You now own a financially struggling NHL team.

Let's assume I've got my president and my GM and my coach and am taking care of that business under the hood to the best of my ability.

I can't help but think of the potential value of PR that showcases the players' personalities and the prospects, too, in these situations. Creating a strong and personal emotional connection between the team and the community is one avenue to getting the fans to root for the players during hard times.

If the team is financially struggling it's a bit harder to get something on the scale of Behind the B/In The Room/The Deep off the ground, but in a world where even cell phones have cameras surely you can get some fun lil' webisodes going (ones you can embed on Twitter) to showcase players' personalities.

Ideally, obviously you're initially targeting the fans you've already got on your Twitter but creating positivity they can carry into the larger community. And if you land a hit, they may get their friends to watch it and it'll remind those friends the team, y'know, exists, while subtly emotionally roping them in.

Shit, with the Wings even with our struggling contracted players I'd like to see "Riley Sheahan visits the local animal shelter" and "Cooking with Jonathan Ericsson" shorts to put these guys in environments they thrive in off the ice. God forbid people ever see Ericsson's big charismatic smile.

I'd put extra emphasis on the young players that are the future of the team and the prospects I also hope will carry the team. Kids are fun! I wanna let them be fun! On camera! If they wanna be as fun as the Syracuse Crunch that's great, too!

The reality is as your team rebuilds some of these players will be involved in trades, or even buyouts, but you can navigate that by communicating a clear direction and in the case of trades emphasizing the other team is trading because they want that player and you hope they'll thrive on their new team while you're also bringing in a piece your team needs to succeed.

It's getting your emotional hooks into the community that is gonna sustain your audience and reel more folks in. I'd focus on making sure my people are doing a good PR job -- which will take some pressure off my under the hood folks and let them do their jobs to put the house in order.

/r/hockey Thread