Welcome to Clutch / Not Clutch a hot or not list for Flyers fans, and sometimes other hockey fans too. This month, the NHL has been working to get into their hub cities and finish off the 2020 playoffs. As the playoffs get started and the players get settled into their bubble routines, there are some things that happened that got us hyped up and some things that made us smack our heads so hard against the desk that we had to make an emergency trip to Ikea.
Let me just start this off by saying the following:
CLUTCH:
Welcome Seattle: The NHL’s latest expansion team picked the perfect time to finally reveal their name, logo, and jersey concepts.
The Kraken rose right before the playoffs began, which would have drowned out their reveal a bit, but far enough into the delay that we knew exactly how much time was left before hockey returned, helping to get fans excited for what was coming up.
The Kraken is a good name, their new logo (and the secondary too) is excellent, and the color scheme -while missing a bit of green- is unique.
Hub Cities: While sports going on at all is a bit iffy, and can feel shitty, the NHL is proving -so far- that isolation can work. It’s at least going better than the MLB’s plan which is “let the players from Florida infect the whole league and cause infection spikes in every city they go to.”
We have yet to see any hotel antics from the league, but they’re coming … probably.
Gritty Billboard: Mascots were not permitted to join the NHL in the hub cities so the Flyers had to leave Gritty behind. Obviously, this bunch of personality repressed players could use a chaotic catalyst like Gritty to get into trouble, but that would be an unnecessary addition when the league is trying to be safe first and foremost.
Gary Bettman says it’s because they don’t have a test long enough for Gritty’s…..beak? I think Bettman is just happy to not have to deal with him.
But the Eastern hub teams will still be reminded of Gritty every time they drive to the rink because Gritty cannot be left out. The Flyers purchased billboard space in Toronto and put Gritty front and center along with a bit of intimidation.
NOT CLUTCH:
Seattle Billboard Ripoff: The Seattle Kraken started off with a strong debut and even a pretty interesting reveal video. But social media is hard and the Kraken decided to make bad decisions early.
For some reason, the Kraken social media page decided to take Gritty’s billboard, edit Gritty out and replace him with their logo. Lame decision.
Flyers Early Break: The Flyers were the first team to play in an exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, which was fun. The exhibition games were needed to shake off some rust and make a few evaluations for the final roster decisions.
Then they immediately had a four-game gap between games. They play their first round-robin game on August 2nd, four days after beating the Penguins in an overtime exhibition game.
Just more evidence to suggest there is an anti-Flyers conspiracy in the NHL and no I will not be looking at other teams’ schedules.
The NHL’s Social Justice Stand: More seriously than a four-game break, or a bad social media decision, the NHL decided to fuck up in the most NHL way possible.
In a weak attempt to show solidarity with those fighting for social justice and equality, NHL players stood on the blue lines during the anthem. While other sports leagues are quietly protesting by kneeling or more loudly protesting by demanding justice during media availability, the NHL did what is basically nothing. And their weak message got the attention of the worst kind of people, earning praise from the Trump family.
In trying to play both sides of the field and not bother racists who think kneeling for the anthem is a major insult, they’ve shown that they actually don’t support their black players.
This is obviously incredibly more serious than just “Not Clutch” but the NHL’s failure should be brought up at every opportunity.
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