The National Hockey League hosted what it believed to be the first ever nationwide “Tweetup” in professional sports on April 15th,  done in conjunction with the first game of the playoffs.  Coverage included 21 cities in the US and Canada.  One blogger stated, “The parties were planned in part to drive community excitement for the playoffs and part to create some buzz around thePORTAL, which is a redesign of sorts of the official NHL site to better showcase playoff content.”

Cities included were:  Anaheim, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Regina (Sask.), San Jose, St. John (NB), Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC.

NHL spokesman Mike DiLorenzo said, ““My expectation is that people will really, really enjoy this.”  He continued to say, ““We’re doing this for all the right reasons. We have a very tech savvy fan base that loves Twitter so we’re overlaying that with their love for the NHL. My hope is they come away from this saying the NHL is really cool to start the NHL playoffs this way. Down the road we’ll figure out other ways we can leverage this from a business perspective.”

For those not familiar with the term “tweet-up,” it essentially means a party made up of Twitter users. The host cities took it even further and scheduled giveaways, and prizes if you attended, including autographed items from your favorite NHL players.   Most had backing from radio station personalities and other news outlets.

Want more information?  Visit the official NHL Tweet-Up.

Kimberly Veautour