As a fan of the PWHL and a woman in business I can appreciate the power of some of the cut-through messages the league has decided to go to market with. Even the ones that have seemed to diminish mine and my former, now-retired, teammates playing experiences or made me question whether my time in the former leagues (i.e., NWHL, CWHL) should still be considered professional (it was and still is).
Professional women’s hockey has for a long time been an exciting and compelling product but it operates under the same conventional rules of business– you can’t sell a product that nobody knows how to find. We are now experiencing the marketing the sport has long deserved, but it behooves us to remember that just because you’re inundated with the messages of ‘first’– or ones that imply it– it doesn’t mean these things are the first of their kind.
The valentine’s day puns PWHL Montréal posted presented by Catherine Dubois & Gabrielle David (translated). 💘 I added clarification below because puns are hard to translate in another language obviously.
1. Et in french means “and” and sounds a little bit like the “e” sound in “elaine”. The groin in french is “l’aine”. So I stretched my muscles and my groin (et l’aine) = Elaine.
2. “The” in french can be “le” and fort is the same in both languages. So you are the fort (lefort) of my heart.
3. Du in french is an article that can’t really be translated in English and bois means wood. So get some paper and some wood (du-bois).
4. David’s Tea is the name of a tea company created in Québec.
5. Bright can be translated as clair in french, hence when I see you everything seems bright/clear/claire.
6. In Québec we often take English words and add “er” at the end of them to create a verb. Better is pronounced the same as Bettez. So she’d be betting on it.
watching women’s hockey is so funny because the contact rules were just added in the PWHL and everyone loves them so whenever the players get into straight up fights the commentators are like, “wow!! We love to see it!!” Like yas girl. Condone violence. BITE AND TEAR!!!!!!!!