If one is a Twitter user and a fan of literally anything, it's easy to notice that no matter what is being discussed, there will be a Brazilian involved at some point. Hockey is no different. As a Brazilian hockey fan, I feel obligated to discuss my own country and colleagues in the first part of this series. To give anyone who might be confused some context: Hispanic is a term that defines Spanish-speaking countries. It may come as a surprise to some but, no, Brazilians do not speak Spanish - and therefore, we're not Hispanic. The main language spoken in Brazil is actually Portuguese. Brazilians, however, are Latinos, and we have a beautiful community of hockey fans.

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Deep questions come with deeper answers

I'm a content creator and podcaster at Tic-Tac-Gol, a Brazilian hockey platform which I helped create, and we're very passionate about the sport. To uncover the feelings of my colleagues and peers, I created a questionnaire to examine how they feel being a Latino fan of a North American-centered sport. The overwhelming answer was, “lonely.” Don't get me wrong, our community is amazing. Working with multiple North American websites, however, I have nearly always been the only Latina in the room. My experience has been lonely, and the responses of my peers resonated with me.

"Being Latin/Latin American is like being invisible, or non-existent," said Thiago Farias, a Brazilian fan since the late 90s. "The NHL does a couple of actions in a season during the Hispanic Heritage Month and that's all. We are not a targeted market or even an audience they have interest in."

This part hit home. In a league where the reigning Hart Trophy winner, Auston Matthews, is half-Mexican, how can we feel so invisible? Farias is not alone in this feeling. Natália Brauns, a Bruins fan from Rio de Janeiro, expressed a similar opinion.

"I feel completely invisible and sometimes unwanted,” said Brauns on the questionnaire. “I try not to think about it too much considering many things involving hockey culture are very problematic, but it can be very isolating."

"It's funny when gringos get pleasantly surprised with the fact that Brazilians watch hockey (including a player from my team, which was very fun)... When the teams (or even the journalists that cover them) don't acknowledge how much we sacrifice for our love for them, sometimes it seems like everything kind of goes to waste."

The isolation is amplified due to the distance and the time zones, as expressed by multiple volunteers who answered the questionnaire. We can only hold on to each other and dream about the day we will be inside our favorite team's arena, watching our favorite players for the first time. It's a dream most of us can't afford.

The NHL is losing money and viewers

As mentioned, there are Brazilians who have been watching hockey for a long time, with fan networks existing since the 1990s. With that, one might think NHL games are now on national television or at least easy to access, however, that's not the reality. NHL games only started to be streamed consistently in Brazil when Disney's Latin American sports platform, Star+, was released two years ago. I've been a hockey fan since 2019 and we only got a legal streaming platform in 2021.

I understand it's not entirely the NHL's fault and of course, it depends on the country and who holds the streaming rights. Brazilians, however, have been a constant presence in the hockey community since 2019. Why isn't the NHL recognizing us yet?

When asked about the lack of Latino representation in the NHL, Érica Barros, a Washington Capitals fan, said, "It's sad, [...] there is such a big and participative community here. We will never be their number one priority but it would be great to see some recognition."

Out of 15 people who answered the questionnaire, seven are part of a portal or fan page about the NHL and hockey in their respective countries, and that's only of the people who participated. If one were to search a ‘team name and Brazil’ on Twitter, there's a 99% chance they would find at least one fan or fan page. Even the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes have Brazilian fans. If the NHL decided to invest in marketing toward Brazilian fans, they would not only make money, but they would also gain space in a huge sport-loving country.

Journalist and New York Islanders fan Larissa Tallon gave her perspective on how well hockey could perform here if given the right amount of dedication.

"As a fan, It's pretty obvious that the NHL does not care about us in any way,” said Tallon. “There's no content, no policy, no strategy to reach us and even in North America the Latin community is very underrepresented." 

"[E]ven analyzing in the marketing and brand spectrum, it's pretty unintelligent to not try to capitalize Latin American fans…The NFL has a specific social media account to communicate with Brazilian fans and made events with fans and celebrities for the Super Bowl."

Tallon even brought data from the NBA’s efforts to connect with fans in Brazil. 

"The NBA has tight relations with South America, their social media communication is very strong,” said Tallon. “During the playoffs, there were marketing activations in different Brazilian malls. And how did that help? Research shows that between 2019 and 2021, the audience [in Brazil] went from 31 million people to 45 million people."

One can look at those numbers and say 'Hey, that's unfair, that looks like the NBA was already popular there.’ And it was, but here's the difference: both the NFL and NBA recognized the opportunity they had with Brazilian fans. Both leagues saw their sports growing in the country and decided to take the jump, and it couldn't have gone better. In 2018, the NFL Game Pass had 5,000 Brazilian subscribers. 

Since then, the number has grown exponentially. They're now at 100,000 subscribers (the last public statistics are from 2019) and the amount of NFL fans continues to grow. They have official merchandise outlets in Brazil, multiple places stream the Super Bowl and other games, and the NFL’s social media presence in Portuguese is undoubtedly the best of all American sports. Recognition makes fans want to be a part of the NFL community.

Each of the questionnaire participants has never experienced going to a live NHL game or owning an official jersey - or any other product - from their teams. I'm lucky enough to have a partner who gave me my two jerseys from my favorite players, but before him, I didn't have any either. Looking at the economic scenario of South America, purchasing products that cost our minimum wage is not a priority. It's not even a luxury, it's irresponsible or impossible.