Not many people pay attention the NHL (National Hockey League), or its All Star Game. However, it's garnering more attention this year because an internet campaign is about to land a virtual nobody in the starting lineup:
Much like Sylvester Stallone has done with Rocky, Rory Fitzpatrick campaigners have taken a charming story and launched it into the realm of the ridiculous -- and the NHL couldn't be happier.
The league is embracing the 'Vote for Rory' efforts which now seem poised to elect to the all-star game a bottom-roster Canucks defenceman who has as many points as the fans voting for him (zero).
"I hope that from a human standpoint, for once, we can all just have a moment of fun with something without sentencing ourselves to paralysis by analysis," said NHL spokesman Frank Brown. "I have a pretty strong feeling that everyone who has played this year at an all-star calibre will end up on the ice in Dallas.
Fitzpatrick is an unlikely champion, which is what makes this great. He has played for 5 teams in a 10 year career, and he's currently 12th on his team in playing time.
It started on a chat board, expanded to a website (voteforrory.com), and now includes 'ads' for Fitzpatrick's bid on Youtube. Here are two very funny political style attack ads:
With Major League Baseball also allowing fan voting for the All Star Game (I don't know about the other major sports), look for copycat efforts.
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2 comments:
The NHL is getting 10,000% more media coverage of the All-Star game because of the grassroots web canpaign, see my catalogue at
http://tinyurl.com/yndm8y
Find complete updated coverage of the Rory Fitzpatrick campaign here
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