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I think that rather than dwelling on the past, we ought to be learning some lessons of effective promotion of our sport for the future from the Team USA/Canada games (minus the puffery — and after all, it was just an show). I was surprised not only at the crowds of people who wanted to watch ice hockey, but also at the range of sponsorship achieved by the promoters, as opposed to level of sponsorship achieved currently. Maybe the NZIHL needs to hire a professional promoter if they want to grow the sport. An up-to-date website would sure be a good start! But also, how about some newspaper and magazine stories? The Team USA/Canada show seemed to have no trouble planting their self-promotion stories in the papers.
The NZIHL needs to use newspaper and radio and giveaways to pack in the crowds. The rink needs to look like an exciting place to be. A game has to be promoted as an event, not just an ice hockey game between 2 teams. The NZIHL needs to appear more in the sports sections of our newspapers. It is entirely absent from the Sunday papers, for example.
I found it really sad that over this past weekend, there were maybe only 150 people attending the Thunder/Stampede games, as opposed to the full-to bursting crowd that jammed into the ice stadium just a few days before. I hadn’t noticed any mention of the games beforehand in the ODT or the give-away papers.
Yep, I was Team USA’s coach. My oratorical skills enabled me to deliver a Herb Brooks style speech after the second period, and that must have fired up the boys to come through to beat Canada 7-6.
There is some case law on the Fair Trading Act, but each case is decided on its own facts. The main legal issue here (actually, mixed law and fact) would be whether the advertisements are actually misleading, or merely puffed up (eg, “Canada vrs USA”). I suppose it could depend on whether this is supposed to be taken as a real hockey game (which, unsanctioned as it is by the NZIHF and other bona fide hockey bodies, would be unlikely), or as simply an athletic event or demonstration akin to professional wrestling.
I checked the definition section of the Act out of curiosity, and “service” certainly includes amusements, entertainment and shows, so a demonstration hockey game would be covered under the Act.
There aren’t a lot of prosecutions under the FT Act (11 last year, 30 the year before), as most people are brought into line by informal CC inquiries, as here. I think what will influence whether the promoters here are prosecuted is whether people who attended the games will complain about being misled and ripped off. By that stage, however, the circus will have left town, and only the NZ promoter will be left to carry the can, not the Canadian guy who is organising the event. And if the NZ promoter has a limited liability company, the company could be wound up in the flash of an eye if there is any prospect of heavy penalties.
Sorry to disappoint you guys, but the Commerce Commission would be as interested in your beef as the LA Police was in tracking down the kids who stole Jeff Lebowski’s car…
The Commerce Commission would only be interested in taking action over some very large scale rip off. And the situation here is very very borderline. In the legal world, it might just fall on the side of “puffery”.
I had made a complaint to the Commerce Commission years ago that went nowhere. When I was shipping my stuff to NZ from the US, my shipping agent here was an alcoholic gambler who took the clearance fees from me and a couple of other people and just drank and gambled it all away. Meanwhile, our stuff was just sitting in customs without being cleared, racking up several thousand dollars in storage fees because the guy hadn’t paid the necessary fees (which we had sent him the money to do). This matter made the newspapers in Christchurch several times, and the Police were involved but they too didn’t do anything since it was more of a civil than a criminal matter they said (and the wayward agent was a former policeman, which maybe had something to do with it?). Eventually, my US shipper had to take care of things — about 6 months later. But the Commerce Commission, while keeping a “watching brief” on all of this, did nothing.
“Also I tried googling their hall of fame broadcaster Terry Toulet, and it asked if I meant Terry TOILET?”
Is this close enough? There is a page on toilet hockey at: http://www.coffeeswirls.com/?p=985
Ok then. How’s this for a plan?
In the future, the Thunder could link up with a local travel agent (one of our hockey moms, for example) and promote a New Zealand tour for overseas senior hockey players. Depending on the target country, the Thunder could be playing exhibition matches against “Team USA” and “Team Canada” in alternate years.
Not only would it raise the profile of hockey here, if promoted properly, but there is likely to be some profit in it as well (which would help pay for the radio/tv advertising etc).
In North America, there are all sorts of camps for senior players (i.e., ordinary wage slaves who want to combine some travel with re-living their youth by playing hockey, normally a camp and/or competitive games with other senior players). For example, I recall they have one at Lake Placid every year.
Yeah, it is pretty funny that it is the Moose after all.
But you have to give the organizers one thing: they sure know how to promote via radio, press release, etc. This event has turned out to be way higher profile than any NZIHL event has ever been. Perhaps we can learn from them? I’ve had all sorts of people ask me about this Canada vrs US series. No one ever asked me before about NZIHL games. People out there who have never seen a hockey game before are curious and now wanting to go to this event. The games may seem like a laughable jack up, but the promotion is really getting ice hockey out there in front of people who never were interested before.
I’ve got to say, though, that the reffing left a lot to be desired — probably both teams copped their share of dodgy calls, but most seemed to go against Southern (or more probably I noticed them more).
My favourite call was when a Southern player was penalised for something or other when only one metre away, a Canterbury player was repeatedly using a Southern kid’s head as a punching bag, and the Southern kid was about half the size of the Canterbury player. I thought for sure it was the guy doing the punching who was going to get the call. I also learned about a lot of new infractions: going for the puck is now “slashing” when the only contact is with the other player’s stick (causes annoying scratches, which lower the resale value), and being pushed down on top of another player is cross-checking on the person who has been pushed. I guess when a player falls down next to another player and makes a big noise, you gotta call something, right?
Scores for latest Southern v Auckland Under 16 games:
July 31: a tie, Southern 1, Auckland 1
Aug 1: Southern 4, Auckland 1This is all second hand.
I understand that Southern lost both pre-season games to Canterbury.
i was told that Southern won the second game against Auckland 8-7 and that it was a very exciting third period. Southern was down something like 6-2 going into it, and caught up. The equalizing goal came close to the end. Then with a minute or less to go, Southern was playing shorthanded, killing a penalty, and Auckland decided to pull their goalie. The winning Southern goal was made by a back-handed shot hit into an empty net from just over halfway down the ice.
Hey, I’ve known about the Easton Cup since the notice was put up on the DIHA website. But it all related to teams, and there did not seem to be any way for individuals wanting to play to operate within that particular framework.
I thought maybe there’d be something here online on team formation, available teams, etc even some gossip as what teams there were going to be, what teams had available slots, who was organizing, etc. But not a word. I didn’t ask because I wasn’t going to play. The Easton Cup has been going for years, but my older kids (21 & 19) never played because they never were asked or in the know about it (it always seemed to be some older guys’ thing), and now I guess the whole event is below their radar. I guess it is the younger players who aren’t very good at organizing themselves and need a framework where they can say “Yeah, I’ll sign up for that”.
I’ve been at the rink numerous times (as in several times a week) over the past couple of months, but I never heard anyone talk about the Easton teams, who was forming a team, what teams there were going to be, etc. So it just seemed to be a mystery to me. I thought maybe the Juniors were going to put in a team, but I hadn’t heard a word about that. The Juniors seem just to have collapsed this year.
The under 19s are the age group that I was actually concerned about, because that is a group that tends to expend very little effort in organising things for themselves or putting themselves forward, asking to play with the “grown ups”, etc. Maybe they just need to get over that.
