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Michael Rasmussen, You Will Always be Famous

Michael Rasmussen, You Will Always be Famous

The 400-team Atlantic Division pile up will die, but menacing empty net cellies live forever. This week in hockey: The Sharks are bad, the Avalanche are not, and Utah is a secret third thing.

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Sara Civian
Oct 28, 2024
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Michael Rasmussen, You Will Always be Famous
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Do you ever think about the bigger whys of sports fandom? No, not “My dad grew up a Cowboys fan and I inherited this life of familiar misery,” or “I’m hundreds of thousands in debt to the University of Hard Knocks and I’m going to get something out of it.”

I’m talking about the threads that connect all of us, like that time the NHL advertised its TV service as a place with “No soap operas, just hockey.” Even the most annoying Blue Check contrarians had a hard time justifying that one.

It was meant to convey that NHL.tv would have no reruns or fluff, just the hockey you signed up for. I’m not sure “promoting all the things the product doesn’t include” was a winning tactic to begin with, but I didn’t graduate from one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades.

Anyway, the premise was harmless, but the execution was so poor that it became another artifact in the “the NHL doesn’t get it” museum. The ad still circulates every time the league embarrasses itself, with a picture of the embarrassing happening du jour photoshopped in the “just hockey” portion of the graphic.

People have already covered the dozens of ways this campaign missed the mark on a micro level, but consider the macro: Sports fandom is at its best when there’s a flare of soap opera drama. Denying that does nothing but limit your marketing possibilities and alienate people. You saw the Carolina Hurricanes break attendance records, social media records, and merch records with the “Bunch of Jerks” thing. You see the NFL leaning into the Taylor Swift of it all. And hey, I can’t be the only one watching Jackie Redmond flourish in her role at WWE, a categorically dramatic endeavor. Consider that she’s one of the best and brightest ambassadors of the NHL because she’s always had that enthusiasm for the moment and the ability to hone in playful drama.

The soap opera ad flopped so hard because of a bare-bones existential reality I was stripping down all week: Sports are about Something Happening.

People tune in for their own reasons, personal and societal, but we all tune in hoping Something Novel Happens. Something Happening in sports can be the perfect pinch of human error in the parameters of a controlled environment with rules and regulations (unless you’re an NHL referee during the playoffs, amIrite). Something Happening in sports gets the people talking, laughing, gasping, and memeing.

Witnessing The Event makes you feel connected to a group, plugged in, a citizen of society. You whip out your phone, excited to share The Thing with your bestie, your dad, or a random person at the bar. Or perhaps you’re watching it live at the bar, and you get to yell in a group or make a new friend.

I was by myself Thursday night watching the Devils blow it to the Red Wings, which was funny enough on its own. But then 6-foot-6 Michael Rasmussen scored on the empty net, and suddenly that net was quite full with one (1) puck and one (1) Jack Hughes inside it.

Rasmussen celebrated it just like any 6-foot-6 soap opera (or cartoon crab) villain would.

As it was all unfolding, I said out loud: “I love it when Something Happens.” My editor, a cat named Crab Rangoon, rolled her eyes and said it isn’t that deep. And maybe it’s not, but the soap opera persists whether we want to ShamWow every drop of meaning out of it or simply laugh and move on. Goal celebrations remain a bastion of fun and personality, an uncontrollable variable that’s allowed to just be whatever the individual player and the audience want it to be.

Rasmussen’s empty netter barely affected the outcome of the game, and it’s largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of the season. Yet, it’s the only Hockey Thing I showed the non-hockey lovers in my life this week, and we’re all basking in the meaninglessness.

Hockey is not “just hockey,” and it’s not void of “soap operas.” It’s a live source of entertainment and drama, and it’s OK to actively enjoy that. It’s OK to revel in the quirks that make your favorite sport your favorite sport – like a Rasmussen goal celebration, or the chirps, or the flow.

Me? I love it when Something Happens. Even better when the net’s empty.

From the vault: Goal celebrations that still tickle my fancy

Jaromir Jagr’s salute

The best thing about the Jagr Salute is its classic Jagr origin: He just saw the Denver Broncos’ Terrell Davis do it in the NFL and really liked it. Long live Jagr’s whimsy.

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