'Hockey Gods' Visit Boston Pizza for NHL Playoffs

Because Canada needs heavenly help after a 3-decade Stanley Cup drought

Canadian eatery and sports bar Boston Pizza cast “Hockey Gods” in its NHL Playoff campaign. We’re not talking about Wayne Gretzky or any other GOATS. Instead, we get a goofy trio clad in flowing robes and goalie helmets with beastly gold horns.

Of course, it’s a riff on the legendary beings that sit on high and decree the outcome of games.

In the clip below, they lounge with mortals at BP, insisting animal sacrifices aren’t necessary to break Canada’s lengthy Stanley cup drought. (The lamb looks relieved.)

“We tried to pull inspiration from Christian, Greek and Norse mythology. Then we turned to the internet and places like Reddit to see how fans may have spoken of the Hockey Gods in the past,” says Chris Obergfell, CD at Mekanism, which summoned the immortals to plug a pizza joint. “We used AI to help try out a few different looks until we found the ones that worked. This became our brief for casting and wardrobe.

“We also wanted to make sure they didn’t just look like people wearing Halloween costumes,” he says. “So, we invested a lot of our efforts and budget into how we brought them to life, bringing a Hollywood level make-up artist onto the team to create their beards for added authenticity.”

“We knew we wanted big, athletic hockey-type talent. So, we turned to gyms and arenas looking for unique characters that could fit the bill. The actor that played Görd the God of the Goal Crease is actually 6 ft. 7 inches tall and almost 7 ft. with skates,” Obergfell says.

“The actors brought so much on the day. That Godly laugh they did was all them. They just started laughing together on the first shot of the day and we loved it so much we got them to keep doing it.”

Steam’s Matt Atkinson directed the spot with a suitable sense of the absurd. Breaking this week, the campaign includes OOH (we’re promised a “Sistine Chapel-inspired mural in Edmonton”), influencer outreach and store takeovers.

Mekanism also created publicity kits with “holy rink water,” prayer cards and Hockey God bobbleheads—”to give to fans who watch the games at BP,” he says.

These gods will even show up in the flesh during key games. Lord knows, the Canadian teams will need all the help they can get.