Pictures and video of the riots are spreading like wildfire (or should we say “riot” fire?) on Twitter, Facebook and beyond and this morning a spoof travel ad for British Columbia is climbing the YouTube charts, cracking a major joke about the Vancouver riots at the expense of British Columbia as a whole.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
Fans of the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals have emailed owner and former AOL president and vice chairman Ted Leonsis and suggested that the team’s players spend more time worrying about the 200 feet by 85 feet in the hockey rink and less time fooling around with the 140 characters on Twitter.
In a new twist on an old story, an agent to a professional hockey player is the one now making news after a comment on Twitter. Sean Avery, the polarizing agitator of the New York Rangers who in the past has made headlines for dirty antics and comments on and off the ice, is part of a this uproar, but not on the side you might think. Read more
The first round of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs is in full gear, and Jenna Dawn of Twitter posted a guide on the Twitter Blog so that hockey fans who use the microblogging network aren’t left in the penalty box.
Tonight begins an exciting and arduous two-month journey that will culminate in a 16th and final win for one hockey team, as they will earn Lord Stanley’s Cup and become the 2010-2011 NHL Championships. A national pastime in Canada, and often an oversight in the United States, the NHL offers arguably the most exciting playoff tournament of all sports, from start to finish. Unlike the NBA, there are plenty of first round upsets and series go much longer than simply four games. What’s more, the sudden death overtime is perhaps the most suspenseful part of the game, with so of the most memorable hockey games going late into the night until one player becomes a hero and breaks the deadlock.
At least one team in the National Hockey League is looking to get people excited as the New Jersey Devils are taking fan interaction to an unprecedented level. The historic hockey team with a passionate hockey fan base (as demonstrated in a memorable episode of Seinfeld), has set up ‘Mission Control,’ an office at the Devils’ arena run by volunteers to monitor news and work social media sites. The room is adorned in New Jersey Red, and stocked with computers, truly resembling a control room.
The National Hockey League and NBC Sports will team up with Facebook to give away prizes including a Honda CR-Z sport hybrid coupe and trips for four to Universal Orlando Studios and the 2011 NHL All-Star Game during the Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, in which the Washington Capitals will travel to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins New Year’s Day at 1 p.m. ET, airing live on NBC.
Fans who visit the league’s Facebook page and click the Watch and Win tab will automatically be entered in the NHL Winter Classic Challenge, and Facebook messages will appear on-screen during NBC’s telecast of the game to alert winners, who will then be called by NHL representatives and asked questions related to the game.
Social-media-marketing agency RocketXL helped develop the campaign.
The National Hockey League may contest its games on ice, but its new-media properties are red-hot, as the league issued a press release touting its accomplishments thus far in this young season.
The NHL said that through the first 24 days of the 2010-11 season, compared with the same period in the 2009-10 campaign, unique visitors are up 29 percent, page views 27 percent, visits 15 percent, video starts 155 percent, and articles read 77 percent.
Subscriptions to NHL GameCenter LIVE, which allows users to watch live, out-of-market NHL games via the Internet, are up 25 percent versus the same point of last season.
On the mobile front, NHL GameCenter apps have been downloaded more than 500,000 times during the first month of the season, and page views for the league’s mobile site were up 48 percent in October compared with October 2009. The GameCenter iPhone app is currently the No. 1-ranked sports app in Canada, and its iPad counterpart is No. 1 in Canada, with the free version in the United States coming in at No. 4 and the paid app at No. 5.
