from Daniel Wagner of the Vancouver Courier,

The NHL doesn’t know how to market itself. At this point it’s nearly a truism, to which the aging audience of the league attests.

The problems are clear: hockey culture has a tendency to stunt individuality and squash its biggest personalities. There are even uglier sides to hockey culture, including racism, sexism, and homophobia. Those are all obstacles in the path of attracting a larger audience to the game, but not insurmountable ones. They just require a thoughtful, creative approach to the marketing of the game, particularly on social media channels inhabited by the younger audience that they want to attract.

Instead, the league ran a series of tone-deaf ads on Instagram that had the potential to alienate a large swathe of their potential audience.

continued