History is a database with a PR problem.

We treat these anniversaries like firmware updates—small, scheduled reminders of a version of the world that worked better, or at least felt more tactile. Today, February 25th, is just another batch of "Today in History" metadata designed to keep you scrolling through the NHL’s app. It’s a collection of ghosts trapped in a marketing cloud.

Take 1962. On this day, Bobby Hull became the third player in league history to hit the 50-goal mark. It was a massive deal. In the pre-digital era, "tracking" meant a guy with a lukewarm coffee and a pencil sitting in a drafty press box. If you weren't there, you didn't see it. You waited for the morning paper. There was a certain friction to that consumption—a delay that gave the moment weight.

Fast forward to the present, and the NHL has replaced that weight with a $100 million tracking system called SMT. We have infrared sensors embedded in the pucks and chips sewn into the jerseys. We know the exact velocity of a slap shot, the "expected goals" of a power play, and the exact distance a fourth-liner traveled during a meaningless shift in the second period.

But here’s the trade-off. We have more data than ever, yet the actual viewing experience is becoming a cluttered, glitchy mess. Have you tried watching a game lately? The "Digital Board Dashers"—those AI-driven ads that overlay the physical boards—flicker like a dying GPU. Players vanish into a sea of digitized insurance logos. We’ve traded visual clarity for a targeted ad-tech nightmare. The league spent millions to turn the rink into a green screen, and they’re charging us a premium for the privilege.

In 1990, on this same day, Pat LaFontaine scored five seconds into a period. It’s a weird, glitchy record that still stands. Back then, it was a freak occurrence. Today, that five-second window is just another opportunity for a "micro-bet" notification to pop up on your phone. The "Today in History" alerts aren't really about honoring LaFontaine or Hull. They’re top-of-funnel marketing for the betting-industrial complex.

It’s all about engagement. The league doesn't care if you remember the 1989 trade deadline or Mario Lemieux’s shorthanded goal on this date in ’89. They care that you’re opening the app so they can harvest your location data and serve you a FanDuel promo code. History is the bait; your attention is the product.

Even the way we archive these moments feels cheap. Go to YouTube to find a clip of a historic Feb. 25th goal and you’re buried under a mountain of algorithmically generated "TOP 10" videos with screaming thumbnails. The actual footage is often a grain-heavy 240p mess that the league hasn't bothered to upscale because there's no immediate ROI in preserving the past—only in monetizing the "now."

The friction here is obvious. The NHL wants to be a tech company. They want the valuation of a SaaS platform while selling a product that relies on the messy, analog nostalgia of cold rinks and missing teeth. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to honor the "Original Six" legacy while plastering a digitized gambling ad over the very ice where that legacy was built.

The price tag for this "progress" is the soul of the sport. We’re being sold a version of hockey that is optimized for spreadsheets and sportsbooks, where every historic milestone is just a prompt for a "Same Game Parlay." It’s efficient, sure. It’s profitable, definitely. But it feels hollow.

We’re drowning in stats and starving for a broadcast that doesn't look like a pop-up ad from 2004. If the NHL wants us to care about what happened on February 25, 1962, maybe they should stop making the games in 2024 so hard to actually watch.

Is a goal still a goal if it’s only scored to trigger an automated payout in a server farm in New Jersey?