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Hockey Needs a Holiday

Writer's picture: IE Sports RadioIE Sports Radio

By: Mike Patt


Original Date: 11/28/24


Hello sports fans, and welcome back to the IE Sports Radio Blog. On this wonderful Thanksgiving Day, I am reminded of the three F’s that make the day so special for me. Those are, in order of importance, Family, Food, and Football. As much as I would love to talk about the first two (which would be an article all on its own), this is a sports blog, so we are here to talk sports. The NFL completely owns this holiday, with their three-game slate that spans from 12:30 PM EST into the late evening. Add in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and you have non-stop background entertainment for the entire day, minus the commercials of course.


The NFL is not the only major sports league or sport that figuratively owns a holiday. The NBA dominates Christmas Day. College Football owns New Years with their high-profile Bowl Games. The MLB has pretty much any summer holiday but seems to lean into the 4th of July/Independence Day. College Basketball has March Madness from mid-March through early April and gives them a pretty strong grip over St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. Everyone seems to have their Holiday except the NHL, perhaps due to the overlap of the NHL season with the other major sports and the holidays they already control. Well, we are here to change that.


First, we need a list of significant holidays during the hockey season that are available to be taken over by a sport. There are four that come to mind: Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, and President’s Day. Now we need to look at how each holiday matches with the sport. I don’t know about you, but nothing screams Valentine’s Day and spending time with your significant other like a sport played on ice where players hit and fight each other regularly. Okay, maybe that hit too close to home for some of you. Similarly, Hockey does not quite match the spirit and essence of Martin Luther King Day. So, Valentine’s and MLK are out of the conversation.


That leaves us with Halloween and President’s Day. I cannot imagine people put a lot of thought into President’s Day aside from it being a federal holiday and a good excuse for department store sales. It simply does not feel right for a sport-dominated holiday, and probably falls too close to the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. So that leaves us with Halloween. It’s right at the beginning of the season, so there could be some fun kick off/early season celebrations. The NHL could lean into the scary theme with their jerseys. Not to mention, the Jason Vorhees hockey mask is an iconic scary villain look and is a popular Halloween costume already. The timing is beneficial as they fit in after the majority of the MLB playoffs and before major events/holidays for other sports.



I think we have our winner, folks! I will say, I think St. Patrick’s might be a better fit, but it has too much proximately to College Basketball with March Madness and selection Sunday. It would get swallowed up by everything going on there. Nope, Halloween is starting to make more sense. Let’s all lobby to make Halloween a Hockey holiday! But above all else, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you day is filled with the three F’s and everything you want it to be. We all must treasure and appreciate time we get to spend together. Thank you for reading, and we will see you next time on IE Sports Radio; your direct feed for ALL that is sports.

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