Ottawa 67's add social media wins to turnaround season

It's hard to pick an exact moment when the tide turned, but the Ottawa 67's are getting their buzz back.

Sure, this year the junior hockey team attracted some big prospects, has seemed nearly unstoppable at times on the ice and ramped up their marketing efforts en route to earning the OHL's best regular season record this season.

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But were it not for some high-profile social media wins, the city might not have jumped back on the team's bandwagon quite so eagerly.

The team's digital coordinator Jacob Kelly said he's been blessed with the ultimate weapon this season: a winning team.

"The team is just so talented this year," said Kelly, who also hosts a podcast about social media called My Social Life.

"One thing I think we've been able to do really well this year is we've had a lot of individual players that we're able to market as well."

Whether it's undrafted scoring machine and cowboy hat-wearing Tye Felhaber, World Junior goalie and mid-season acquisition Mike DiPietro or dynamic rookie Marco Rossi, the 67's have all of a sudden found themselves loaded with fodder for videos and posts.

"People are really starting to recognize our players more so than they did in the past," Kelly said.

It's helped the team get to nearly 29,000 Twitter followers and 12,750 Facebook page likes, which are in the top half amongst league teams.

Dunder Mifflin night

One of the major marketing wins the 67's video and marketing brains had this season was January's Dunder Mifflin night, an homage to the TV show The Office.

Besides in-game activities and special sweaters, the team capitalised on a video parody which featured players doing almost a shot-for-shot remake of the show's opening credits.

It helped earn the 67's one of their best crowds of the season.

According to Kelly, the idea was hatched by Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group marketing director Jon Sinden, who had previously worked as Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment's digital content and social media manager. 

"We started coming up with fun ideas we could do based around the game and then we wanted to do an Office-style video for the promotion of it," Kelly said.

"[Video producer] Colin Murphy was the guy that shot that video and he did a phenomenal job … I think that a lot of [the game's] success came down to the fact the video went pretty viral."

With the team about to begin its first second round playoff series in several years and sizeable crowds once again gracing the seats at the Arena at TD Place, recent headlines which had team ownership vowing to reverse an alarming attendance slump are seeming further away.