Looks like the NHL is pretty serious about these Stan Lee/Neal Adams superheroes. Above is the 2nd intermission show that was put on complete with video projections, a guy in a costume, a mysterious villain, and narration by Stan “The Man” Lee himself.

All that’s missing from this team is a girl — it could be Cammi Granato or Oksana Baiul — of course, knowing Stan, a female teammate would be called “The Slipper” and have the power to turn into a slippery patch of ice.

You can view individual videos for the rest of the characters here.

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1 COMMENT

  1. http://www.guardianproject30.com/

    It looks like every franchise gets a hero! All I could access was the Hurricane.

    Nice animation! Marvel should license the design and revamp their Handbook site on Marvel.com!

    Six items in the NHL store. This looks like the NHL is trying to get boys interested in hockey by using the Superhero strategy. Not a bad idea. The merchandising could be lucrative. And it can’t be any worse than Peter Puck, right?

    The Chronicles section has video for each franchise, as well as PDF comics!

    (Oh, man, St. Louis fans… do I feel sorry for you!)

  2. You mean the Pittsburgh Penguin isn’t a pudgy Howard-the-Duck-like superhero? Truly a missed opportunity here.

  3. Er, I doubt that any boy who lives in an area with a skating surface somewhere nearby needs characters that are a puzzling stretched metaphor for a team’s name to get him interested in hockey.

    It’s much more likely the reverse: that Marvel/Disney wants to get hockey fans interested in buying their licensed Guardian Project jerseys, hockey pucks, sticks, foam “#1” hands, plastic horns (vuvuzelas), and collectible beer cups. Oh yeah and maybe some comics.

    I’m disappointed that Montreal’s superhero isn’t L’Habitant, a guy in a toque who shoots pea soup at his enemies from his flying canoe.

  4. I had hoped that the STL team would maybe be a suit and tie kind of hero, like The Spirit, etc. Would make sense for the Blues. Should have known Stan couldn’t do something that subtle. I wonder about the Phoenix team though – Coyote couldn’t look more like Wolverine.

  5. This is brilliant from a marketing viewpoint.

    Each team gets a mascot. (Yes, most already have mascots. Can you name ONE?)

    Each team gets a plethora of easy merchandise.

    Want to raise attendance? Market your team to families. Sell family group tickets. Give away the comic or other cheap merchandise, just like Major League Baseball. Set aside a family section with special restrooms and concessions. During the two 17-minute intermissions, have the two mascots “team-up” on the ice to battle evil! (Kinda like the Batman TV show… there’s a cliffhanger after the first period!)