Reebok's CCM Hockey brand is driving home the message that "there's more to hockey" than the NHL, introducing a "new advertising campaign with the theme Start Your Legend," according to Pat Hickey of the Montreal GAZETTE. While CCM products are endorsed by "some of the brightest young stars in the game," including Avalanche LW Gabriel Landeskog, Oilers C Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Islanders C John Tavares, the latest ad campaign is centered "around a group of youngsters from the Montreal area." With the help of minor hockey organizations, CCM "identified 1,100 promising 10-year-olds to participate" in CCM Skills Camps. The campaign represents a "chance to sell the youngsters on their products and the camps also served as a testing lab for its new Crazy Light foam protective gear and the new RBZ stick." When it was decided to build a print and video advertising campaign around the youngsters, CCM "unleashed a casting director on some of the 125 youngsters who attended the Montreal camp." The kids in the ad "are seen playing street hockey and shooting pucks in a garage, with each youngster predicting: 'I am the future.'" CCM VP/Global Marketing Glen Thornborough said, "Choosing some of these players to be part of our campaign was not difficult after seeing how dedicated they all were and how much enthusiasm they had for the game." Hickey noted the cancellation of the Jan. 1 NHL Winter Classic "provided CCM with an unexpected opportunity to expand on its commitment to youth hockey" (Montreal GAZETTE, 12/9).
TEENAGE DREAM: SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's Liz Mullen reports CCM is "close to signing a multiyear head-to-toe apparel and equipment endorsement deal with 15-year-old hockey phenom Connor McDavid, the No. 1 pick of the Ontario Hockey League." The deal would be "the most significant deal Reebok has signed with a young hockey player" since '05, when it signed Sidney Crosby, 17 years old at the time, to a five-year deal. McDavid, who will be eligible for the '15 NHL Draft, would be the "youngest hockey player to endorse Reebok" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 12/10 issue).
