NHL Gets Social on Twitter With a Big Contest

It may be over 91 degrees in Los Angeles but there is an unmistakable smell of hockey in the air. The regular season opens tonight with four exciting games on the schedule. On Saturday, October 3rd, the Los Angeles Kings will open their regular season at Staples Center against the Gretzky-less Phoenix Coyotes. But the Kings and the Coyotes aren’t the only teams playing on Saturday night. Every NHL team will take the ice on Saturday.

To celebrate, the National Hockey League has introduced a contest on Twitter they call the #NHLPick15. The rules are simple. First and foremost, you need to get an account on Twitter. Next, you need to predict the winning team in all 15 games played on Saturday, October 3. The one fan that picks all 15 games correctly will win a trip for two to a regular season game of his choosing. Ten other entrants will be selected at random to receive a free season of NHL GameCenter Live.

To enter, send a message to @NHL, and pick the 15 teams you think will win using the three letter team code below. You must include the hashtag “#NHLPick15″ to be entered, you must answer the tiebreaker question, “What is the total, combined number of penalty minutes that all 30 NHL teams will have in the games played on October 3rd?”

Here’s my entry into the contest:

@NHL CHI, DET, VAN, BOS, BUF, NJD, PIT, NYR, WAS, TBL, CBJ, NSH, CGY, SJS, LAK, 268pims #NHLPick15

Here’s the match-up for Saturday, October 3rd:

CHI @ FLA
STL @ DET
VAN @ COL
CAR @ BOS
MTL @ BUF
PHI @ NJD
PIT @ NYI
OTT @ NYR
TOR @ WAS
TBL @ ATL
MIN @ CBJ
NSH @ DAL
CGY @ EDM
SJS @ ANA
PHX @ LAK

For more information (including all rules in English and French), visit NHL.com.

KingsCast Take: The National Hockey League is taking the fans seriously. With teams taking to Twitter and Facebook to promote themselves, you can now interact directly various members of the organization. Gone are the days when you had to wait for the latest issue of The Hockey News to appear at your doorstep. Not only that but there are cool prizes given out almost daily by individual teams and the NHL. The push the NHL is doing in social media is huge and it’s great for the fan.

I know most of you interact with the Los Angeles Kings on either Twitter or Facebook so what is the coolest thing you’ve heard from the organization lately? Tell us here!

Don’t forget to friend us up on Twitter and Facebook. See you at Staples!