve been on this show. Maybe that speaks more about me than my commitment to the show, but I digress. Even through all the moves– Marc’s on his 39th studio area and I’ve gone through two states and a province– we’ve still done this whole damn thing and made it work for two hours a week.

These past 17 years have been full of memorable moments, full of fun, full of debates, full of stupid shit that probably only makes us pop for ourselves. We’ve been able to get credentialed for NHL Events, NHL Parties, AHL, ECHL, NCAA, WHL, World Juniors– a whole helluva lot. However, it’s been tougher in recent years, as it seems those in the NHL Communications department doesn’t think we’re worthy enough on our own history to be credentialed under Face Off Hockey Show– this showing when I met someone in that department and when I mentioned who I did podcast for….they knew who I was, what the show was, and didn’t seem too pleased with either. But that only drives me more to get you to know our name and, as the kids say– put some respect on it.

It’s been awesome. But there’s still a lot to come from Face Off Hockey Show and the Face Off Hockey Show Media Faction. With the Media Faction, we’ve added the Soderstrom Bubble and will be adding a yet-to-be-named Maryland hockey podcast which will follow the NAHL’s Maryland Black Bears, all the club hockey teams, all the Marylanders in pro hockey, some of the high school stuff– and maybe add more stuff to our network; who knows. We’ve had a wrestling podcast just waiting for a while now– the stars just haven’t aligned.

For the people who have listened for a while or if their first show was a week ago– thank you. While we mostly do this show for ourselves because we like to talk to each other about hockey and see what everyone is up to– we also appreciate the friends we’ve made from the people who have listened to our insane podcast. We appreciate you though we may act like total asses about it.

Thanks to everyone who has listened, who might listen, or who have supported us without listening (Thanks Mama Wazz and Big Stan)– we appreciate it more than you know.

Here’s to another 17 years.

Summer Meandering: Capitals Stanley Cup DVD Review

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

thumb.jpeg

This is exactly what the title describes– it’s my review of the Caps Stanley Cup DVD. Despite it taking almost 30 years for me as a fan to get this DVD….what would be another couple days, as I saw many people getting their DVDs a couple days before release and me getting mine a couple days after– way to go Fanatics, North Dakota, and USPS. Regardless, this was the automatic purchase for me and in all honesty, I was pretty excited considering the NHL Productions department usually does a bang up job when it comes to molding their footage into a solid collection of a season, career, whatever.

This is a long read. It’s very meandering– hence the title of this. So– here’s a TL;DR portion for it from me.

PROS: Interviews with players, personnel, and everyone involved; solid game footage and variety of calls
CONS: Censorship of language on a DVD; terrible bonus coverage; not enough time dedicated to some of the regular season and some playoff series

Okay, so now pack a lunch because it’s a quite thorough thing from me, trying to capture the moment like Dicky Dunn.

Continue reading →