Great story from theAHL.com showing how they put together the schedule for their 29 teams. Very interesting process… I was most surprised that it’s not just dumped into a computer.
Something to think about next time you play the weakest team in the league on a Tuesday night…it just might have been the only day possible. It’s also a good test of your promotional moxie…anyone can draw a Friday night when you host Kobe and the Lakers….but can you pack the house for Tuesday night and the Clippers?
It starts as a blank canvas, nearly six feet long and four feet high. It spans time and space, accounting for 194 days and hundreds of thousands of miles. And it will soon become the road map for 29 teams’ journey to the Calder Cup.
Goals are scored and games are won on sheets of ice across North 
America, but the centerpiece of the AHL’s hockey operations department is actually a giant magnetic schedule board hanging on a wall in downtown Springfield, Mass.
The making of the 2007-08 AHL schedule is a process that actually began six months ago, and will culminate when the final product is released to the public, sometime around August 1.
The AHL’s constitution calls for each member club to submit to the league, in February of the previous season, a list of primary and secondary dates on which it will be available to play at home. Teams also provide blackout dates, when they cannot play at home because of other events in their arena.
Around the end of the Calder Cup Playoffs, the AHL will confirm for each team a list of six guaranteed dates for the upcoming season. This allows clubs to begin making preparations and drumming up interest in the coming year. Many teams have already announced their guaranteed dates, some including their home openers, for 2007-08. (theahl.com)
-Cudo
The Philliies just became the first professional team (hey, what about the Washington Generals?) to lose 10,000 games. This from Glen Gower great blog:
Will the Phillies celebrate their 10,000th loss?
We’re waiting to see if the Philadelphia Phillies do anything to commemorate their 10,000th franchise loss. Pro sports teams rarely have a sense of humour about this kind of thing. But if they did, here are some suggestions: Play Beck’s “Loser” whenever a player comes up to bat. Rig all the promotions between innings so that there isn’t a winner. Have Al Gore throw the first pitch. Have a “guaranteed loss” night (free ticket if the Phillies lose).
Fun stuff….I love something as simple as the rigged contests. However, as noted, most teams don’t have the sense of self-depreciating humor to take this one on. Anyone who sees or hears what the Phillies do (if anything)…please let us know.
-Cudo
This YouTube video from the Pittsburgh Pirates and their crew of costumed characters (pierogies, the Pirate and the Parrot) spoofing the ending of the Sopranos. (the video can be seen below).
Gameops.com reviewed a Pirates game as part of our Six From Six Series last year. They put on a very good show and their video elements are very strong.
Great production values and editing in this spoof video. I would comment more, but I have never seen the Sopranos…to me this was a spoof of all the spoofs I saw on the Sopranos (like the Hillary Clinton version). I suppose it’s always a risk doing run ups on pop-culture, missing the segment of people (like me) who have no idea what the spoof is about.
For example, the parallel parking bit was funny (now that I heard that was part of the dialog from the show) but as I watched I had no idea what was going on. Having part of the audience in the dark is certainly no reason not to execute these videos, but doing as much as you can to make the videos “stand alone” is helpful. It’s the same steps you see when movies are made from TV shows, like South Park, the X-Files, and the Transformers (all of which took steps in the movie to introduce new viewers to the characters and general plot lines).
Funnier yet were the comments on YouTube about the video, including the question if Oliver Onion (the onion pierogie) was a cannibal for eating onion rings.
-Cudo
Check out nearly 500 videos related to game entertainment and operations on Gameops.com YouTube pages. The videos are indexed for easy viewing and searching.
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If your are looking for a game operations and entertainment blog today, this may be a disappointment. Rather today I just wanted to offer another book recommendation from the world of sports.
I just finished A Necessary Spectacle by Selena Roberts (sports writer for the NY Times). The book covers not just the 1973 Battle of the Sexes (tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs) but the effects of the life of Billie Jean King.
The book chronicles the intersection of three major players in the Battle of the Sexes (King, Riggs, and Margaret Court) along with many other players who shaped the event and the life of Billie Jean King.
At age five the young Billie Jean looked up at her mother and said, “I am going to to something special with my life.” Indeed. That girl turned into one of the great womens tennis players ever, but along the way became the cause celeb for women’s rights, feminism, equality and more. At each turn she shouldered the burden of being at the forefront of movements and causes, no matter the personal cost to her…and did it while performing at the highest levels of her sport.
The book was superbly written, full of valuable background and insights both of the sport and the people, but also the ripple effects of her life. The final chapters focus more on the current realities of women’s status in sports through the successes (and failures) of US Womens Soccer, womens tennis, and Title IX.
Billie Jean King stands along with athletes like Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson as truly great. In my eyes greatness doesn’t just come from winning, but is achieved by being true to yourself and your beliefs by being willing to risk your legacy in the sport in exchange for making a greater social change. It’s what separates Ali, Robinson, and King from Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth. Ali believed enough in his convictions on the war and the draft to risk his career, Robinson risked everything for racial gains, and Billie Jean lifted the equal rights movement.
Yes, I have listened to the debate about Jordan’s ability to provide this leadership through his “business leadership”, but I contend it’s very different since Jordan is risking nothing, unlike the others. Billie Jean King did the same thing with her business ventures (a women sports magazine, Team Tennis, etc) but also took the bold social risks that Jordan has never dare to take.
Finally, I thought the book was so powerful in illuminating the change King had in her lifetime. I am a huge Ben Franklin buff and marvel at the world he entered and the one he left, and the impact he had while living. He was born just following the Salem Witch Trials in an English colony. An unenlightened era in undeveloped world. He left a newly created country, an elevation of science, commerce, self awareness, and democracy….and he wasn’t just along for the ride. He had a tremendous impact along the way. After reading A Necessary Spectacle I started to feel that King has had a similarly powerful effect on the world, changing the perception of women, equality, and feminism. The little 5-year-old girl was right….she would do something special with her life.
–Cudo
PS: Thanks for indulging me through a non-game ops related blog. Enjoy the book.
Now hear this: Noise not needed
By Terry Pluto
CLEVELAND - I’m writing this at Jacobs Field. It’s the third inning of Tuesday’s Tribe game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The press-box windows are open; it’s 75 degrees.
I’m actually having a conversation with the person next to me — in this case, it’s Beacon Journal baseball writer Sheldon Ocker.
It’s doesn’t matter what we’re talking about….
OK, I’ll tell you….
Sheldon said he was on an airplane, “and a guy comes up to me with a bag of rolls and he wants me to hold them. He’s a big guy, really big, and he has this other bag. He hands me the rolls, then he reaches up to put this other bag in the luggage compartment. And his pants fall down! I mean, right there on the plane, there’s this guy with his pants around his ankles.'’
Granted, it’s one of those stories where you had to be there….
But the point is, I could hear it. I actually could talk to someone at a ballgame! I mean, he could finish a sentence without the scoreboard bellowing: “EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS! EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS!'’
You hear that at an NBA game, and you want to scream: “EVERYBODY JUST SHUT UP! EVERYBODY JUST SHUT UP!'’
I followed the Cavaliers from Washington to New Jersey to Detroit to San Antonio during the playoffs. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone — and hear anything — in any arena for two months. I had to SCREAM at people next to me.
As I wrote this, I heard the rumble of the crowd, and, off in the distance, a guy yelling, “BEER MAN HERE!'’ Slider was waddling around, giving away a pizza. Most people ignored him. Most people just sat and talked and munched popcorn and sipped soft drinks. Or they chomped down a hot dog.
They actually… relaxed!
In some NBA arenas, you feel like you are trapped in a garbage can, and there are three guys pounding on it with baseball bats: Boom… BOOM… BOOM!!!
They ought to use some of the music banging away at NBA arenas for torture techniques. By the third quarter, the hardest-core terrorist would be blabbing, willing to say anything to make it stop. He’d be begging, “Oh, no, not EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS one more time!'’
Just before I wrote this, the Indians’ scoreboard launched some fireworks. Sirens blared. Fans stood and stomped.
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The West Michigan Whitecaps are hosting Star Wars Night this weekend (team website). Including:
A post-game screening of The Empire Strikes Back- A Storm Trooper playing the national anthem on guitar
- The players will wear special themed jerseys which will be auctioned off after the game for the Make-a-Wish Foundation
- 30 costumed characters from the movies will roam the stadium during the game
It’s another example of a promotion that has some broad appeal (connected to the most popular movie series of all time) and also connects to an audience that might not normally be sports fans.
The team has a nice plan of activities to round out the promotion connecting a few elements of the game including the players, anthem, in-game entertainment and post-game.
We have added this to the Gameops.com Promotion Database which is approaching 800 promotions. The database includes an easy search feature and many links to additional information.
-Cudo