Patriots and Rams players don’t know who Connor McDavid is

When asked who Edmonton Oilers star center Connor McDavid is, NFL players from the Patriots and Rams showed their ignorance.

The NHL is one of the four major sports leagues in North America, with the other three being the NFL, NBA, and MLB. It’s unquestionably the least popular among them. The television ratings and lack of attention the league gets is proof. What is perhaps most telling is there are athletes who have no idea who Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid is.

In a recent video posted on Twitter, NFL Canada asked numerous New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams players who McDavid is. This shouldn’t be a tough question. Everyone knows who arguably the best athlete in one of the four major sports is, right? Wrong.

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To be fair, most football fans (aside from fans of the Patriots or Rams) likely couldn’t name more than three of those players asked. And surely there were players who knew who he was. They just weren’t featured in the video.

Still, this brings up a huge issue the NHL has. They do a horrible job of marketing their players. While it’s true it’s hard to market your players well when the NFL, NBA, and MLB each regularly have games available on ESPN and the NHL doesn’t, it’s undeniable the league is a publicity failure.

McDavid is someone who every sports fan should at least be familiar with. After all, he’s led the NHL in scoring in each of the past two seasons. McDavid has a Hart Trophy and two Ted Lindsay Awards on his resume as well. So how come there are people who don’t know who he is?

Ask anyone who LeBron James is. Even if they don’t watch basketball. If they live in North America, there’s a very good chance they’ve at least heard of him. Ditto with Mike Trout and Tom Brady. Maybe it’s because they’ve been around for a while. However, how many people who aren’t hockey fans would know who Sidney Crosby is? Not nearly as many as, say, LeBron.

The NHL should look at the NBA as an example. Commissioner Adam Silver does a great job making sure basketball is trending. At one point earlier this week, all of the trends on Twitter had to do with the trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks.

While Derick Brassard, Riley Sheahan, Nick Bjugstad, and Jared McCann aren’t household names, there was nothing trending on Twitter in North America (outside of Pittsburgh and Florida) about the trade. Gary Bettman should pay attention to what Silver’s doing and try to make the NHL a more popular sport. Because there’s no reason everyone shouldn’t be familiar with players as great as McDavid and Crosby.

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