Sport-Fan Connect » Case Studies

Iowa State Cyclone Hockey – Video

aaron@aahacreative.com — Sat, 22 May 2010 23:13:09 +0000

During this past week, Trevor Turnbull (Co-Founder of Sport Fan Connect) had the pleasure of visiting his old college hockey program in Ames, IA, the Iowa State Cyclones. It was the first time in 10 yrs that Trevor had been back to his old school and was a very rewarding experience for everyone involved. Trevor met with the Marketing, Communications and PR staff and consulted with them to help them further implement social media into their strategy this upcoming season. There will be more content uploaded in the next few days, but in the meantime, I wanted to share a video with you that was put together by the team.

This video was put together by one of the players following the 2009-2010 hockey season. There really is nothing like the bond that is created between teammates…..no matter what sport you play! This video does a great job of showing the passion behind the Iowa State Cyclone hockey program and really exemplifies the experience of playing college athletics.

Great job guys! If you’d like to check out the Cyclone Hockey program, you can find out more at http://cyclonehockey.com and their new social site http://cyclonehockeyconnect.com

[See post to watch Flash video]

Iowa State Cyclone Hockey – Social Media Update (January 22 – February 6)

Mike Olaski — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:16:59 +0000

Cyclone Hockey has been through a few great series the past couple of weeks. First, the Cyclones headed to Champagne Illinois to take on the Illini in a CSCHL rematch whom they split. Then it was back to Ames where the Cyclones hosted Eastern Michigan and swept the series with goalie Paul Karus getting his first shut-out as a Cyclone. Finally, the Cyclones headed to Athens, Ohio to face the #1 ranked Bobcats. Unfortunately, the Bobcats bested Iowa State winning both games in the series.

Off the ice, we are getting ready for the Central States Collegiate Hockey League (CSCHL) Tournament in Ames the 19^th-21^st, where the top 8 teams in the CSCHL will compete for the conference title. During the tournament we will also raffle off a Power Skater from PoweringAthletics, raising money for the Cyclone Hockey program.

Facebook

These past couple of weeks we have increased our fan base from 1,287 to 1,316 fans, an increase of 29. We focused this past two weeks to make our live Facebook updates for our away series more in-depth and useful for our fans. During our updates we accumulated 25 “likes” from our status updates for the Illini weekend. We feel that it shows that our fan base likes and wants to keep tabs on Cyclone Hockey and we plan on continuing this during the ACHA nationals in March. We are also promoting our Power Skater Raffle which was mentioned on our last update heavily on Facebook to direct them to our “bitly” link to our promotion page in our Blog.

Twitter

Our Twitter account is doing well as we increased to 133 followers. Our Facebook account is linked with our Twitter account so whenever we update our Facebook account, it automatically updates our Twitter account. This gives multiple benefits, it allows for our fans who do not have a Facebook account to see what we are posting; it also decreases errors in information while posting in multiple locations.

YouTube

Regrettably, our YouTube account has been neglected with our focus on our other accounts but we seek to upload new videos from the Al Murdoch Show, a local television show featuring the coach of Cyclone hockey program Al Murdoch, in order to give our fans a behind the scenes look at the Cyclones.

Flickr

Our Flickr accounts are coming along nicely as we are collecting photos every weekend to upload to our site. We also hope to integrate a running slide show on our new website that is in development right now. Doing this, it will allow fans to check out the team as well as our activities at the game from our Fan Flickr account.

Blogs

Our player blogs have been our biggest focus of the last couple weeks. As we mentioned in our last update, Cyclone Hockey is raffling a Power Skater from PoweringAthletics to raise money for the Cyclone Hockey program. For more information about the PowerSkater raffle, please check out the “Promotions” page on our blog. You do not have to be from Ames, IA to buy raffle tickets, anyone can participate. Tickets can also be purchased online using a credit card here.

In order to promote this we are finding hockey blogs, fan pages, etc. in order to promote our Power Skater online sales. We have created a “Google Document” so everyone on our marketing staff can see what sites have been visited and posted on. That way, we can re-visit each site and see if anyone replied to our posts and follow up in any way we can to encourage sales.

Summary

Overall, we tried to take a more narrowed approach to our social media and some of our accounts suffered in response. This did show us a more detailed view into what our fans like during our games. As we continue to promote our Power Skater Raffle as well as continuing with our game updates, we will improve our other accounts to increase the value to our fans.

Iowa State Cyclone Hockey – Social Media (Dec 8-Jan 21)

Mike Olaski — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:57:23 +0000

The Iowa State Cyclone Hockey team has had a very busy month and a half, and the marketing team has been quite busy as well. The university was closed from December 21 through January 11, but the marketing team is back and ready to tackle some big upcoming projects and events that we will advertise through social media outlets.

The Cyclone Hockey team took on our instate rivals, The University of Iowa Hawkeyes in a weekend series (December 11 and 12) before the holiday break. On December 11, we hosted Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) night. Fans had the opportunity to bid on their favorite Cyclone Hockey player’s jersey, and all proceeds- over $4,000- went to the MDA. We promoted the Cyclone-Hawkeye series and MDA night through our social media. It ended up being a great weekend, as the Cyclones came out with a series sweep and the games offered plenty of excitement!

The team traveled to Western Michigan University for a weekend series January 8-9 in which we split the series. We took on the University of Michigan Dearborn at home on January 15 and 16. We held “Greek Night” during the January 15 game where we offered members of the Greek community to wear their fraternity/sorority letters and receive a discounted ticket price. We advertised this event through Facebook and Twitter and saw a great showing of more than 60 people from the Greek community.

We have seen an increase in social media response from fans and followers of Cyclone Hockey, and will continue to advertise events through these media. We will be hosting the Central States Collegiate Hockey League (CSCHL) tournament from February 19-21, and are also raffling off a PowerSkater.

Fundraising Raffle

PowerSkater

The PowerSkater was donated by PoweringAthletics to help in supporting their program. We are also raffling off a SkinnerShooter and an autographed Iowa State Cyclone hockey jersey. Our goal is to raise $5,000 in ticket sales and promote the raffle nationwide through hockey blogs and to the Ames community. All proceeds from the raffle will help Cyclone Hockey buy equipment and help with travel expenses. Both of these events will be promoted through social media. For more information about the PowerSkater raffle, please check out the “Promotions” page on our blog. You do not have to be from Ames, IA to buy raffle tickets, anyone can participate. Tickets can also be purchased online using a credit card.

We promote many different events through our social media accounts, and this practice seems to be working quite well. Social media is proving to be a great way to get information about Cyclone Hockey out to the public. We have seen a great response to our social media efforts, and hope to continue to improve upon what we are currently doing.

Facebook

We have seen a substantial increase over the last few weeks in the number of Facebook fans we have. On December 8, we had 1,090 Facebook fans, and on January 21, we have 1,287 fans, meaning that over the last six weeks, we have a fan increase of 197 people. Considering the university’s three week long holiday break and a few away series, this increase is quite impressive.

We continue to post game updates, such as the starting lineup and goals scored, on Facebook. Over the last few weeks, we have noticed an increase in the amount of response we receive on these posts. We received 19 likes and 5 comments on a single post about the Cyclones sweeping the Hawkeyes. We have noticed a great response to these posts and our fans that are unable to make it to the games seem to appreciate these updates. We have also started mentioning individual players in our posts. For instance, we have a post from the Western Michigan series that states, “Cyclones win 6-3!!! Third period goals scored by David Kurbatsky, Brian Spring, and Pete Majkozak!” This post alone got 13 “likes” and 3 comments. We will continue to use our players’ names in our Facebook posts for we get a great response from the fans when we do so.

We have also started linking articles from the Iowa State Daily, the campus newspaper, onto our Facebook page. We have noticed that a few of our hockey articles are some of the most viewed on www.iowastatedaily.com. Overall, we are happy with the response that we have gotten from our Facebook page and feel that it is working to our benefit by getting information to our fans.

Twitter

Our Twitter following has grown from 111 to 127 followers over the period of December 8 – January 21. We have our Facebook and Twitter accounts linked together, so every comment we make on our Facebook page is also posted on our Twitter page. We are also mentioning other Iowa State University sports and showing our support for them. We hope that mentioning other ISU sports will increase our fan base, but at this time, it is too early to tell if this action has had any effect.

YouTube

We have not posted any new videos in the last few weeks, but we do plan on uploading game highlights in the near future. Although we have not uploaded any new videos recently, we have seen a great increase in the number of video views. From December 8 to January 21, we recorded an increase of 511 video views. This shows us that people are interested in the videos we post, which gives us more of an incentive to upload more.

Flickr

We have two Flickr accounts, one for the staff to post more “professional” photos such as team pictures, and another account specifically for our fans to post pictures they took during the games. We have seen very little to no response in our Flickr accounts, but see this as a challenge and a great opportunity. We need to develop a way to get the word about our Fan Flickr page out to more fans so they begin to utilize it. This is an area that we can improve upon and we will continue to work on getting the word of our Flickr accounts out to our fans.

Blogs

We have been working on improving our blogs and thinking of more information to place on the site. We have decided to post our “Player of the Week” and press releases from the games on our blog, as we think that posting more information on the site will be great in getting information out to our fans. The PowerSkater will be raffled off of our blog as well. We will continue to monitor the response to our new posts to make our blog as useful and informative as possible.

Summary

Overall, we are pleased with the progress we have made with our social media accounts, and hope to continue to provide information that our fans will enjoy and find useful. We will continue to monitor our accounts and make any necessary changes to make our social media as effective as possible. We have a couple home series and the CSCHL tournament coming up, and we will continue to use the benefits of social media to inform and update our fans of these events.

Nike, YouTube star & Social Media at 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships

Mike Olaski — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:54:04 +0000

As I mentioned in previous articles, I have been researching all the ways that fans can connect with the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships via social media.

Through this research, I came across the NikeTraining.ca website which features YouTube star, Steve Dangle providing an insightful, funny, behind the scenes perspective from the tournament. I had the pleasure of chatting with both Steve and Laura West (Nike – Digital Brand Manager) prior to the USA-Sweden semi-final game.

In this interview, we address the following topics:

Steve explains how he got started in videoblogging on YouTube and Leafspace.com?
Laura provides insight on how Nike found out about Steve (thru their digital agency – Organic) and why they decided to have him represent their brand at the WJHC?
Steve talks about the importance of engaging with fans. ”Social Media is not about quantity, it’s about quality!”
Laura discusses the NikeTraining.ca website – “Go to where the audience is versus making them come to us”.
Laura talks about Nike’s latest marketing campaign – Force Fate
Trevor addresses Pepsi’s recent announcement to cancel their SuperBowl advertising and, instead, focus on online efforts.
Laura shares her views on why Nike believes Social Media is an important part of their future communications and marketing initiatives.

Niketraining.ca Interview – Social Media

Conclusion

I want to express my thanks to both Steve and Laura for taking the time to chat with me about their project. After being on the road for the last 4 months following sporting events and managing multiple social accounts, I can assure everyone that this is a very time consuming process. Steve and Laura are joined in Saskatoon by two other very talented individuals that are shooting video, managing social accounts and staying up all night to edit and upload new videos every day.

In the interview, I mentioned the fact that Pepsi recently announced that they will not be participating in Superbowl advertising, ending a 23 year run. Announcements like this make it clear that big brands are starting to realize the value of social media. Nike’s commitment to engaging in two-way conversations and building communities around their marketing efforts makes it clear that this is not a trend, rather, it’s a social revolution that is changing the way brands, teams, athletes and fans communicate.

Follow NikeTraining

Website: http://niketraining.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/niketraining

Facebook: http://facebook.com/niketraining

YouTube: http://youtube.com/niketraining

Nike hires YouTube star to cover 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships

Mike Olaski — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:46:28 +0000

While researching the ways that social media is impacting the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships last night, I happened to see a new Nike commercial called “Destiny”. (Yes….when I’m researching and writing articles, I have hockey on in the background. Can’t get enough of this game….remember!!). At the end of the commercial is a link to http://niketraining.ca. So, naturally, I had to check it out. Here’s what I found:

NikeTraining.ca

The link takes you to a landing page promoting Nike’s new marketing campaign titled “We Decide From Here – Force Fate”. The microsite is clearly being used to capture the attention of fans of the Canadian Olympic hockey teams. However, also on this site is a link to a dedicated section covering the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championship. (Here is the direct link to that page: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/niketraining/en_CA/force_fate)

As you’ll see on this page, Nike is leveraging social media to provide Canadian hockey fans with coverage from tournament.

YouTube – video analysis by YouTube star – Steve Dangle (see more about Steve below)
Twitter – daily coverage of the WJHC including live score updates and links to YouTube videos
Facebook – coverage of Team Canada, engaging questions, YouTube videos (Nike commercials)

Prominently displayed on the page is a video section titled “Dangle’s Diary”. At first glance, I wasn’t sure what Nike’s angle was in choosing their on-location reporter. However, a little more research and this is what I found about Steve Dangle.

Steve Dangle

As described by Nike: He’s young, smart, opinionated and a walking, talking Wikipedia of hockey.
He’s also got one of the most respected hockey blogs on YouTube.
He’s Steve Dangle. Click here

Steve Dangle is a popular video blogger that covers the Toronto Maple Leafs and has a loyal following on Leafspace.com. His YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/SteveDangle) has over 260,000 channel views and over 1M video views. Steve also has an entertaining Twitter account (http://twitter.com/StevE_dangle) where he voices his opinion on his favorite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Here are a few of the videos I came across on Steve’s YouTube channel (this kid is hilarious…..love his Don Cherry impressions!)

Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song (Don Cherry impression)

Don Cherry impression – “Canadians Don’t Smile!”

Nike & Steve Dangle

It is apparent that Nike (one of the world biggest brands) has seen the value that social media can add to their marketing strategy. They put a 21 year old kid with a webcam in charge of covering one of the biggest events in Canadian sports. One of the key factors that make social media so impactful is the fact that anyone that is providing good content can generate a loyal following. And, in turn, those social media stars can have influence over the people that tune in to watch their YouTube videos and follow their tweets on Twitter.

Great job by Nike in recognizing that social media is not a fad. By employing Steve Dangle, they generated an instant, engaged audience. And, great job by Steve Dangle in establishing this partnership with Nike. I’m sure it’s a dream come true for him. It’s amazing what passion will get you nowadays!!!

2010 World Jr Hockey Championships & Social Media

Mike Olaski — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:21:57 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous article, I am currently back in my hometown (Saskatoon, Sk, Canada) for the holidays and to take in the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships (WJHC). I am currently contracted to work with Yastech Developments who developed the Juniors2010.ca website.

Juniors2010.ca is an events listing site that was created to inform fans of the 2010 World Junior Championships of events around Saskatoon and Regina (host cities). The website is also a resource of information for games, tournament information, news and blogs surrounding the tournament.

I will be doing a more in depth interview with Michael Yasieniuk (President of Yastech Developments) regarding how he is using social media to drive traffic to the Juniors2010.ca website, how he is measuring his social media efforts and what his future plans are for the site.

In the meantime, since social media is about SHARING and engaging, I wanted to share with everyone the research I have done over the past few days regarding the impact that social media is having on the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships. Being part of the media, I have access to the media list that outlines all of the different media covering the tournament. So, I did some research to find out how they are using social media in their communication strategy. One thing that I’ve noticed while conducting this research is that the information is not easy to find! But, I did manage to round up some info that hopefully helps fans stay better connected to the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championship.

International Media

International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF)

Website - includes news, schedule, standings, statistics, blog, pictures, video and live ticker
Twitter – Not updated since October 12, 2009
Facebook – Appears official but not much info provided by the IIHF

National Media

TSN

Website – Dedicated section on tsn.ca for the WJHC including schedule, scores and articles
Twitter – TSN hockey analyst Bob McKenzie is covering all hockey through his Twitter account, but good coverage of WJHC
Facebook – Lots of WJHC coverage. Including custom page and widgets

The Score

Website – Dedicated page on their website covering the WJHC. Providing decent coverage of the games including articles
Twitter – Dedicated Twitter account for the WJHC. Providing decent coverage of the games and links to their website

Rogers Sportsnet

Website – Some WJHC coverage

Canadian Hockey League

Website – Some WJHC coverage. Mostly stories about CHL players

CBC Sports

Website – Provides score updates

Globe & Mail

Website – Provides score updates

New Media (Online)

FastHockey.com

Website – provides live streaming of games not televised by TSN.

YahooCanada.com

Website – includes scores, articles and videos from Sportnet.ca

Juniors2010.ca

Website – extensive information about events around Saskatoon and Regina during the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships including parties, transportation, scores and photos.
Twitter – live coverage of game scores, stats, trivia, photos and tournament information
Facebook – live coverage of game scores, stats, trivia, photos and tournament information

2010Juniors.com

Website – behind the scenes perspective at the WJHC and information regarding WJHC events
Twitter – behind the scenes perspective at the WJHC and links to 2010juniors.com
Facebook – behind the scenes perspective at the WJHC and links to 2010juniors.com

Future Considerations

Website – daily articles covering the WJHC and the up and coming NHL prospects
Twitter - providing game highlights and entertaining comments throughout the WJHC

The World of Junior Hockey

Website – a blog with daily articles discussing the WJHC

Teams

USA Hockey

Website – extensive converage of Team USA during the WJHC
Live Blog – Live game blogging during Team USA games
Twitter – updated scores and behind the scenes action surrounding Team USA

Hockey Canada

Website – extensive coverage of Team Canada and the WJHC
Twitter – Some coverage of WJHC, but also includes information about all Hockey Canada teams
Facebook – Some coverage of WJHC, but also includes information about all Hockey Canada teams

Stay tuned for more articles on Sport Fan Connect as the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championship continues!

Live from the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships in Saskatoon, Sk, Canada

Mike Olaski — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:02:02 +0000

I first introduced the Sport Fan Connection Tour back in September 2009 when Mike Olaski and I set out to research the connection between Sports and Fans through the use of Social Media. The experience has been amazing and our travels took us full circle around North America from New York to Washington to Charlotte to Orlando to Vancouver to Calgary and now back to Saskatoon.

Mike Olaski has now landed in Vancouver for a few months to start planning for future projects (to be announced soon), and I have am pleased to announce that I am coming to you live from the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships in my hometown, Saskatoon, Sk, Canada.

To keep with the theme of Sport Fan Connect, I am focusing on providing information on how social media is impacting the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships. In doing so, I am also assisting Yastech Developments in using social media to drive traffic to their event listing website (http://juniors2010.ca).

The http://juniors2010.ca website is a resource of information for all 2010 World Jr Hockey Championship fans that includes local event listings for both Regina and Saskatoon. Juniors2010.ca also has a Facebook Fan page and Twitter account setup to provide live updates, photos, videos and interesting facts from the tournament. There is also a News & Blogs section that provides fans with more information from many perspectives including info about the tournament, teams, players and events. Here are some of the news and blogs featured on http://juniors2010.ca:

TSN (http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/) – Game Scores and Coverage
Hockey Canada (http://hockeycanada.com) – Governing body of hockey in Canada
International Ice Hockey Federation (http://www.iihf.com/) – Governing body of International hockey and inline hockey
The Score (http://my.thescore.com/wjhc2010/) – Game Scores, Coverage, Blog
2010 Juniors Blog (http://2010juniors.com) – Behind the scenes perspective including blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr

2010 World Jr Hockey Championships & Social Media

As I mentioned above, in keeping with the Sport Fan Connect theme, my intention is to profile the ways that social media is impacting the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championship. One of the things that I have noticed in particular is that there are many teams, traditional and new media covering the tournament, however, finding all this information online is difficult. For example, if you are a fan of Team USA, where do you go to find out information about your team? I mention USA Hockey because they are actually doing a great job of covering their team at the tournament. I will be writing articles on Sport Fan Connect over the next 10 days that profile how these teams, traditional media and new media providers are covering the 2010 World Jr Championships using social media.

So, stay tuned as I research all of these areas and provide information that I hope will be valuable to all those interested in the 2010 World Jr Hockey Championships and International hockey. With the Olympics coming up, it will be interesting to hear from each of the governing bodies on how they intend to use social media to connect with their fan base.

Iowa State Cyclone Hockey – Social Media (Nov 20th – Dec 4th)

Mike Olaski — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:47:32 +0000

The Cyclones faced some strong opponents in the past couple of weeks as they headed into the Thanksgiving weekend. First, heading to Arizona State University to face the Sun Devils whom we split; then headed north of the border to the University of Manitoba where the Bison swept the Cyclones. With these two weekend series, it posed a couple of interesting questions. How do you promote two consecutive series that are away? How does the absence of home games affect our social media? These questions are key in our decisions and new developing strategies.

Facebook

Our Facebook numbers are looking better than ever increasing our fan base every day. From the past two weeks we have increased our fans from 912 fans to 968 fans, an increase of 56 fans. We also had some breakthroughs that we are really excited about. During the Sun Devil series we started posting game updates through Facebook. On those game updates, we found that our fans are reacting to these posts by commenting on the post and liking the post as well. On a single post, we found two comments and 11 likes; our best reaction to a post since the application of our fan page. By receiving comments and “likes” on our posts we get added publicity. Each comment or “like” gets recorded on the fan’s “wall” for every friend that they have to see friends of the fan could possibly become fans themselves.

For our away series we also advertised on our fan page that our game for the Arizona State series would be broadcast on our TeamLine (online play-by-play) as well as on FASTHOCKEY (a televised webcast of the game). We do not know how many fans tuned in to each broadcast, but we were able to see that one fan did comment about the post; showing that these services are ones that we want to continue.

Twitter

Our Twitter account saw improvement over the last couple of weeks, but not as much as we wanted to see. From our last update we grew from 101 followers to 110 followers; whether or not this was a direct impact from our lack of home series or another factor we will continue to monitor this closely. We are also using our “@ mentions” to support other sports here at Iowa State University; the effect of these at mentions on our fan base is unknown but we feel that it can only help in the long run.

You Tube

Unfortunately, our video has not changed from last updates count of 15, but our viewer ship is up 360 video views. This is a decrease from last updates increase however we are trying to change that. We hope to upload later this week and will let our fans know through our Facebook fan page.

Flickr

Every strategy is not always a good one as we found out over the last couple of weeks. A while ago we held a photo contest for our fans to boost ratings for our Flickr page. We have not received a fan submission yet and it does not seem like we are going to be receiving any in the future. We are going to find a way to incorporate this into a different strategy.

Blogs

We spent the last couple of weeks improving our blog site with minor adjustments to make it more functional. Even when found that fans were still visiting our numerous blog entries. In one day there was 67 new views which increased our viewership to 144 and blog view to 3,623. Once we finish updating our blogs we will continue to publish new entries.

Summary

Overall, we found that even though having two consecutive away series slowed our progress, it did not stop it. Social Media is such that it is versatile as long as the methods are constantly improving and problems fixed quickly. With two back-to-back home series this month, we will have to think up new strategies for our remaining games to get our fans more involved in all aspects of Cyclone Hockey.

2009 Grey Cup Festival – CFL Fan Experience

Mike Olaski — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:23:17 +0000

Sport Fan Connect had the pleasure of working with the 2009 Grey Cup Festival in overseeing the social media strategy, online contesting (http://greycupfanconnect.com) and video production in the weeks leading up to and during the festival weekend. As a side, our project also included collecting video at many of the events throughout the weekend with an objective to capture the atmosphere surrounding the Grey Cup Festival and the CFL fan experience.

Throughout all of our travels and experience over the past few months attending professional games in the NFL, MLB and NHL, one thing has stood out about the CFL is that the relationship that exists between the CFL, it’s players and fans is truly special. Nothing captures this connection better that the Grey Cup Festival weekend and Grey Cup Championship game.

The Canadian Football League has a long history in Canada and has seen a rise in popularity over the past few years. Mostly in part to the tremendous job that the CFL does in promoting the game, it’s players, coaches and executives. What makes the CFL unique compared to other professional leagues is that these players, coaches and executives are accessible to the fans and this is never more apparent than during the Grey Cup Festival weekend.

The following videos are a collection of experiences we captured during the 2009 Grey Cup Festival weekend. Each of these showcase the unique connection between the CFL, players, executives and their fans.

CFL fans greet Wally Buono (BC Lions Head Coach)

While walking back from the CFL Experience at the Telus Convention centre, we bumped into Wally Buono outside of the BC Lions official Grey Cup party at The Palomino in downtown Calgary. Wally took the time to chat with these fans that showered him with praise. Following this experience, one of these fans expressed his opinion on “What the CFL is all about!”.

CFL Tweetup

Led by the amazing team at CFL.ca, the first official CFL Tweetup was organized during the 2009 Grey Cup Festival weekend at The Unicorn bar in downtown Calgary. For those that don’t know, a Tweetup is an event where people who Twitter come together to meet in person. In this case, the invitation was open to all passionate CFL fans on Twitter that wanted to socialize with other “Tweeps” and talk about the game they love.

There have been many other examples of Tweetup’s in other leagues including those organized by @dani3boyz (http://nhltweetup.com) and the Phoenix Suns being the most well known. What made the CFL Tweetup a special event is that the CFL.ca staff (with the assistance of Jeff Armstead – InTheTunnel.com) brought along some special guest including Nik Lewis, Tad Kornegay and the CFL commissioner – Mark Cohon. All of the CFL Twitter fans in attendance had a chance to meet and greet these individuals. And, the players and commish got to express their gratitude to the fans that make the CFL so special.

Anwar Stewart (Montreal Alouettes) gives his 2009 Grey Cup Champions cap to a young Calgary Stampeders fan.

Following the Montreal Alouettes 2009 Grey Cup victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Anwar Stewart (Defensive End for the Montreal Alouettes) celebrated with fans by running around with an Alouettes flag. He took a moment during his celebration to approach the stands and hand his 2009 Grey Cup Champions cap to a young Calgary Stampeders fan. This moment of kindness truly showed Anwar’s character and provided a young CFL fan an experience that he will never forget. The look on this young guys face is priceless!

It is moments like these that make me proud to be Canadian and to have a league that we can call our own. Although just under half of the players on each team are made up of “import” players, it is apparent that each and every one of these guys appreciate the level of support their receive from north of the border and value their responsibility as role models to many CFL fans. And, for many CFL players, the connection they have with the fans is one that is appreciate as much as it is by the fans.

Grey Cup Fan Connect – Case Study

Mike Olaski — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:16:26 +0000

We recently completed a project with the 2009 Grey Cup Festival that included social media consulting, online contesting and video production. The project was a tremendous success and will be profiled as a case study here on Sport-Fan Connect.

Stay tuned for more info!!