The intermission. When attending a game, it's usually an opportunity to get food or go to the washroom. Maybe meet up with some friends who are at the game. But for many, it's just eighteen minutes of sitting down waiting for the next period to start. Thank god for smart phones. However, is there an opportunity to keep the crowd entertained or engaged? Maybe make it part of the in game experience. Something that people would actually look forward to.

Unfortunately hockey doesn't lend itself very well for intermission entertainment on the ice. First off, there's the ice. There's only so much you can do on that surface. Secondly, you only have a couple minutes to do something before the Zambonis come on. A sport like basketball has neither of those problems.

So what do the Ottawa Senators do now? Well, from my experience so far this season, it's the exact same as last, minus the Racing Prime Ministers. Here's a small sample of some of the types of entertainment they offer on the ice during the intermissions:

The Gattling Gun T-Shirt Cannon: Exactly what it sounds like. They push around a t-shirt cannon on the ice that can fire multiple t-shirts in a row into the crowd. This obviously prevents anyone on the ends of the arena from participating due to the mesh, and the cannon rarely reaches the 300s.



Blindfolded Find Sparty: A random fan is blindfolded in the middle of the ice and has a limited time to find Sparty who's standing in one of the corner faceoff circles. Essentially the fan sticks his/her hands forward and rotates until the crowd cheers to indicate he/she should move forward getting closer to Sparty.

Bucket Toss Beer Pong: Two teams of two players. Essentially there's six garbage cans set into a triangle (like beer pong) where the net usually is. Each team has a set amount of time to throw what look like volleyballs into the cans (once they land a ball in the can it's removed) and clear them all out.

Hungry Hungry Hippo: Four teams of two players. One player is put on a sled belly down and holds a plastic container. The other holds the player's legs and pushes and pulls them forwards and backwards. In the middle is a bunch of plastic ball pit balls. The goal is to get as many as the balls as you can in a set period of time. The human version of Hungry Hungry Hippo.

Banking Off The Boards: Two players. The net is reversed, and each player is given a set amount of time to bank as many pucks as they can off the boards into the net.

Minor Hockey: They'll have two local minor hockey teams get to play each other for a couple minutes.

As a season ticket holder, all of these usually get old pretty quickly, especially when they carry over from one season to the next. Obviously hockey is the number one reason one attends the game, but it would be nice to actually look forward to the entertainment factor outside of the game. None of these really accomplish that. So what can the team do instead? I figure they can keep using their opening minutes for the on ice entertainment. Afterwards though, they usually have roughly a dozen minutes to kill. So here I propose three different ideas they could use to fill that time:







1. Local Music Acts





Now the team actually did something similar to this once upon a time (I want to say around 2010 or so), but it would be cool to feature local music acts. The team already has a stage area setup (RIP Missing Chiclets), so that part is already taken care of. Let the act play a three or four song set during the first intermission. Then either let them do another set in the second intermission or have them do a meet and greet with fans and offer them the chance to sell their merchandise. It would be a good chance to connect with the local music community (another avenue to sell tickets?), and offer them exposure to a large group of people. I would certainly love listening to different music acts at every game I attend. I might not enjoy them all, but it would certainly make for something new to look forward to at each game. There's nothing better than discovering a new music that you can listen to.

2. Jumbotron Video Games





Video games have become more popular than ever these days, especially with e-sports on the rise. Why not try and tap into that. To start the team could just focus on the NHL video game series. Host some qualifier tournaments at a local establishment (maybe include a ticket with the entry cost?) for the opportunity to compete live at a Sens game. Now that the team has the new HD jumbotron, there's no issue showing a video game on it. Have the qualifiers get to play one another at each game during the intermissions. The team could offer a season ticket package for the final winner and have a website dedicated to tracking the bracket of competitors.





Now the timing of this might get awkward. Maybe have the contestants play a period in the video game beforehand, and then have them play the second period during the first intermission and the third period during the second intermission. If it goes to OT/SO, maybe have them play the rest post game? Those are details that can be figured out, but this option at least adds a competition that you can watch during the intermission. It would certainly be more entertaining than watching the exact same videos on the jumbotron every game.







3. Live Trivia





Live trivia has really broken out recently with the success of apps such as Trivia HQ. Now this idea would probably take some effort (and $) to implement from the organization's perspective, but I think would be the most engaging for the crowd. The team would need to commission a trivia app that the audience can open up on their smart phones during the intermission. On the jumbotron various questions could be shown in multiple choice form, from regular trivia, to naming a player from their minor hockey league picture. The trivia questions are endless. Participants would only have several seconds to answer, thus preventing anyone from being able to search the answers. The team could do two separate games for each intermission, meaning if you did need to leave for the concourse, you could still participate in the other intermission.





For prizing, there are many approaches the organization could take. They could use the elimination approach that Trivia HQ does, where one wrong question means you're out. The remaining winners after the last question could all then be offered a minor prize (e.g. a food voucher or discount coupon) OR all be put into a draw for a major prize (e.g. player jersey of their choice). Alternatively, they can have everyone answer every question and just have the highest scorers at the end be offered a minor prize or be put into a draw for a major prize. The organization could maybe mix the formats up every game for variety.





If you want the perfect example of who to model this off of, just take a look at Cineplex's Timeplay app that's used before movie showings. That's actually something I look forward to when attending a movie in a Cineplex theatre now. It's definitely enhanced the movie going experience. They offer all sorts of different prizes from discount coupons to free food. They even do tiered prizing, where the top players get a larger prize, but then the top x% of players will still get a minor prize. If implemented correctly, it could be a great way to enhance the in game experience for Sens fans.





Whether not any of these ideas are actually feasible to implement from an NHL organization standpoint, I don't know. All I do know is there's certainly work that can be done to improve the stale in game intermission experience that one has at Sens game. Do you have any ideas of your own that you think could be done to improve the intermission entertainment? Let me know in the comments!



