The NHL brought back the "Frozen Frenzy" on Tuesday night, a one-day event featuring all 32 NHL teams playing all in the same day.
The Toronto Maple Leafs will got absolutely hammered by the Columbus Blue Jackets, in a rematch of the 2020 NHL Playoffs.
All 16 games are staggered to start at different times, with the first game starting at 6pm EST and the final game starting at 11pm EST. The Toronto Maple Leafs start at 7:30pm.
While this is an exciting event and a great move by the NHL to make this a reality, here are a few changes that should be made to improve it.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Three Ways to Fix the NHL's Frozen Frenzy
Rivalries:
One big move that should be made is having every game (or as many as possible) being rivalry games. At the very least, a division rivalry. Now I'm not expert on scheduling in the NHL, but why couldn't the Leafs be playing the Habs or Bruins instead of Columbus?
There are a handful of rivalry games tomorrow, including Sharks-Ducks, Knights-Kings, Caps-Flyers, but that's about it. Making each game (or as many as possible) a rivalry would attract even more viewers and make the event worth watching even more.
Playing on the Weekend:
In one of their biggest events of the regular season, the NHL has decided to play 16 games on a Tuesday instead of the weekend, just like last year's October edition of Frozen Frenzy.
Now I do understand this decision is made to avoid conflicting with College Football (Saturdays) and NFL Football (Sundays), but playing on weekends is the best idea for this type of event. Staggering the games so they all start at different times is already a good idea, but why not play on a weekend and have the games start at noon?
This would give fans a whole day of hockey to watch and also have the games spread apart even more to ensure fans can watch as many games as possible.
Having the Event More Frequently:
As of now, Tuesday's Frozen Frenzy is the only one scheduled for the 2024-25 season, and having it multiple times a year would give fans something to look forward to. Having a Frozen Frenzy once a month could work, but may be too ambitious and too confusing for the scheduling team.
Four times a season may be the sweet spot, once in October (maybe even opening week of the season), once in early December before the break, once in January between the Winter Classic and the All-Star Game, and once in March before the playoffs.
I'm know expert on marketing by any means, but these are all three ideas that would improve the Frozen Frenzy. It's already a great idea for an event and a smart marketing move by the NHL, but a few small tweaks would make it even better.