PR People Must Die

I'm going to begin this post with a little story. Settle down, children, and listen to wise old Uncle Paul.

Back in the mists of time, when I was a young lad obsessed with football and still smarting from the horrors of Euro 2000 and England's capitulation to Rumania, a friend of mine invited me to come and see this wonderful American sport called ice-hockey, which took place at the brand-spanking new ice rink that had just gone up in Coventry city centre. Back in those days it was a place where only a few hard souls watched players with names like Chartrand and Millie, and the ISL title had a young upstart team from Belfast chasing it. It was so long ago, kiddies, that Steve Moria was only 39 and Tony Hand was but a stripling at 33, and both were playing in a long-forgotten league called the ISL...

Anyway-when I walked in through the doors I was hooked-mainly because this was the first sporting event I'd been to where it was considered acceptable to play rock music during play. And because of the glorious anarchy of the thing-people messed about in the stands shouting at the players, there were fights, and the whole presentation looked like it was being made up on the spot and actually trying to be itself rather than something for everyone. It felt different.

For the next few years, as my team won things, I learned more about the sport, began to play it and fell out of love with football, it remained unchanged. This sport was cheap but not nasty, big but not driven by money (well, at least not commercially) and you got the feeling that things would stay the same....

Enter the evil dragon known as PR, followed by its twin, commercialism. Suddenly, the marketing men got their hands on things as clubs decided to stop doing what had worked for them up until now and decided that they wanted families through the doors. After all, they have the most spending power...

And now we are in a world created by demographics, spreadsheets, people who see the bottom line before they see the game itself, and people who talk in terms of "guaranteed income" and "merchandise". A world where we get six different kits a season so three can be marketed-a world where every night seems the same as every other sporting event/kids party. A world where the product on the ice may be as good, but it's being neutered by the cookie-cutter presentation off it. The otherness of hockey has dropped as the prices have risen...costs go up as the USP of hockey (its rawness-its aggression, and the fact that it seemed proud to be different in all areas) have fallen away, drowning in a whirl of account spreadsheets, marketing figures, and "fan initiatives" which often funnel more money in and prey on the mind with a "if you really support the club, then come join us for this" message.

And who can we blame for this? Certainly not the matchnight volunteers who work hard making sure the lights go on, the music plays and the mascots dance-they're working as hard as ever. But they're being driven not by their passion for the sport, but by the constant whisper from the marketing department..."if we play it safe, be like everyone else, and appeal to everyone, we can't go wrong".

Sorry. But this writer thinks you can. And if you read the forums, he isn't alone. One of the main complaints at most clubs when it comes to the management is "the sterile atmosphere-the kid's partiness of matchnights."

The fun is being slowly sucked out of hockey-the defence that "people like it the way it is" is built on people new to the sport who have never seen the old WNIR rocking to heavy metal and stamping feet, heard the roar at a packed Steelers'/Panther's derby or experienced a BNL-era Blaze away coach trip. In trying to please newbies by making hockey just like everything else, hockey teams are risking losing the very thing that attracted their crowd to the sport in the first place.

Yes, I admit that the title is sensationalist-I am not actually advocating murder. Nor am I saying that these marketing people don't work hard. Because they do. I know-I've worked with them. They are arguably some of the most passionate people you'll meet. Trouble is, when it comes to the selling of their sport, the head comes first in their thinking, rather than the heart. What I am saying is maybe, just maybe, they're aiming their efforts ever so slightly off target.

I've been the one playing the music on a matchnight-and had the friction with those who supposedly "knew" how they wanted things to sound, because all I ever did while up there was play stuff I thought fitted-stuff that had been the norm over the speakers when I started watching the game. When I started watching, continued to watch and then played the music myself, a hockey night didn't have all the inflatable hands/twenty different hoodies at the concession stand/a big merchandise stand selling tat at every rink. You got the shirt raffle, a fifty-fifty draw, a replica shirt if you were lucky, and that was it. As for the music-it was rock, and it was loud-it was unashamedly different, and there were moments when a fair few people in the crowd probably couldn't have "named that tune" or claimed it to be mainstream entertainment if you'd put a gun to their head. And it certainly didn't please all the people all of the time. Sometimes, considerably less.

But here's the thing that maybe the PR people don't want to hear. It worked. And the crowds kept rising even though the prices did.

Now? Now we have "family tickets", "flex packages", a nice mix of music that even Grandma can't find offensive, merchandise coming out the tailpipe, and everyone tries to emphasise the "family sport" aspect in every possible way.

Trouble is, now people complain the sport is business-oriented, the atmosphere has dropped, and watching just isn't fun. Funny, that, ain't it?

Well, you used to see families back then, too-and they loved it then even if the seats were slightly uncomfortable or the music was a bit heavier then Mum, Grandma or little Ellie in the pushchair had heard before and you could only buy one or two types of ticket-standing or seating. Because it was different.

Now, thanks to the PR people deciding they need to appeal to everyone, the very thing that set hockey apart is dying. And no amount of flex-ticket packages, "meet the players" nights, etc, can compensate.

Be brave, people. Stand up for old-time hockey. Clubs-play the music loud, throw away the "High School Musical for the kids" CD, and forget the club-themed underwear-spend the money on some classic hockey rock or making the replica shirts cheaper instead. Or better still, on getting people through the doors through posters, radio ads, free tickets given away on the day of the game, or the day before in city centres And forget trying to influence the crowd to clap along. If the game is going well, the crowd are allowed to shout, the rock music is pumping and the magic of the hockey night is allowed to flourish, then once people are through the doors (as they will be if ticket prices are kept reasonable and not allowed to rise year on year) they'll be hooked. Just like I was.

Go on. Dare to be different.

After all-that's what hooked me...