dekedangle_rpfanon | #26 — Vanek! with a Jurco

This is the twenty-sixth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Yeah, too bad there wasn't another great, top American hockey player that went to a US team in the last two drafts.

There might have even been a few, a couple of them to good TV markets, including one fantastic player to a market NBC loves.

(screened comment)

People in New England care too, or are at least aware. Boston is a decent market, especially for hockey.

Yeah, Buffalo is a good TV market itself, but that doesn't matter nationally if no one else in the country cares, which they don't. Matthews has far more potential to draw fans who wouldn't care about hockey otherwise than Eichel does.

For sure, in the Southwest especially. Market both of them.

ayrt

Yeah, I mean, they should! I personally find Eichel more interesting personality-wise than Matthews. But a casual fan or someone who's never watched hockey stumbling onto it through NBC isn't going to have that kind of perception of them. People like players they feel they can relate to, and geography and ethnicity are big parts of that.

Hating =/= not caring. It's the opposite of not caring, actually. Everyone hating Pittsburgh makes Pittsburgh much more appealing to national broadcast than most people being indifferent to Buffalo.

I honestly think being #1 and from Arizona has greater interest/marketing appeal for casual fans than #2 and from Boston. If you're not from the Northeast he might as well be from Canada. His story isn't exactly unique.

There's also the issue that hockey media spent most of the time comparing him to McDavid and saying he isn't as good. Matthews shouldn't get that.

Yeah, instead Matthews got that he would have been a solid number three behind them if he'd been born a couple days earlier. I know hockey fandom in general has a short memory and Buffalo's a shithole, but I'm still kind of shocked how quick people are to toss Eichel away. He would be incredibly easy to market. Like, blue collar white boys proving everybody wrong is the narrative. It might be less interesting than ~~Matthews' white upper middle class family getting him into hockey~~ the Mexican from Arizona TM, but people eat it up time and time again. Cliche because it works, know your audience, etc.

I think that non-casual hockey fans forget that there being a small amount of players who are of color and/or from below the 40th parallel is little more than a fun fact to fans who aren't attached to indicators of the game's growth.

I think that non-casual hockey fans forget that there being a small amount of players who are of color and/or from below the 40th parallel is little more than a fun fact to fans who aren't attached to indicators of the game's growth.

But... this is a total misunderstanding of what Matthews' potential appeal to new/casual fans is? that ironically is colored by non-casual/rpf fandom? No one thinks Matthews will help "grow the game" because the average casual is really invested in POC representation in sports or in the development of non-traditional markets. But hockey's main audience is currently primarily white people in certain geographical areas. Logically, a way to grow the game and increase viewership is obviously to appeal to demographics that have traditionally not been interested in hockey. People will watch an athlete and watch a sport they might not otherwise have cared about because a player is from where they're from, or shares an ethnicity or nationality with them. I've experienced this firsthand in my family, and seen it happen on a large scale in other sports, too. I do think people in this thread have been overstating Matthews' marketing importance, and understating Eichel's (no, it is not true that Boston "might as well be Canada"), but... just because you think that Matthews being "the Mexican from Arizona TM" is something to be derided and insufficiently worthy of interest because he's white and middle class doesn't change the fact that it will mean something to some Mexicans that he is Mexican, and something to Latinxs that he is Latino, and something to the Southwest that he is from there.

ayrt

I didn't mean to sound completely dismissive of Matthews' background, as it is pretty damn similar to my own, but having that experience also makes me doubtful of the extent of his impact. He's far from nothing, but race and class are far from insignificant if we're talking about how relatable the Latinx population at large is going to find Matthews, especially since it's not just a matter of him being white-passing (like, I get judged as not a real Latina for my father coming from a place that has a heavy white Hispanic population, even though me and him are both Very Not White).

It's really cool that someone has had such an impact on your family and another sport, but I've gotten such an overwhelming amount of "K, that's nice, please stop talking about your white nonsense," from my own community that I find it really hard to imagine us making a significant inpact on rankings, and as a result (mostly non-Latinx, as far I can tell) people's response Matthews keeps striking me simplistic to a fault. But I also don't have the full power of mass media behind me.

People on this thread also seem to be ignoring that sports aren't happening in a vacuum. Even in traditional, good hockey markets you're competing with baseball, basketball, football.

#26 — Vanek! with a Jurco

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