Mailbag #62: Mike Forman

RALEIGH, NC. -The offseason brings both time to reflect on what went well during the previous campaign, and time to properly plan for the upcoming fall.

This week Canes Chief Marketing Officer Mike Forman was kind enough to sit down and field some questions regarding some of the team's off-ice ventures.

(Please Note: Some questions have been edited for clarity.)

Is there anything preventing the Canes from selling merchandise, jerseys, gear, etc. at RDU or other retail partners? - @rhurley62

No, there's nothing preventing us. The one thing that people may not understand is that those vendors decide what products they stock, so the different merchants within RDU, they're the ones purchasing the products based on what they're seeing from a sales standpoint. It's not us providing them with items to sell on our behalf.

Specifically with RDU though, we've seen them carry a lot more products over the last few years, which is encouraging. I would just encourage those interested to continue buying because, in turn, they'll continue stocking.

Will the Hurricanes ever entertain doing a run of 5950 fitted hats at the team store or with a company like HatClub? - @BenjaminTubaugh

We have already started to bring in more and more New Era products. I think by the end of last season we had a few, but hats are a big part of our retail roadmap - improving the quality, options, and styles. You can expect to see more New Era caps. I'm not sure about 5950, I'd have to ask, but New Era, for sure.

Keep the Travis Matthew hats coming! - @therealkruse

We love them. The players love them. Our fans love them. They'll be back next season, with a few different variations.

Can we get more of the team-issued apparel for fans? And can we also work on getting better clothing options for women (minus the crop tops and bedazzling) - @LBHMNC

First, one thing that we changed a couple of years ago for the better is that we've now had our retail and marketing sit in with our equipment staff when Fanatics comes to town showcasing their team-issued apparel for the season. That's helped us align our orders on the retail side with what the team is ordering for the players. A lot of what the team wears is made available in the store. That's something we've been working toward because we know our fans want to wear what the players are wearing, so I think we're improving there.

From a women's apparel standpoint, it is also an area that we're improving, but it's also an area where we have a lot of room for growth. It's important to note that our main buyer and our second in command for retail are both females, so we do have an eye for women's apparel. That was something that was a big part of when we restructured our retail marketing department over the last couple of years. Children's wear has also become a focus as well. We are very aware that women and children make up a big percentage of our fan base.

Why can't we have a better team store? On any given game, there are only around 3-4 player jerseys. I've been to other stadiums and their stores have a much larger footprint and have jerseys for every single one of the players. - @dpalmy4172

For the most part, space is the biggest issue. I think our fans will be excited to hear that as we're going through our arena enhancements, which are hopefully coming within the next few years, one of the earliest projects is going to be an enhanced and much larger footprint in the retail store.

That's going to give us the opportunity to stock more player jerseys, more colors, more sizes, and actually have the opportunity to showcase the full line, along with our other products as well.

Right now space is at a premium. We have one of, if not the smallest, main team stores in the NHL. But when we have a team store that is much larger in square footage, it's going to allow us to do those things.

What was your favorite off-ice initiative from this past season? - @cpb97\_

If we can count it as one, the Stadium Series week and weekend as a whole would be mine. Not just the game. So much went into that week.

Not only the events that we helped plan but seeing the buy-in from the whole community was awesome.

One of the biggest takeaways we had, from NHL executives, all the way up to Gary Bettman, was that they thought this was one of, if not the most successful outdoor events ever because of how well the city and the entire region supported it. While they were in town they pointed out how they'd turn on the news and even the weather report was talking about Stadium Series puck drop weather. Every local news was talking about the Stadium Series.

When they go to these other, larger, cities while the outdoor game is a big event there, there are other several events going on. When we were pitching the game to them, we were saying to them how big of an event it would be for our city. It was very rewarding.

There were so many other fun aspects to the season though. I'm going to miss a ton, but the Max Pacioretty ice cream delivery was a good one. Moments like that are special from an entertainment standpoint. That translates to a social engagement standpoint too. It was our most highly-viewed Instagram video ever. Because of that, it starts making its rounds beyond the sports world. Accounts like Good News Movements, and others, it was just a feel-good story for everyone. Little moments like that are some of the memories that I'll have for this season.

Will there be a DVD of the Stadium Series event made available for purchase? - @IronCaniac

We are certainly open to it if there's a market for it.

How excited were y'all to throwback to the 2006 jerseys? - @OneTrueZach

We were pumped. A little peek behind the curtain with the jersey process here, but it's an 18 to 24-month process.

These types of things you have to hold in secrecy for a while. You know how successful they're going to be and how much you want to share with everyone what's coming, but it's one of the more challenging parts of the job.

We had seen people asking about the return of these uniforms, at least for an anniversary-type season, like we just had. We try to solicit feedback from our fans all the time on uniforms, just to see what's resonating and what may have resonated a few years ago.

It was one of those uniform launches where you know it's going to be successful before we even see the feedback. It turned out that way and they looked beautiful on the ice in the new adidas cut. Everything really popped with them.

A really exciting part was seeing how much the players actually liked them. I know we've put this information out there before, but we let our players choose what uniform they're going to wear at home in the playoffs. For the previous four seasons, they'd chosen the black because they all really like them. They still really like the black, but they voted for the Anniversary Reds in the playoffs, obviously. The fact that they chose that overwhelmingly as the uniform was pretty cool to see.

How long did the organization have the idea to acquire the rights to the Raleigh IceCaps? Did it come together fast or was this a long journey? - @Collinhomeice

It was a long journey. It was probably a five-year process when we first thought of the idea, which came because we had seen feedback from our fans. It was close to the 20th Anniversary, actually.

The wheels started turning and then it got brought up again when the Reverse Retros came out.

We worked with our General Counsel, (Vice President of Marketing & Brand Strategy) Dan LaTorraca and I, trying to track down the IP rights and see if we could get in touch with who controlled them and talk about the rights. We were eventually track down the records from decades ago and as you know, sometime last summer we negotiated a deal to secure the logo. Now we have the right to utilize it on different merch pieces and potentially bring it back for warm-up uniforms.

Ahead of that game when we wore them in January against New Jersey, we had probably about 8-10 former IceCaps players in town and they could not stop thanking us for having the opportunity to see their logo and jersey on the ice, even if it was for just a 16-minute warm-up. To see the logo they wore on NHL ice decades later was really rewarding and satisfying for them. It was fun to see how much joy it brought them.

Looking to next year, what are some things being discussed to fill the void of all the promotional stuff from the 25th anniversary and Stadium Series this year? - @YesIAmPirate

It is pretty challenging to come off of a year like this when we had so many special moments and events.

25th Anniversary season, creation of the Hall of Fame, hosting a Stadium Series game, the team making it to the Eastern Conference Final, winning a third straight division title, and hosting the Prospects Tournament. There was so much to it.

One thing that's exciting to us, at least as a marketing department, and hopefully as an organization, is that we're going to have a "normal" offseason for the first time in four years. That should give us an opportunity to think and strategize. It'll help us build out some of the campaigns that we've had on our roadmap for years but have had to take a backseat for obvious reasons.

There are things we've been working on and sitting on in terms of actually releasing that we can actually get off the group this year. Whether it's our brand new mobile app that we have coming shortly or other projects. We can also build on things, like making it an even bigger and better Hall of Fame weekend this upcoming year.

For us, I think the biggest thing is just the ability to think, and that's a very valuable resource.

What's the most rewarding part of your job? - @xCanes23x

The most rewarding part of my job is knowing that we work in an industry where people come and spend their hard-earned income to get away from the rest of their lives and their jobs.

They come to us to enjoy a night with their family at the events we put on. We know it's expensive, but we take that really seriously. Every single game people are paying their hard-earned income to come and watch and be entertained.

Our job is to entertain people. They have so many choices of how they can spend their money. That's what keeps us, or at least me motivated. Someone is coming to their first Canes game, every single home game. How do we make sure they're having an incredible experience?

We can't control the result of the game, but we can control a lot of other aspects of the experience. That's what keeps me excited.

One of the most challenging parts, not just with the Canes, but in all of sports, is that the counter to that is that one of the most important parts of our job is the team's success on the ice. And we have no control over that. A lot of times it looks like everything we're doing is perfect when the reality it's just the team playing well. Everything looks like it's broken when the team is not playing well. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. That's both exciting and challenging.

Is he going to the College World Series to watch Wake Forest play? - @RaleighCanaic

If Wake makes it to the Championship series and is one of the final two teams, I will find a way to get myself to Omaha. I don't know how and it doesn't look cheap, but I will be in Omaha for the championship series - if Wake is there.

I was very fortunate to be able to go to the Super Regional game in Winstom-Salem when they clinched it and advanced to Omaha for the first time in 68 years. It's pretty cool to have my kids with me, who will not remember that game whatsoever. (Laughs). But I'll remember that game, and they got to see a part of Wake Forest's history.

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