No professional sports league is more into social media than the National Hockey League. With the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday night, the NHL has brought together its fans to network with a Tweetup across 21 of 30 cities in the United States and Canada. From Anaheim to Atlanta and Edmonton to Orlando, hockey fans took advantage of Twitter to Twackle — that’s what my local team, the Washington Capitals, are calling it — with each other on the road to the Stanley Cup.
Caps Twackle, an addition to WashingtonCaps.com, will identify and collect all Twitter messages (tweets) about the Caps and display them in one location. All I needed to do to participate Wednesday evening was to log in to my Twitter account from the Caps Twackle site and join in. Heck, even former AOL chief Steve Case chimed in to say he was on his way to the game in Verizon Center!
The Capitals, owned by Ted Leonsis, have been a leader in technology among professional sports franchises with Web 2.0 and social media tools. Media Relations Director Nate Ewell has long championed bloggers in the Caps’ pressbox. Now the Capitals are among the first NHL teams to offer Twackle to their fans. The Capitals enjoy a Twitter following of more than 1,700 fans and consider Caps Twackle to be the next step in encouraging a broader conversation about the Capitals among Twitter users.
