NHL playoffs about to get excessively hairy

Nine NHL playoff teams have launched a charity Beard-a-Thon campaign, with ad support by Cenergy and Fuseideas. Hockey players like to grow beards because it hides their many facial scars. Kidding. It's a tradition for fans and players to let facial hair grow during the playoffs. (Sports has lots of dumb traditions like that.) Anyway, sponsors can pledge 50 cents or mire for each day their favorite bearded friends avoid shaving. Local charities like Make-a-Wish, the Greater Philadelphia Food Bank and Boston Medical's SPARK Center benefit. There are prizes for the top beard-growers, too, but I think a certain hirsute Bruins booster will win the competition paws down. UPDATE: After the Bruins swept the Canadiens, the clawed one in question staged the victory dance below as his whiskers keep growing for at least one more playoff round.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on April 22, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Cenergy, Fuseideas, Gianatasio, Hockey, NHL

Pittsburgh sports fans, it's time to move on

Pittsburgh has other pro sports teams besides the Super Bowl-winning Steelers? It's true! But they're all hopeless losers who haven't worn championship rings since dinosaurs roamed the earth. All the more reason they need ads, perhaps. Here's Cenergy's new work for the Penguins, who are currently in fourth place in the Atlantic division of the Eastern Conference. The ads target 11th-hour ticket seekers and time-shifters on tight schedules who apparently don't care that a 7-0 loss to the Bruins is still a blowout even if they watch it online the next day. The wedding spot above and this office cubicle spot are cute and effectively illustrate the "No matter where I am, I'm in the game" mantra. And yet, given the team's performance of late, wouldn't they rather be someplace else?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on February 5, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under Cenergy, Gianatasio, NHL

MasterCard traces a hockey legend's scars

I usually hate commercials that use tough-guy sports metaphors. But this MasterCard spot by MacLaren McCann in Toronto "cuts" through the clutter in the most literal sense of the word because of its focus on the pain, sacrifice and humanity behind every true sports icon. A hockey legend's many surgical scars from his playing days trace a humbling "timeline" across his skin. At the end, the player simply sits in the locker room alone, a poignant image of a man who earned his accolades by paying the painful price many times and always skating back onto the ice for more. It's Bobby Orr, but he's never ID'd, implying that his hard-earned achievements outlive the fleeting fame. Besides, in Canada, they'll know who he is.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on October 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Gianatasio, MacLaren McCann, MasterCard, NHL

A new NHL season, and the gloves are off

One city picking a fight with another city? You'd have to say that this nicely captures the spirit of pro hockey. The Detroit Red Wings won the National Hockey League championship, and the Stanley Cup that goes with it, last season, so the Dallas Stars get in Detroit's collective face with this ad, via agency Door Number 3 of Austin, Texas. Considering that what's now the Stars franchise relocated from Minneapolis in the early 1990s, one could scarcely blame Minnesotans if they upbraided Dallas with an ad saying, "You've got something of ours." True, Minnesota has since acquired a fresh NHL franchise. But the new team has such a cheesy name that some folks in the Twin Cities (for instance, those who frequent this memorial Web site) must yearn for the days when they had the North Stars instead.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on October 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Dolliver, Door Number 3, NHL