NFL
By: Damon Horton And Caitlin Hodgson
Ever since the Carolina Hurricanes clinched the title of Stanley Cup Champions back in June, hockey fans have been eagerly awaiting the next puck drop. On July 15th, the NHL announced the first date to be marked on calendars is September 29th: an opening night featuring five games to cool off the summer heat. Since then, all 32 teams have now released their full regular season schedules, with an additional 2 divisional games being added to bring the total up to 84 for the 2026-2027 NHL season.
With these schedule releases came the social media announcements. Some were worthy of the S(tanley) Cup Tier. Others fell flatter than a blown tire. Here are our takes; how’d we do? These opinions were brought to you by Caitlin and Damon. Caitlin Hodgson is predominantly a photographer from Detroit, Michigan, for Team NBS Media, but occasionally writes pieces for concerts, the PWHL, and the WPBL. You can find her on the ice, in front of the barricade, and everywhere in between!
Our top 5
- Flyers is S tier because Gritty is S tier. No better way to hard launch their schedule than with Gritty actually launching things. Subtle nods and chirps to each opponent sealed the deal.
- The Ducks have done something super creative and fun with their schedule reveal. Pokemon cards are a perfect bridge for fans of all ages to really get behind. The amount of effort it took for them to make custom Pokémon for each opponent cannot be understated. While the offseason has been a stressful one so far for VerBeek and Ducks fans, this release video provides some sunshine and rainbows, properly hyping up a season with ramped-up expectations.
- The Leafs were a silent winner here. The simplicity of the lost & found concept coupled with funny digs at opponents made for an engaging schedule release. Maybe their 2026-2027 season will have that same energy.
- Firstly, I want to say that Napoleon Dynamite is one of my favorite movies of all time. In an era where nostalgia is used as a cheap and lazy tactic to draw interest, this one was well-executed and obviously had plenty of effort involved. Another banger for a West Coast team that is expected to take a step forward in 2026-2027
- Hockeytown’s team went for a classic: a skit featuring cameos from legends such as Ken Daniels and Paws from the Detroit Tigers. It was clean, it was crisp, it was smooth. No notes here.
Our bottom 5
- Kicking off the worst of the schedule releases is the best team in the NHL. The Stanley Cup-winning Hurricanes settled for a… slideshow? Such a low-effort concept to pull off after such an exciting exclamation point of a season. I mean, really, it almost seems as if the social media admin for the Canes remembered their schedule release was due that day and threw something together at 7 am. This is a professional team, you gotta do better!
- Following the Stanley Cup choke, the Golden Knights attempted to bring the hype back by releasing a montage that was less than two minutes long that didn’t even feature the actual schedule. Hype videos have their time and place, and if they wanted to go this route, there are many ways they could have done it: showing highlight reel goals with an opponent that they are facing this season, maybe notable trades and that player’s old team, etc. For a team from Vegas, you would have expected something a little more showstopping.
- After the crap that was shown to fans last season, the Blues decided to continue lowering the bar, this time by virtue of a 30-second video of plain black and white text with some highlighting. This one baffles me. I am assuming in a professional organization, there are levels of management and decision makers that should have seen this garbage and asked: “Could you include a picture or something?” I guess the gimmick was “nonchalant” and “lazy and quirky, we don’t care,” but I feel like you need to be a little chalant and care just a smidge when the on-ice product could use all the hype it could get.
- The LA Kings reminded me of class so much, I fell asleep. A whiteboard lecture? Really?
- The “Thank God Everyone Hates The Golden Knights More Than Us” team narrowly had a better schedule release than the Golden Knights. It was very barebones and kind of minimalistic, with a slideshow at the end. I guess if you didn’t like that one, they also released an 8-hour ASMR schedule release on their YouTube page. Just getting ahead of how annoying this team will be to their opponents this season. (In a good way).
After showing off the ones that stood out to both of us, let us reveal to you the ultimate Schedule Release Tier Lists from both of us. As you can see, taste is not universal, and it varies greatly between the two of us. Whose is better?
The biggest difference between the two of us is the opinion on the Tampa Bay Lightning’s release video. Some of us like audiobooks read out by Russian net minders a bit more than others, who knew? One thing is for certain, though. The Flyers may not win a Cup any time soon, but they have won our hearts by virtue of Gritty being a national treasure. We aren’t quite sure exactly what he is, but he is our friend. How nice it must be for a city like Philadelphia to have a PR cheat code like that?
Some honorable mentions: The New York Teams both did a fine job, with the edge (for Damon at least) going towards the Rangers for their high-effort, high-quality hand-drawn animation. One that we both agreed was a great schedule release was the Maple Leafs video. The microphone jab at the Ottawa Senators’ former Captain Brady Tkachuk was top-tier. Hilarious trolling from a prolific fanbase. Overall, the NHL Schedule Release is a fun annual tradition to help us get through the dog days of summer. In a hockey world that is inundated by talks of offer sheets, salary arbitration, and armchair salary cap-ologists, the schedule release is a great lighthearted way for fanbases to banter. While not consequential when it comes to the on-ice product, it does give us some days to circle on our calendars as we anxiously await next hockey season.
Huge shout-out to Caitlin for the collaboration and for spearheading this fun hockey article. Keep an eye out, as we will both have plenty of content headed your way for these upcoming NHL and PWHL seasons!
