B/R Open Ice

In October 2021, I became one of the first Social Programmers for Bleacher Report’s new hockey brand, B/R Open Ice. As new NHL league partners, the company tasked our team with creating a new portfolio brand from scratch and getting the B/R audience to care about the sport of hockey. We are also responsible for the NHL on TNT’s social media pages.

In one and a half seasons, we have grown to over 100,000 followers on Instagram, nearly 55,000 followers on Twitter, and over 90,000 on TikTok

My day-to-day responsibilities include brainstorming daily content ideas for B/R Open Ice’s platforms (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok), requesting and creating various graphics and video edits of content for our platforms, communicating with our television partners at TNT about content for NHL on TNT’s platforms, communicating with NHL league partners about collaboration opportunities, and last but surely not least actually posting content to all of these platforms (5 in total).

In addition to our work off-site, we also create on-site content at various NHL games throughout the season, particularly the NHL’s Winter Classic which is broadcast on TNT as well as the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final.

In May 2022, I attended Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Playoff series between the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena. There I created an Instagram Story providing fans with an inside look around the arena and the atmosphere of a playoff game between Metropolitan Division Rivals.

You can watch that story HERE.

I also attended Smashfest X, a charity ping pong tournament event run by former NHL player Dominic Moore each summer in support of concussion and rare cancer research and gave fans a similar look into the event through an Instagram story.

My passion for the sport of hockey and my creative spirit drive me every single day, and I am proud of the work my team has done in a short time to build B/R Open Ice into what it is today.

Some of our mainstay content executions include weekly Power Rankings and bi-weekly Style Rankings in collaboration with our editing team, as well as treated game highlights and custom illustrations that elevate news stories, holidays, player milestones, and regular daily NHL highlights. Some examples are:

We also work with influencers, current NHL players, former NHL players, and our TNT talent to create content for our platforms. Here is an example of a video we shot with The Hockey Guys, recreating the beginning of the second Mighty Ducks film to promote the 2023 Winter Classic: