PR tactics and professional hockey haven’t always been connected terms. Roughly a year ago I wrote about the NBA Lockout and its Marketing Effects. Well here we are in 2012 and all the same is holding true for the current situation in my favorite sport of hockey, and it is taking a toll on us all: employees, business owners, and fans.

But this lockout has had a very interesting spin to it. Both the League/Team Owners as well as the NHLPA (National Hockey League Players’ Association) have taken enormous risks in public relations in order to sway public opinion on how the stalemate of negotiations over splitting up a $3.3 billion pie are going. The last lockout in the NHL took place in 2004-05 and the league lost an entire season over it. What’s different this time around is that Twitter and Facebook not only exist, but players are incredibly active on their personal accounts — and the owners and League know it.

Here’s what both sides have done to date:

The Players

The players in this lockout feel as if the owners have no ground for putting a halt on the League for anything other than thinking “we are giving you too much money and we are stopping that.” Video and social media are the chosen PR tactics for the players.

As the work stoppage began, the players banded together closer than ever and produced this video that has accumulated nearly 400,000 views in one month:

The video aims to sway the public to remember that these athletes are also human beings, and drives home the point (as the last line says) “This is an NHL owners lockout” and not one wanted by the players. As a consumer and fan, I was ready to march with my fire ablaze, ready to knock down the owners’ doors demanding a fix. It’s safe to say this video is a very effective tactic for this fan.

Player agent Allan Walsh is highly active on Twitter. He has over 25,000 followers and 10,000 tweets, and he is  not afraid to voice his true opinion through this outlet. He has also recommended his clients to take to Twitter to address the fans, and express the players’ same frustrations. The most notable example of this approach is St. Louis Blues star David Perron.

The Owners

It is generally acknowledged that the previous lockout agreement ended as a huge win for the owners. The league had been struggling financially and teams were trying to stay afloat as players claimed a huge part of the pie. So it’s no surprise that this time around it is easy for a picture to be painted by the media that the owners have no justification for this work stoppage and that this is simply an enormous money grab.

The league and owners finally made some movement last week, as the sports website Deadspin picked up some leaked documents of the NHL conducting a focus group, run by Frank Luntz – a top Republican Party strategist. The owners used this focus group to send a message to the fans that read, “We do care about you and the sport and we want to play as much as you do.”

The following day, October 17th, the NHL and NHLPA met to resume discussions over the lockout. The NHL offered a proposal for the first time since June and looked to make huge strides in negotiations. Then, in an unprecedented move, the NHL posted their entire proposal on their website for not only all players to see, but the entire public. This move swayed opinions to a more favorable look at the owners and successfully removed the villain label for their side.

The two sides since met on October 18th, and ran into another stalemate that was considered a large step back in negotiations. Fans have fallen from their cloud of optimism back to ground level and the two sides are back at square one.

The bottom line here is this: the NHL lockout this time around is exponentially more transparent than in 2004-05. Both sides are trying to keep the public image in their favor, and are using very interesting tactics in order to do so. Whether it is through social media, focus groups, or having information available on websites, each move from the NHL and NHLPA has been extremely calculated. The PR on display by both sides has been a great case study so far in terms of tactics. Meanwhile we the fans, business owners, and future players alike can only hope this does not end in a contest of PR tactics with a completely wiped out hockey season, again.