OHL Behind the Scenes: Generals’ Brandon Wright

Throughout the 2022-23 off-season, the Ontario Hockey League will be spotlighting a member from each team’s front office staff as we look to highlight those working “Behind the Scenes” of the day-to-day operations.

Guaranteeing an entertaining environment for all, the newest addition of OHL Behind the Scenes features Oshawa Generals Manager of Social Media, Media Relations and Game Presentation, Brandon Wright.

BW: My name is Brandon Wright and I am the Manager of Social Media, Media Relations, and Game Presentation with the Oshawa Generals! I am entering my third season full-time with the team, but have been with the organization for about five years now. I am a graduate of the Journalism Mass Media program at Durham College here in Oshawa.

What are your responsibilities as the Oshawa Generals Manager of Social Media, Media Relations and Game Presentation?

BW: My responsibilities are all over the map! Throughout the week, I am in charge of our entire brand presence across our social media platforms and our website. Thankfully I have a great digital team in Alex, Ryan and Anna. This summer I have been overhauling our public relations department, creating new packages and documents for visiting teams and media while they’re in our arena. On the game presentation side, I’m responsible for the execution of everything as soon as doors open to the final buzzer. I write the game script for our PA announcer, In-Arena Host and our team of game day volunteers and interns. Working alongside the Director of Corporate Partnerships, we ensure all of our sponsor activations are performed to keep relationships strong. Although, when it comes to game day, I’ll always tell people the best part of the job is getting to hit the goal horn.

What has been your favourite special event / campaign since joining the Generals?

BW: My favourite special event would of course be our 2023 Pride Night. Since joining the Generals and the hockey world in general, as a gay man, I wanted it to be a priority to help make the game more inclusive to a community it often turns a blind eye to. It was obviously special to me on a personal level, but in terms of what I brought to the table from a game presentation, it was the most fully immersive ‘theme’ night I’ve ever done. From special jerseys worn the entire game, a sold-out merch line, special guests, and partnership with PFlag Durham. My favourite part of the night was our special Pride x Hockey Project campaign that played 10 video messages on the videoboard throughout the evening from prominent members of both the hockey community and LGBTQ+ community, such as OHL Commissioner David Branch, Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter, Nashville Predators prospect Luke Prokop, Canada’s Drag Race winner Priyanka and many others on the importance of growing the game.

My favourite campaign I’ve been able to execute since joining the Generals has to be our schedule release project for the upcoming season! It was the first time I did something more than a typical schedule release. My graphic designer Alex and I curated this idea to have members of the office draw the different OHL team logos from memory. At first we didn’t know if it would take off the way we wanted to, but when we started to see some of the results we knew we had to commit. The feedback we received across social media were fantastic.

What led you to your current role with the Generals?

BW: It was kind of a perfect storm, funnily enough. I interned with the organization back in the 2019-2020 season but it was abruptly ended by the pandemic shutdown. From there, I stayed with the organization alongside my manager at the time, just helping her when needed. Eventually people left to find other opportunities and I was able to move into a part-time position keeping the brand alive, creating content through the dog-days of the pandemic. I did that for about a year before the league and province worked towards getting the 2021-2022 season underway. It was then that I was offered the full-time role – and here I am now!

What has been the most fulfilling part about being able to work along side the players creating content?

BW: Learning about who they are as people outside of the rink is the best part. Everyone sees them as players first, and obviously that’s what people come to watch, but getting to know them off the ice is the most rewarding.

What is something that you’re looking forward to building on for next season?

BW:  I’m most looking forward to building our public relations department back up to the standard it should be. In my first few years of being here, I focused a lot of my time and energy on the brand development and the in-game experience, and doing my best on the public relations side. Now that I have a real footing in the other areas of my day-to-day, I’m spending more time ensuring professional press releases go out when there’s organizational news. I’ve built our own media kit package, game day dossier, as well as keeping our everyday media partners needs in mind. I’m a sucker for organized documents and professional branded packages so building these assets for the club was actually really exciting. We used a lot of league provided PR documents before this season, which was always fantastic, but this is our ‘Taylor’s Version’ of PR, creating our own branded assets.

What is crucial when overseeing different roles within the organization?

BW: I’d say there are three really important skills you need to have when working in so many different departments, no matter how similar they might be. You definitely need to be able to time manage, stay organized and delegate. On game days, all three of my jobs collide and it’s impossible to do it all by myself. To avoid a disaster, I have to use my time in the days before game day smartly, ensuring everything I can do ahead of time is finished – like writing the scripts, ordering the media room catering, uploading content to the videoboard. I also am lucky enough to have a great team of people so that when I’m stationed in the sound room for a whole game directing the show, my in-game coordinator is running everything on the floor, and my social media team is helping run the accounts. If I wasn’t able to delegate those tasks, each one would suffer at the expense of another.