You are Not Seeing Things: It's NHL.com in French

The National Hockey League announced that the new French version of NHL.com has gone live. It is somewhat surprising that Czech, Finnish, German, Russian, Slovak, and Swedish sites were launched at the start of the season and that the French site was the last to come along.

Make the jump for the full release from the NHL...


NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE LAUNCHES OFFICIAL FRENCH LANGUAGE WEBSITE

French Website Joins 6 Additional New NHL Websites In Czech, Finnish, German, Russian, Slovak and Swedish Launched At Season Start

NEW YORK (November 8, 2011) ? The National Hockey League (NHL®) today announced the launch of a new official website published in French as a complement to the English-language NHL.com.

LNH.com, the NHL’s French language site, provides the League’s francophone fan base an all-access pass to their favorite NHL team and players with fresh, exclusive and compelling content that only the NHL can deliver.  Reporting on all 30 clubs, LNH.com features much of the same great content currently found on NHL.com, including Players, Scores, Schedule, Standings, Stats, Polls and Photo Gallery.  LNH.com also will offer a special 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game microsite – including a French version of the All-Star Fan balloting and sweepstakes.

The content strategy for the French-Canadian NHL Web site is to also prominently feature such French-Canadian players and coaches as Tampa Bay’s Martin St. Louis, Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux, New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur, Montreal’s Jacques Martin and Boston’s Claude Julien, providing regular video interviews of these players in their native language, special highlight packages of their performance on the ice, and localized versions of their traditional NHL.com player pages.

“NHL.com is the premier web destination for NHL hockey," said Charles Coplin, NHL executive vice president of content. “Because fans around the world follow our players, our Clubs and our League, we also feel it is important to deliver local-language versions of NHL.com, and we are extremely pleased now to offer our Francophone fans that opportunity."

The site will have local staff writers, including managing editor Arpon Basu, formerly of CTVMontreal.ca, and contributors Francois Lemenu, formerly of Le Devoir and La Presse Canadienne; Martin Leclerc, currently with Radio-Canada and formerly of Le Journal de Montreal; and Richard Milo, formerly of La Presse Canadienne.

LNH.com advertisers at launch time include League partners Scotiabank and Canadian Tire as well as RIM, Philips, Cogeco., Dove MEN+CARE and Shoppers Drug Mart.

The NHL has also introduced websites in Czech, Finnish, German, Russian, Slovak and Swedish at the start of the 2011-12 season.

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