NHL considers Stanley Cup redesign to attract more female fans

NEW YORK – The National Hockey League is looking at the possibility of redesigning its iconic Stanley Cup trophy as a way to attract more female fans to the game.

The idea came on the heels of watching how the National Football League capitalized on Taylor Swift’s attendance at the Kansas City Chiefs games to raise overall viewership across the league more than 7% this past season.

“We saw what the NFL was doing and thought it was a great idea,” said Karl Fassbender, a spokesperson for the NHL. “It was really smart of them to allow one of their players to be seen in public romantically with the biggest music artist in the world. I wish we thought of that first.”

Fassbender also said, although he was born and raised in Missouri, he was secretly rooting for the San Fransisco 49ers to win the Superbowl in the event Travis Kelce’s failure to bring home the Lombardi trophy would make Taylor rethink her sport of choice. In a perfect world, if Taylor and Travis broke up, he could swoop in like a knight in shining armor and offer her a romantic PR stunt with a hockey superstar like Connor McDavid from the Edmonton Oilers.

His hopes of the superstar tight end and pop star splitting up at the end of the season was dashed, however, when the Kansas City Chiefs pulled off an epic overtime victory, cementing the fairytale tabloid romance for the foreseeable future.

“As it turns out, Taylor was off the board and McDavid’s girlfriend wasn’t interested in making a trade,” said Fassbender. “I thought the season might be lost, but then I remembered the Stanley cup craze going on, my wife is actually still in a coma after being bludgeoned on the head with one during a brawl at Starbucks when their limited editions came out earlier this year. And who has the biggest Stanley Cup around? We do. It’s a match made in heaven, if you ask me.”

Fassbender put together a think tank of some of the biggest names in public relations to strategize how to incorporate women’s love for Stanley cups with sports largest piece of championship hardware. After several weeks of brainstorming, a simple yet ingenious plan was conceived: redesign the Stanley Cup to look like a Stanley cup.

“I don’t actually know who came up with the idea,” said Fassbender. “It was about four in the morning, and we were all delirious from lack of sleep and jittery from the near-lethal amounts of caffeine we’d been pumping into our bodies. I think it may have actually been tossed out there as a joke, but my god was it brilliant.”

The NHL has reached out to Stanley to discuss a partnership between the two organizations. The initial round of discussions was heated, as the beverage container company couldn’t see how changing the appearance of the famous championship trophy would have any kind of benefit, either short term or long term.

“I’ll admit it was an intriguing offer at first,” said Damian Woodley, chief marketing officer for Stanley. “But it only took a minute to understand how ridiculous the proposal was. I mean, the Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy in professional sports, dating back to 1892. And, while I appreciate the current trend toward purchasing our products, altering this historic symbol for a quick buck is ludicrous.”

Woodley went on to say changing the Stanley Cup to attract more women would have worse consequences than anything the NFL had to go through by showing Taylor Swift for an average of 24 seconds during Chiefs Game.

“We saw how pathetically insecure many male sports fans are during the second half of the football season,” said Woodley. “I can’t imagine how egregious the hockey fanbase would be if they changed the trophy to get the girls. There would be small dick energy pouring out of the arenas. It might be the end of the NHL as we know it.”

While appreciative of the criticism, Fassbender isn’t convinced the projected loss of femmephobic fans wouldn’t be made up for by the influx of new fans who were turned on to hockey after their boyfriends mentioned how the championship trophy is now an oversized, over glorified beverage container.

For the fans who’re concerned about this potential transition, fear not. As of writing this article, the negotiations between the NHL and Stanley for a brand partnership are stalled and the decision would ultimately need to be approved by Commissioner Gary Bruce Bettman.

What do you think? Would you continue to watch professional hockey of the NHL changed the design of the Stanley Cup?

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