The Anaheim Ducks social media team swung for the fences last night during their Social Media Night.
I guess a picture of an iPhone 4 with a Sharks vs. Ducks game summary
on the screen counts as “social media” now.
Despite the fact that their teaser photo makes the entire event look like a poor April Fool’s Day joke, I was still curious to see what kind of fresh and innovative ideas they would run out during this marquee event.
In the end, it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary: Some hashtags to use to talk to George Parros and Guy Hebert, a picture contest and fan tweets displayed on the scoreboard.
The Ducks did, however, wear “special” warmup jerseys that displayed their Twitter handles. And per the Ducks, “players without Twitter accounts had either @AnaheimDucks or #NHLDucks on their backs, though Corey Perry (#ScoreyPerry) and Sami Vatanen (#TheVatman) had their own unique hashtags that are used often by fans on Twitter.”
It was such a hit that it made SportsCenter! And you better believe that the Ducks social media team caught it. Here, they shared the video link.
Now that’s a high-quality video!
But the biggest thing the Ducks social media team was able to put together was “Ducks Harsh Tweets.” Which is just like Jimmy Kimmel’s Mean Tweets segment. So let’s see what gold they were able to dig up on Twitter, where there are thousands of fans tweeting mean things about every player in the NHL. I’m sure they got the best ones!
Weird that the Ducks social media team didn’t include the Twitter handles of any of the people who wrote those tweets. An oversight, I’m sure.
We want to give credit to those brave souls who tweets such horrendous thing about the Ducks players, so let’s breakdown all of the tweets and get to the bottom of this!
“My friends and I have come up with a new drinking game. During a Ducks broadcast, every time Ryan Getzlaf shoots a snot rocket, we take a shot. We’ll get drunk.”
For starters, this “tweet” about Ryan Getzlaf is 160 characters, which is 20 more than allowed in a tweet. Strange. But let’s see if we can find the origin.
Oh this is awkward start.
Buckle up and get ready for the funniest fake tweets you’ve ever seen!
Cam Fowler looks like every Chick-fil-A employee. I can’t help but want to punch his wholesome face.
Hey Corey Perry, last I checked my grandma can grow a better mustache.
Jakob Silfverberg looks like one of the bad guys in a Die Hard movie.
Hey Palmieri, my 4 year old has a better slap shot!
Rickard Rakell looks like the sixth member of the band “One Direction”.
Pat Maroon sounds like someone stepped on his wind pipe.
Hey Hampus Lindholm, an 8 year old girl called. She wants her hair back. #Thinmints
Has Cam Fowler even entered puberty yet?
Corey Perry? More like Borey Perry.
Is it just me or is Pat Maroon missing an ax and a big blue ox.
Sweet Europants Hampus. Did you borrow them from a Power Player?
Really Ryan Kesler? That’s the face you’re going to go with today?
WHOOOAAAA!!! A real tweet!
Granted, it was written after the segment aired on the scoreboard, but this is the closest thing we’ve seen to a real tweet!
Now, who wrote this 66-character soliloquy about Ryan Kesler’s face?
Uh oh. Kyle Shohara writes for the Anaheim Ducks? That can’t be a good sign.
Oh man now THIS is really awkward…
So congratulations, Anaheim Ducks social media team. You taught us just how important social media is to connecting hockey fans from all over the world to their favorite teams. And how these great social tools allow an NHL team and its players interact with its die-hard and casual fans.
No, wait. You didn’t do that. You just made up a bunch of tweets and masked them as something the fans contributed to. Because why let fans be a part of a night that was supposed to be about them?
Then again, it’s a lot easier to make up 13 tweets than to actually have to, you know, let your fans be a part of the “social” experience.
As pointed out by friend of the blog Chris Long, the “tweet” that Ryan Kesler read aloud to end the segment that Kyle Shohara found so hilarious was actually a tweet directed at Mark Ruffalo in a Jimmy Kimmel Mean Tweets segment that aired in November 2013.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯