Social Media Club of the Year: This award recognizes overall excellence by a Club’s social media team, including maximizing the teams’ official social media channels to engage existing fans and capture the attention of new fans with outstanding creativity, consistency, and proven instinct to innovate within the NHL and across #smsports.
Winner: Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa has now won three Stanleys and has been nominated six times.
Sponsorship Activation: This award recognizes a creative and/or successful partnership campaign, platform or promotion executed in conjunction with one or more Club sponsor(s) with the goal of achieving mutually beneficial brand and business objectives.
Winner: Winnipeg Jets for their “Apologetically Winnipeg: A Slurpee Story.” This is Winnipeg’s second Stanleys win and fourth nomination.
Ticketing Initiative: Effort designed to generate new ticket sales or increase season ticket member sales or retention (e.g., new season ticket sales campaign, partial plan promotion, membership program, etc.).
Winner: San Jose Sharks for “Holiday Fees on Us” campaign. This is San Jose’s first Stanleys win.
Venue Business Initiative: This award acknowledges the Club and arena which improved the fan experience via enhancements, or new offerings in Premium, Food & Beverage, Guest Experience, or Mixed-Use Development around the arena.
Winner: Buffalo Sabres for the Buffalo Beer Sabre Sword concession product. This is Buffalo’s first win.
Strategy, Analytics, and Innovation: This award identifies overall excellence by a Club’s Strategy & Analytics group. Nominees should demonstrate a specific project that impacted the overall business via the use of data and technology (data warehouse, programming tools, statistical packages, APIs, front-end visualization tools, etc.)
Winner: Toronto Maple Leafs for their “Fan Access” program. The win gives Toronto its sixth win -- most in the NHL.
Presenters included Ryan Harris, former NFL player for the Denver Broncos and Super Bowl 50 Champion; Jeremy Bloom, three-time World Champion, two-time Olympian, 11-time World Cup gold medalist in freestyle skiing, former NFL player, and current CEO of the X-Games; Anson Carter, former NHL player and current TNT broadcaster; David Carle, men’s hockey coach at the University of Denver and 3-time NCAA men’s ice hockey national champion. Avalanche PA Announcer Alan Roach announced the winners as they came to the stage.
Each NHL Club answers a Stanley Awards “call for entries” submission process, and winners were chosen from 161 Club entries by an external judging panel consisting of leaders in the sports and entertainment industry. This was the eighth Stanley Awards, which began in Las Vegas in 2018.
From July 13-16, more than 1,300 representatives from the NHL’s 32 Clubs and League office are gathering in Denver for the NHL Club Business Meetings presented by Ticketmaster hosted by the Colorado Avalanche. NHL partner Ticketmaster (Official Ticketing Partner of the NHL) has been an NHL Club Business Meetings presenting sponsor for a decade. The event has grown exponentially over the years, with this year’s event being the most-attended Club Business Meetings ever. Apart from COVID-impacted seasons, the League has held Club Business Meetings annually for more than 30 years. A record 1,300-plus attendees are attending the meeting, with more than 35% of attendees participating in the meeting for the first time. The multiday agenda, developed in consultation with NHL Clubs, enables participants from around the League to share ideas, innovations and best practices that may have immediate and long-term impacts in every NHL market.
