A Real-Life Springfield Hockey Team Celebrates ‘The Simpsons’ Once a Year
Fusing pop culture with pro sports has become more and more popular in recent years. Like how the Brooklyn Cyclones held a “Seinfeld Night,” when the minor league baseball team celebrated the popular sitcom with appearances from cast members, a George Costanza bobblehead and the implication that every single attendee would refrain from masturbation for as long as possible.
Then there was the time that the San Francisco Giants hosted a “Full House Night.” Sadly, the game didn’t end with the two teams working out their differences with a heart-to-heart convo accompanied by gentle synthesizer music.
The Simpsons has similarly been celebrated by a minor league hockey team from, appropriately enough, Springfield. Specifically, Springfield, Massachusetts.
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In 2020, the Springfield Thunderbirds, an affiliate of the NHL’s Florida Panthers at the time, rebranded as The Springfield Ice-O-Topes for a whole week, complete with Simpson-ized jerseys.
In the world of the show, the Ice-O-Topes are Springfield’s resident hockey team, briefly seen in the Season 14 episode “Helter Shelter.” Although their jerseys are decidedly less snazzy.
According to the team’s president, their biggest inspiration for the gimmick wasn’t the episode that featured the Ice-O-Topes, it was the entirely hockey-themed episode “Lisa on Ice.”
Come to think of it, The Simpsons has contained a fair bit of hockey content over the years. Season 34 gave us “Top Goon,” in which Moe enlists Nelson to be an enforcer on his hockey team.
And even some non-hockey-centric episodes featured memorable hockey jokes, like how Bart used a photo of the legendary Gordie Howe to woo Mrs. Krabappel.
And Satan selected the starting lineup of the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers to serve on his jury of the damned.
While the Thunderbirds rebranding was originally planned to coincide with the show’s 30th anniversary, the team, now affiliated with the St. Louis Blues, just keep doing it. In fact, the “Ice-O-Topes” played this past Saturday and won. And their jerseys are full of references to Simpsons lore. This year’s edition features a patch bearing the Krusty Brand slogan: “It’s not just good, it’s good enough.”
Last year, the jersey boasted a three-eyed mutant version of their mascot Boomer, not unlike Blinky the fish.
When the promotion first began Simpsons producer Al Jean told NHL.com that “it’s really cool,” adding, “now we finally know where Springfield is” — a statement that will no doubt piss off all of the other Springfields.
