0 – The number of sane people who buy NHL St. Patrick’s Day merchandise.
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, so you can be sure that the NHL is making a hard push to unload some of the dumbest merchandise it’s ever brought to market. Since we’re talking about the NHL, that’s saying quite a lot.
It seems that every year in recent memory, NHL teams ramp up marketing efforts around St. Patrick’s Day to sell holiday themed shirts. I get that they are trying to get in the spirit (read: capitalize on a holiday), but the execution just completely fails on multiple levels.
Take this example from the Montreal Canadiens:
Habby St. Patrick’s Day! Need something green for the day? We’ve got it at the #Habs Zone! pic.twitter.com/qKoPjyiuRf
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 17, 2014
Since most of you probably aren’t die-hard Canadiens fans, I’ll just go ahead and let you know that “McChuck” is not a player. No, this shirt is allegedly supposed to be for Alex Galchenyuk (I only know this because he currently wears number 27 for the Habs). This shirt, of course, makes absolutely no sense.
Let me start by giving the Habs some credit for the implicit admission that putting “McGalchenyuk” on the back of a shirt would look ridiculous. But how, in any way, does abbreviating it to “McChuck” make any more sense? Galchenyuk, of course, is not Irish (he was born in Wisconsin and is of Belarusian descent), and having to fall back on “Irishing up” a nickname just looks completely desperate.
Of course, our own beloved Flyers have jumped on this bandwagon:
St. Patrick’s O’@NHLFlyers gear is now available at Fan Zone at the @WellsFargoCtr. Pick yours up today! pic.twitter.com/TXiIeZVAXX
— Alicia DeFillipo (@FlyersPublicist) March 1, 2014
Get it? They take Mason, Giroux, and Lecavalier, slap an “O'” in the front and voila! Irish!
Why in the world they decided to pick these three players specifically is beyond me. Nobody wants a regular Lecavalier shirt — do you seriously think that they’re going to shell out $30 for this green turd? Also, two out of those three names are very clearly French-Canadian. Adding the “O'” just makes it look so incredibly stupid that I’m having trouble coming up with the words to describe how terrible it really is.
But the thing that pisses me off the most about these shirts is that when Sean O’Donnell was on the Flyers, they didn’t make one. Yes, the one time in recent history that this would have made a modicum of sense, the Flyers decided to pass. Sure, Sean O’Donnell was far from a great player, but come on.
Actually, come to think of it, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t go with it. “O’O’Donnell” would look pretty silly on the back of a shirt.
I’m not entirely opposed to the NHL showing some celebration, like when players wear stupid looking jerseys for warm ups. But this kind of blatant money grab that is executed so poorly is just embarrassing.
Save your money and spend it on booze.
