The World Cup of Hockey arrives in September. Interest must be captured. Ticket packages must be sold. So as the Stanley Cup Playoffs opened on Wednesday, a new ad campaign promoting the tournament hit American airwaves.

The commercial features a commentator interviewing Patrick Kane of the American team, attempting to goad him into identifying Team Canada as the game he’s must looking forward to playing in. Kane responds with … well, with what Patrick Kane might actually say when asked this question in the locker room, avoiding any controversy with pre-programmed platitudes, like every other player.

Finally, our commentator cuts to the chase about Canada being Team USA’s arch rival, and admonishes Kane for his lack of candor.

A few comments:

1. Canada and the U.S. play on Sept. 20. Tickets are available.

2. One wonders how many concepts they went through before settling on an effete Ned Flanders approach to the interviewer character. It's ... an interesting choice.

3. Please note that Patrick Kane is the featured player in his ad. That’s quite a change from last September, when the Chicago Blackhawks star was in the midst of a sexual assault investigation. The NHL didn’t bring him to their annual players’ media tour in Toronto, which meant he also didn’t appear at the World Cup of Hockey press event, despite being on stage for the tournament’s announcement earlier in 2015. Although Bettman did have to talk about the investigation during the World Cup press conference.

And now he’s the face of the ad campaign for the World Cup of Hockey.

Quite a ride.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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