Why Sidney Crosby shouldn’t go to the White House, in terms he can understand

If you haven’t heard, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced they would be accepting an invitation to visit the White House. They did this despite Donald Trump’s expletive-filled, racially-motivated tirade about black NFL players not standing for the anthem. To make this move even more tone deaf, Penguins Captain Sidney Crosby revealed he supported the visit and thinks it’s “a great honour.”

That Crosby said this despite everything that’s happened in the last week is not very surprising to me. Aside from ingrained white privilege, the real trouble, I think, is that Sidney Crosby does not understand life outside of hockey. Have you ever seen an interview or documentary footage from his day-to-day life? The man does not look comfortable in his own skin unless it’s adorned with a jersey, pads and skates.

So allow me to try to explain to Sidney Crosby why he shouldn’t go to the White House the only way he’ll understand: with hockey terminology.

—

Hey Sid, look alive now.

Going to the White House is an offside. Your team won’t be advancing the play here. It’s actually like you’ve iced the puck and you have to go all the way back down the ice. You’re as far away as possible from where you want to be.

You’ve got to understand, Sid, that as a white guy, you were born on the power play. There’s a whole lot of people out there with different colour skin who live their whole lives like they’re defending a 5-on-3. And right now, Donald Trump is doing a whole lot of unsportsmanlike conduct to make sure they stay on the disadvantage. The refs have put their whistles away and they won’t be calling any roughing on him.

If you go to the White house, that’s gonna put you in the box. And we’re not talking about a double minor here. You’re looking at a game misconduct. Heck, you could be facing a suspension. Sure, you’ll still be able to put your stick on the ice in an NHL game, but you’re not likely to find yourself playing centre in many street hockey contests.

You’re putting yourself on the away team roster here, Sid. Everyone’s rooting for the team trying to play their way out of the 5-on-3. Going to the White House is like you taking a dive to break up their shorthanded rush. You’re not going to light the lamp playing like that. Your plus-minus will take a big hit after all this.

I know politics isn’t your style of play. But it’s time for you to do some serious backchecking away from this White House visit. You’ve got a chance to change the momentum here. If you give it 110%, you just might bounce back from this.

No more bonehead plays now, eh? Let’s go.

The 13 Best Pieces Of Advice I Got From Inspiring Clickbait Listicles

Happy 2016 everyone! With the New Year come new resolutions to better myself spiritually and professionally! Below are 13 pieces of the best advice I’ve found from prominent business, marketing, social media and life leaders that will help you make the most of the year to come!

1 – Tell Your Story

Nobody cares about you, but tell them your story anyway. They won’t listen, but at least you’ll get to hear yourself talk.

2 – Live Authentically

If you don’t own any authentically made goods, buy some.

3 – Have Something To Say

What do you really stand for? What separates you from all the other clickbait bloggers? How meaningful are your clicks? This isn’t advice, but serious questions for you to really think about.

4 – Always Keep A Notebook Handy

Then hide your phone in that notebook. That way, people will think your spending all your time going over deep thoughts instead of stealing content ideas from Instagram.

5 – “Inspiration” Is For Wimps

So find someone who’s inspired and take their lunch money.

6 – Reimagine Your Content

Because whatever you’re putting on the internet, it’s shit. It’s all shit. Including this.

7 – Make Up Your Own Wordypoos

Whoever said a fitzroy couldn’t waddlestack didn’t phlank a gingerboom.

8 – Have A Strategy For Your Everyday Life

How do you craft a strategy for a day in your typical life? At the end of each day, go over everything that happened to you. Then, write a strategy you can retrofit to what you did so it seems like you did it on purpose.

9 – Be Accountable. Unless It Was Your Fault.

People – especially bosses – love it when you own up to things. So don’t be afraid to take credit for something that happened, unless it was that sizeable mistake you made last Tuesday.

10 – Answer A Question With A Question

If you give an answer, someone might listen to you and that could come back to haunt you.

11 – Believe In Something Bigger Than Yourself

Like money. A big pile of money.

12 – Think Like Mark Zuckerberg

After he sleeps with a girl, he probably points to his penis and says to her, “You and 12 others like this.” Try doing that.

13 – There Is No Vaccine For Virality

Contagious content is king. So keep your poison vaccines away from my content. Please share this.

12 Tips For Those Joining The Blue Jays Bandwagon

The Toronto Blue Jays bandwagon has gotten awfully full in the last week, thanks to them trading for Troy Tulowitzki and David Price (among others). Here are a few handy tips for appropriate etiquette when you go to a Jays game:

1. Don’t show up in the 4th inning. The game starts in the 1st.
2. Don’t stand up to talk to your friends in the row behind you. You’re blocking my view of the game.
3. Rogers Centre has strict regulations around selfies. You may only take a max of 3 per game and they must be taken between innings.
4. Don’t participate in doing “The Wave.” What are you, 8?
5. Don’t throw stuff on the field at opposing players.
6. Don’t throw stuff at people in the stands because they didn’t laugh at or acknowledge your sweet burn of a heckle.
7. Don’t boo Blue Jays players when the team starts to lose. Especially when it’s the 4th inning. The game goes for at least 9 innings. The game is not over in the 4th.
8. There are 162 games in a baseball season. Even the best teams lose around 60 or more. If the Jays lose a game, it doesn’t mean they’re “fucking garbage” and that the team needs to fire Alex Anthopolous and John Gibbons. The most likely scenario is that you are garbage.
9. The Jays aren’t suddenly winning because they traded away Jose Reyes. He was much better than you heard on the radio and read in internet comments.
10. If you catch a foul ball, give it to the nearest kid. Not your girlfriend. Not your wife. A kid. It’s a baseball. You will Instagram a photo of it, take it home and never touch it again. Let the kid have it.
11. Stop cheering for Kawasaki. He sucks. He sucks so hard. You are cheering for the idea of him being Japanese and you being mildly racist.
12. You don’t have to be black out drunk to attend weekend Jays games. Strange but true.

Follow these simple steps and you’re on your way to not being one of the terrible people at the next Jays game. Enjoy the rest of the season!

How to craft award-winning Direct Mail Advertising, Part 2

For all my advertising readers out there, here’s a handy follow up to last month’s post on Cannes Lion-worthy direct mail advertising.

Crafting award-winning direct mail advertising is as easy as following these steps:

STEP 1: Use a CTA vaguely referencing a once popular TV show

STEP 2: Include incentive-based offers

STEP 3: Harmoniously connect your DM with an experiential piece

STEP 4: Make a case study

How to craft Cannes Lion-worthy Direct Mail Advertising

For those who don’t know, my day job is working as a copywriter at an ad agency in Toronto. This post is for all my colleagues attending the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity, the biggest party award show the industry has to offer.

So, how do you craft Lion-worthy direct mail advertising? Follow this handy guide.

STEP 1: Use a solid call to action

STEP 2: Include a relevant offer

STEP 3: Engage your consumer with meaningful content

STEP 4: Create a case study showcasing the piece’s effectiveness

STEP 5: Profit

Rolling Stone: All 1 Terrible SNL Article Writers, Ranked

As you probably know, this past weekend marked the 40th anniversary for Saturday Night Live. Comedy snob or not, you have to admit this is a remarkable achievement. (Yes you do.) Forget the debate about which era was best, which was worst, and whether or not the show should even be on the air anymore. It has a lot of issues but it’s 90 minutes of original comedy, every week. That’s crazy to me. It took me over a year to write five minutes of stand up material I didn’t hate. Forget about whether the show should be that long, it’s just not an easy thing to do.

And yet Rolling Stone has deemed some guy, Rob Sheffield, capable of ranking all 141 cast members in the history of Saturday Night Live. Lists like these are subjective, stupid and, of course, meaningless. And yes, I don’t agree with the rankings. I didn’t have to get past Norm Macdonald at #135 to know I didn’t need to read the rest of them. Whoever this guy is, he’s entitled to his opinion. (He might not even be behind the actual rankings, but his name is on them.) What I really take issue with is his mean-spirited, dismissive write-ups for some of the cast members.

Every single one of these people contributed more culturally to the world in one sketch than Rob Sheffield ever will writing hot take click-bait garbage like that article. (Not to mention his rankings of the best SNL Characters ever.) This is the kind of arts “journalism” that made me quit writing criticism. It doesn’t contribute anything to the world. And neither does the guy writing it.

But in the spirit of hot takes and jumping on a cultural event to garner site traffic, I now present to you my insanely lazy, ruthlessly quick ranking of every Terrible Rolling Stone SNL Article Writers ever!

1. Rob Sheffield

I don’t know who Rob Sheffield is and neither do you. Let’s check back in with him on the 40th anniversary of his SNL article.