In its first year, Scotiabank’s hockey for all platform focused on awareness – calling out the issues that plagued the sport, having been brushed aside for years. But Scotiabank knew they needed to do more than talk the talk. Canadians who had historically been excluded by the sport, current hockey fans, and those on the game’s periphery needed to see that Scotiabank's commitment to creating meaningful change was real and tangible.

Despite being one of the most diverse countries in the world, our hockey media from professional leagues to the most junior of programs often does not reflect this. Even children’s books about the sport rarely include diverse characters, leaving millions of kids without seeing representation in the game.

Looking to change hockey’s future in Canada, and increase needed diversity and inclusion, Scotiabank set its sights on impacting how the next generation of players are introduced to our national sport.

To help change hockey’s future, Scotiabank needed to change where the hockey journey starts for so many kids. So it set out to help fill the representation gap in children’s hockey literature by

commissioning a new, more diverse and inclusive version of The Hockey Sweater with a modern storyline, setting, and characters that reflect Canada. Named The Hockey Jersey, the book was created in partnership with Black creators: author Jael Richardson and illustrator Chelsea Charles.

Flipping the genre on its head and challenging every convention and stereotype that has defined hockey until this point in Canadian history, The Hockey Jersey features an all-girls team, Black, Indigenous or players and families of colour, and a range of cultural representations. Crafted in collaboration with the community, sensitivity readings were hosted with families from the diverse backgrounds featured in the book to ensure they were accurately represented after years of exclusion from hockey.

Our insight was simple yet powerful – if kids don’t see themselves on the page, they’ll never see themselves in the game.

Our PR strategy would work in service of connecting with hockey fans and families on the periphery of the game to show that every child has a place in our national game. To achieve this, we would engage a wide range of earned and paid tactics, as well as a choir of voices to speak on the brand’s behalf and publicly endorse The Hockey Jersey, including former athletes, sports media and broadcasters.

A total of 40,000 books were printed, with over 85% earmarked for schools, public libraries and Little Free Libraries across Canada. Scotiabank also created an education guide for teachers to incorporate the book into their curriculums, and a Media Centre offering free downloads of the book, so any and every child could read The Hockey Jersey.

On January 17th, The Hockey Jersey was released nationwide, supported by broadcast, online, and activations at NHL arenas. Social and digital creative went live alongside OOH targeted to diverse neighbourhoods. All content drove to a microsite where audiences could learn more and get a copy from retail partners. To increase accessibility, a free ebook version was made available and was translated into various languages, and adapted into braille.

Then Scotiabank’s marquee hockey program, Hockey Day in Canada, went live with a 14-hour-long broadcast highlighting the book throughout, earning endorsements from sports media personalities and hockey legends like PK Subban, in support of the impact the book would have.

Taking the impact of the book to the ice, Scotiabank turned the jersey from the book into a real-life symbol of representation and sponsored hundreds of underfunded community teams, providing diverse players with personalized name bars in their native language.

In its first week the book sold out online and continues to surpass all sales projections with 86x more copies sold than the average book in Canada, reaching #1 on Apple Books and #3 on Amazon children’s books. The Hockey Jersey is also official curriculum in over 500 schools and public library councils.

With all proceeds of the books’ sale being donated to Hockey4Youth, over $50,000 has been directed to creating access to the game for diverse,high-priority youth. Ensuring the book is in the hands of hockey’s next generation, thousands of copies were donated to community-level programs and philanthropic hockey partners.

With undisputable positive social sentiment from over 30 million total impressions across 150 pieces of broadcast, online, and social coverage, The Hockey Jersey significantly impacted brand metrics with BIPOC populations showing a 76% increase in reputation and a 14% increase in likelihood to consider vs. previous period.