Uncategorized
Hockey Hilarity: What Were the Pittsburgh Penguins’ PR Folks Thinking?
Published28 Mar 2014
Friday funnies brought to you straight from hockey’s own players, media personnel, and broadcast botches. We’ll be mucking it up every week right here, examining puck ups, puns, tweets, and more!
Earlier this week, the Pittsburgh Penguins wanted to do something that I guess they thought would be a lot of fun for their fans by hosting a Q & A session with one of their players on Twitter. Most teams do this a few times throughout the season and it can be a nice way for fans to feel special, especially if the player the team chooses is both a fan favorite and a good guy… And that's pretty much where it went wrong for the Penguins. Their PR people, who I'm sure are a very nice bunch of folks, decided to go with James Neal. Neal is a good offensive hockey player. He has a good shot and he's a big guy, and he's probably a pretty nice person off the ice as most hockey players seem to be that way. Unfortunately he also does things like this: and this: and this: I don't even like Brad Marchand, he's no saint, but Neal is just the worst of the worst on the ice. He might be more disliked on a league-wide scale than say Matt Cooke or Raffi Torres because while he is gifted, he's some special kind of stupid as well and shows little to no respect for any of his fellow players. I'm all for playing a hard-nosed game, but do it the right way. Paul Stewart, a retired NHL enforcer and referee even wrote this piece on Neal's exploits and why both the NHL's Department of Player Safety isn't doing enough to curtail hits to the head and the players continuing to show a lack of respect for one another game in and game out. That's why choosing Neal led to tweets like these:
@penguins how badly do you want to knee us all in the head but your PR people won't let you? #AskNeal
— Lenamarie cusato (@lenamarie416) March 28, 2014
There's gotta be a catch to these cheap shots you're dishing out , full price appetizers? #AskNeal
— steve scott (@scubaduba15) March 28, 2014
@penguins #AskNeal what stretches do you do during warm-up to ensure that your knee isn't injured by another player's head?
— Graham Hynds (@GrahamHynds) March 28, 2014
We tried to #AskNeal after the game but he had already left the locker room.
— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 28, 2014
#AskNeal: will I be more likely to injure my opponent with an elbow to the jaw or a knee to the temple?
— Chris Owens (@StoneWallOwens) March 27, 2014
Thankfully, I was only blocked by @jneal_18 and not elbowed, cross-checked, or kneed. #AskNeal
— Tim Bowers (@TimBowers62) March 27, 2014
What's the ideal point in a game to try to injure a member of the other team? #AskNeal
— Bob Roberts (@BobRbrts) March 24, 2014
James (@penguins), Will you autograph my #JamesNeal poster? #AskNeal pic.twitter.com/TFUMFd38q6
— Mikey D, O&BP (@MikeyD_OandBP) March 24, 2014
And those are just a few of the many, many hilarious ones you'll find on Twitter. Here's a link to the #AskNeal hash tag, so please, find your favorites and enjoy this great gift, but also if you any of you do go into sports PR please, for the love of all that you hold sacred in this world, do yourself a favor and think about who you are going to pick for a Q & A session for just a second or two.
