It’s opening night in the NHL and there’s a lot to talk about. At least, there will be in about 2 hours when the first two games of the season are over and the Penguins/Canucks game is about to begin. By the way, you should watch that game because they are two of the best teams in hockey. That’s right, I’m advising all you east coasters to stay up past your bedtimes. It will be worth it.
Sure, there are a few things happening around the league: I could talk about naked Ryan Kesler or point out that Sidney Crosby is, y’know, still not playing hockey, but instead I’m going to talk about something else that has been discussed to death: Crosby vs. Ovechkin.
For better or worse, the NHL has hitched its marketing wagon to the thoroughbred pair of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. While Crosby’s concussion last season and long recovery period have illustrated the dangers of this style of marketing, it likely won’t be changing any time soon. The marketing push of this dynamic duo has spilled out into endorsement and commercial deals outside of the hockey rink.
Crosby has an endorsement deal with Reebok and appears in their commercials and has appeared in commercials for Gatorade, Dempster’s Bread, Tim Horton’s, and SportChek. Ovechkin, on the other hand, has a new endorsement deal with Bauer and has appeared in commercials for CCM, Eastern Motors, and Capital One.
What do these commercials tell us about these two players? Who has the better commercials?
