A new season has started in the National Hockey League. The schedule of the first gaming day included as many as three matches, each of which followed exactly one another. Formally, the headliner of the hockey festival was supposed to be a meeting between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Seattle Kraken, two of the youngest NHL franchises. After all, the reigning champion, who last season amazed everyone with his resounding triumph, is returning to the game.
The Golden Knights did their best to attract attention to themselves, organized a gorgeous ceremony to raise the championship banner, and did everything bright, expensive and rich. But the general gaze was directed in the other direction — to the Pennsylvania area.
In Pittsburgh, the local Penguins met with the Chicago Blackhawks and suffered a disappointing defeat, losing a 2:0 lead. This match would have been ordinary if not for one “but” named Connor Bedard. The Canadian prodigy became the main hero of the latest draft, and Chicago fans, after the club won the lottery for the first draft pick, lit up with happiness and began to pray for the rising star. The 18-year-old forward is predicted to have not just a great hockey future, but the title of the main revolutionary of the entire NHL. In North America, they are convinced that he is capable of rewriting the history of the league. Much the same as Connor McDavid is doing now.
Over the past months, Bedard has been surrounded by journalists from all sides, many interviews have been recorded with him, documentaries are being made about him (remember, the hockey player only turned 18 years old in July), the league and leading American media are creating a bunch of different media content with the participation of the Canadian. It was his debut in the NHL that became the main event of the opening of the new season. For this reason, the league carefully worked out the calendar of matches and deliberately sent Chicago to start the championship against Pittsburgh. Why with the Penguins? The answer is Sidney Crosby. The famous Canadian forward, a member of the Triple Gold Club, is a childhood idol for Bedard. Piting them against each other in the first match of the season is an ideal scheme.
And literally. Before the game, Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan was asked if he would release Crosby's starting five to face Bedard on the first shift, and the Pens coach answered unequivocally: «The guys who start are the guys who give us the best chance to succeed.» «Crosby and Bedard are the faces of the NHL. Sid has been one, having been an ambassador for the league for almost 20 years, and Bedard has an exciting and promising future. It's a great story to celebrate. The guys are amazing players and people in their own right, so I understand Why is there so much talk about this situation.»
Everything went according to plan: idol and fan, NHL legend and future league star, Canadian veteran and Canadian young man met face to face already at the opening face-off. The NHL even made a show out of this with referee Kelly Sutherland, who began officiating league games when Connor Bedard's birth was not even in the plans.
The pages and pages of all media were full of only one surname — Bedard, Bedard, Bedard. ESPN, one of the NHL's main broadcasters, was talking about the young Canadian's debut throughout the Tampa Bay Lightning-Nashville Predators game, which took place before the game in Pittsburgh. Did Bedard come to the arena? Already a reason for a plot. On the way to the locker room, the debutant forward was surrounded by dozens of journalists and videographers, as is usually the case when Conor McGregor enters the Octagon. Bedard getting ready to warm up? Another story.
A video has already spread across the Internet of how a Canadian, out of excitement, simply forgot his hockey stick in the locker room. They made a whole news story out of this episode—even it was shown as a separate piece of news on the NHL website. Did Bedard skate without a helmet? And this is also an information point.
The already meticulous North American journalists literally looked at Connor’s every action on the court during the match under a microscope, calculated a variety of statistics and promptly displayed them after almost every shift of the hockey player. How did Bedard end up playing? Quite successfully: just over 21 minutes on the ice, five shots on target, one assist and only two face-offs won out of 13 (the Canadian, for example, lost all five face-offs to Evgeniy Malkin). Nothing supernatural, but this will be enough for journalists to draw certain conclusions.
A lot of attention to the young player. It seems that even too much. Is this justified? On the one hand, yes. The Canadian captivated everyone with his play last season, admired his level of skating, game thinking, vision of the court and ability to calculate the situation several moves ahead, as well as his throwing, technique and statistics. 143 points (71 goals and 72 assists) in 57 regular WHL games and 23 points (9+14) in seven World Junior Championship games are impressive numbers. On the other hand, such an extensive media campaign looks crazy. At a minimum, because Bedard is not yet a star at the adult level, but all the advances have already been given to him. To understand the situation, look at how the Russian media are promoting the person of Matvey Michkov (and for a reason), and multiply the power of this dynamo ten times.
Formally, the NHL has found a new hero for itself. Yes, there is Alexander Ovechkin, who breaks real and unreal league records. There's Connor McDavid, who does exactly the same thing. But talking only about Ovi's pursuit of Wayne Gretzky and the McDavid phenomenon, it seems, will not go far and you will not earn much, and stars like Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Auston Matthews, Nikita Kucherov, Jack Eichel and Leon Draisaitl, although they are amazing hockey players, but the media doesn’t seem to be adding dividends. And it seems that the power of the mass media, which is already squeezing all the juice out of Bedard, is impressive. However, at the same time, no one guarantees the failure of the entire campaign.