A few weeks ago we wondered if NHL teams should do “schedule reveal” videos like has become an annual tradition with the NFL. The Buffalo Sabres decided to mark the occasion not with a video, but with a humorous set of posts on X. The Sabres revealed their schedule describing their opponents as different types of chicken wings.
Buffalo, New York is the famous birthplace of buffalo sauce (spoiler alert, it doesn’t actually contain buffalo meat) and putting them on chicken wings. It’s a fun nod to the area's culinary history. It also avoids referencing their frigid, snow filled winters and the fact the Sabres enter this next NHL season with the longest playoff drought in league history.
The Sabres marketing team did a great job with the creativity here. The reigning Stanley Cup champions are referred to as “rats” with a plated chicken wing covered in sauce casting a shape that looks just like the rubber rats thrown on the ice and pelted at Brad Marchand during Florida Panthers games. The Vegas Golden Knights were a picture of a played chicken strip, a reference to the famous Vegas strip. The Nashville Predators are referred to as “wings in the community”, a reference to a poor t-shirt design players wore that made the rounds on Twitter for its unfortunate wording.
For the Chicago Blackhawks they stayed away from the expected jokes about deep dish pizza. Instead Chicago is represented by a chicken wing in an apron saying “yes, chef”, a clear reference to the award winning TV show “The Bear”. Speaking of television references the Philadelphia Flyers are represented by a chicken wing in a jean pocket called “Charlie Kelly’s denim chicken” in a reference to “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” and that character's culinary curiosities such as carrying a bag of spaghetti in his pocket.
The best has to be the Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver is reference by “brother where art thou” with two wings on one side of the plate and another lonely wing on the opposite end. It took us a second, the “brother where art thou” isn’t a reference to the George Clooney movie is a similar name. It’s a reference to Quinn Hughes being separated from his two other brothers, Jack and Luke, who are teammates together on the New Jersey Devils. Good one, Sabres admin, good one.
A plate of fish sticks represents the New York Islanders, an obvious reference to the “fish stick” nickname opposing fans use to taunt them. Eventually the creativity ran out. Once they got to the St. Louis Blues it was a blue chicken wing with the caption “idk just don’t make it blue” and obviously someone didn’t listen. The Blues own twitter account lamented that an obvious joke about bleu cheese was right there.
Hopefully other NHL teams flex their creativity muscles the same way as the official schedule is released on Wednesday.