NEW YORK -- Mark Messier is bringing his GAME 7 brand and merchandise to the NHL.
Messier, the Hockey Hall of Famer and six-time Stanley Cup champion, will be on hand when GAME 7 unveils its new NHL apparel collection at the NHL Shop NYC Flagship Store on Tuesday.
The event, which takes place from 3-6 p.m. ET at the store on 9th Avenue in Manhattan, will showcase the new collection of GAME 7 apparel from the New York Rangers and other NHL teams and will feature interactive displays and iconic photos.
Messier is a co-founder of GAME 7 along with Danny DeVito and Isaac Chera. GAME 7 is a multi-platform sports and entertainment brand that features content, such as its five-part docuseries on Amazon Prime, community experiences and consumer products.
"We've been working at the GAME 7 brand now for quite some time now," Messier told NHL.com. "We started with the five-part docuseries on Amazon Prime, which was an Emmy nominated series directed by Connor Schell. That was really our first bit of content to start to get our brand out in the public. Then, of course, partnering with the Rangers and the Rangers patch in a Centennial year and working with the NHL to do a collaboration with GAME 7 merch, it's been quite a whirlwind, to be honest with you.
"A lot of hard work. A lot of fun work. We think we're onto something really exciting and it's important being able to help everybody in a way understand Game 7, what a Game 7 means, the mentality of a Game 7 and what it takes to thrive in the most pressurized moments in sports."
Messier said the event at the NHL store in New York City is another way to amplify the GAME 7 brand and the meaning behind it. His hope is to be able to communicate his experiences of thriving in a Game 7 directly with fans who attend the event.
Messier had 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in nine career Game 7s, with his teams going 7-2. He was on the winning team in two Game 7s in the Stanley Cup Final, with the Edmonton Oilers against the Philadelphia Flyers in 1987 and the Rangers against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994.
"You think about Game 7, when you talk about the two greatest words in sports, it all comes down to this, win or go home," Messier said. "I think there's a lot to learn from the people that have excelled in those moments. We're doing that obviously through our content on Amazon Prime right now and we'll be doing that with more podcasts and digging deep into the psychology of a Game 7 and what has allowed those great players to excel in the most pressurized moments in sports.
"Literally you can take it out to where everybody in life has a Game 7 moment and are you prepared, do you have the tools required to not only make the right decision but then act on the right decision? So we think we can ultimately branch out of the theoretical Game 7 and more into the normal lifestyle in many different genres."
Messier also said through its partnership with the Rangers and Madison Square Garden, the former Madison Club at Madison Square Garden is being renamed the GAME 7 Club and will feature iconic artifacts from Game 7s and Messier's 1994 Rangers jersey.
Like the event at the NHL store, he sees the club as another way to tell the story of the brand to the fans.
"There's got to be a message, you have to stand for something," Messier said. "I think we've done a good job in the docuseries of interviewing and creating the content from the Cubs-Indians to Dirk Nowitzki (of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks), the Red Sox, the Oilers '87, the (Oilers defenseman) Steve Smith story, the Rangers' 54 year drought. Those championships didn't happen by accident so let's discover what happened in those moments where the teams were able to prevail and players were able to prevail. And also on the flip side, what do you learn in failure, what do you learn in losses, which is probably just as important.
"My hope is that we can do a little education, have a little fun, share some stories and show off our incredible merch."
