Sports fans watching hockey on TNT and TBS may have seen stars from across the NHL trading stories about hockey’s biggest hype man: Gordo St. John.
But just who plays the mysterious fictional character that even Wayne Gretzky has an encounter with?
Heading into Warner Bros. Discovery’s first year as the home of the Stanley Cup finals, the company enlisted NY Rangers fan and Stranger Things star David Harbour to headline its cross-platform promotional campaign, where his character has been “hired” by the NHL on TNT team—but Gordo’s ideas might not always be the best.
The full spot unveiling Harbour as Gordo St. John will premiere Tuesday night on TBS during Game 1 of the Rangers vs. Devils series.
Last week, the first teaser debuted across NHL on TNT, B/R Open Ice, NHL on TNT studio talent, and NHL league and club social talent. In a single day, it pulled in 1.5 million views and over 100,000 engagements, also running across the WBD portfolio through Monday’s opener.
Gretzky, Liam McHugh, Anson Carter, Paul Bissonnette and Henrik Lundqvist are heavily featured in the campaign, as well as a host of other top players from across the NHL.
Harbour, who is a frequent presence at Madison Square Garden to cheer on the Rangers, told Adweek that his part of the campaign was shot in a single day and included him getting hit in the face by a rubber sea urchin shot by “Biz” [Bissonnette].
“Those guys are all very funny, from the creatives who wrote the script to our inventive director to those nuts that sit behind the desk and call the games who graciously played with me for a day,” Harbour said. “They were very open to my ideas, but I had seen the other spots they’d worked on—like the Ted Lasso and the Bryan Cranston baseball one—and I knew if I just did what they had written, I’d be well served.”
For Harbour’s part, he was eager to participate in the campaign because he “was told that if I did this, they’d give the Stanley Cup to the Rangers this year.”