![\"Early](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777289242_420_0x0.jpg\")
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A Fox Harb\u2019r Resort ad in Toronto\u2019s PATH leans into hockey\u2019s long-running \u201cgolf season\u201d joke.<\/p>\n
Fox Har’br<\/p>\n
Joe Pavelski, who racked up 1,068 points over an 18-season NHL career with San Jose and Dallas, didn\u2019t wait long to find his next win. A year after hanging up his skates, he captured the 2025 American Century Championship, the Super Bowl of the celebrity golf circuit, with a walk-off eagle on 18. <\/p>\n
To a casual sports fan who may only cursorily glance at previous winners, it looked sudden. But the W was a long time coming. The four-time all-star forward had racked up eight top-10 finishes there before, including three runner-up showings. The difference this time could easily have been more time to focus on golf with his hockey life in the rearview.<\/p>\n
With the NHL playoffs now underway, a reality lurks beneath the surface for every team on the outside. As leagues expand and a smaller fraction play on, the sting of an early exit has been blunted because now they\u2019ve got more time to be somewhere else and that is often the first tee of a swank golf course.<\/p>\n
Early playoff exits extend hockey\u2019s \u201cgolf season,\u201d creating new opportunities as players head to the course, while resorts increasingly lean into the trend.<\/p>\n
Resorts Turn Early Exits Into Tee Times<\/p>\n
Fox Harb\u2019r<\/a>, a golf resort in Nova Scotia, leaned into the concept with a billboard campaign in Toronto\u2019s downtown pedestrian tunnel system, targeting beleaguered Maple Leafs fans whose team missed the postseason for the first time in nine years. The ads pair course glamour shots with pithy copy like \u201ca short season just means more time for the short game\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t worry, there are 18 cups waiting for you here.\u201d<\/p>\n That concept of hockey\u2019s \u2018golf season\u2019 as both punchline and consolation has become embedded in the sport\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s endured because it\u2019s one of those jokes that everyone gets to be in on\u2014players, fans, even the broadcasters. It\u2019s gentle ribbing more than anything else. By April, everyone knows who\u2019s headed where, and the notion of \u201cgolf season\u201d has become the hockey world\u2019s version of a silver lining or coping mechanism. It lands because it\u2019s true,\u201d Kevin Toth, President, Fox Har\u2019br resort, said<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these guys genuinely do head straight to the course, and it gives fans a way to talk about a tough ending without it feeling too heavy. What we liked about leaning into it with this campaign is that the joke has an undertone of a warm welcome,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n At a resort that sees its fair share of active NHL players, Toth has witnessed firsthand the frustration of a prematurely ended Cup chase soothed with some quality time out on the golf course.<\/p>\n \u201cHockey is a long, intense season, and the course has always been where a lot of that energy goes once things wrap up. By the time someone’s on a tee box in May, whatever happened in March doesn’t feel quite as sharp anymore,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThey arrive a little quiet, and by the second round, they\u2019re laughing about club selection and arguing over who\u2019s buying at the 19th. It\u2019s not profound \u2014 it\u2019s a release, a breeze, and good company. So yes, I think it\u2019s more than a punchline at this point. It\u2019s a kind of reset the sport has built into itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Miming a golf swing has long been a go-to taunt in the NHL, aimed at teams destined to miss the postseason or headed for an early exit\u2014though timing is everything. As a rookie, Brad Marchand, a future master instigator, learned that lesson the hard way. After scoring a shorthanded goal, he mocked the Maple Leafs\u2019 bench with the gesture, drawing a reprimand from then\u2013Bruins coach Claude Julien. The jab backfired, with his mock golf swing firing up Toronto, which went on to win in a shootout.<\/p>\n While on-ice taunts have become rarer due to the risk of drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, content creators have filled the chirping void with \u2018golf season\u2019 parodies. A prime example is Coach Chippy\u2019s<\/a> locker room sketches following the Leafs\u2019 2023 exit, which leaned into the team\u2019s premature focus on the links. <\/p>\n He portrayed Auston Matthews as more fixated on testing out his freshly regripped golf clubs, and William Nylander as genuinely gobsmacked to learn the playoffs go beyond one round ahead of the squad\u2019s end-of-season golf tri<\/a>p to Florida.<\/p>\n What started as a creative chirp is now stitched into the vernacular\u2014less insult, more itinerary, as the shift from the rink to the links has become engrained as hockey\u2019s preferred therapy.<\/p>\n