Move over, Banana Ball, you have company. The sweeping sensation that is the Savannah Bananas no longer owns a monopoly on the entertainment side of sports. 

Celly Series Hockey has entered the chat and is a fresh take on the game of hockey, where entertainment and fun supersede, but don’t replace, skill and speed. Founded by Christopher Nelson, Derek McKenna, Lou Pedatella and Mike Vetere, the Celly Series aims to give fans and players alike a more enjoyable experience than your standard NHL contest. 

“Hockey has become a grind, especially youth hockey,” Pedatella explained. “I mean, it has become this full-season sport where there is no more, they almost suck the fun out of it. They almost really suck the fun out of it. It starts in August, youth hockey. It ends in May. With The NHL, I mean, we start up in three or four weeks (from now) and then we go until mid-June.”

Pedatella continued, “I looked at it and I said, ‘Wow, this is a real grind.’ I was watching the Savannah Bananas and I sat there and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we could just do this with hockey?’ I said, ‘I have a bunch of talented hockey players that I have around me, who dangle and they don’t have enough space to do it because five-on-five hockey can get real tight.’ The Devils’ old neutral zone trap, it almost can get pretty boring and ugly. And I noticed that hockey was getting a little bit boring and ugly and getting a little tight.”

An interesting take on the game of hockey to be sure. Pedatella isn’t wrong about the grind of a hockey season, regardless of what level you’re talking about. And sure, hockey can be tight at even-strength, especially if one team is playing a version of the neutral zone trap. But can you really turn a hockey game into something similar to Banana Ball?

Remember, Banana Ball is a version of baseball that sees some players wear stilts while batting, outfielders make trick plays by doing cartwheels and backflips, old MLBers get brought out of the stands to come into the game to play for an inning. The list of things that separate Banana Ball from regular baseball is extensive. 

But can that really work in hockey? After all, hockey is a physical game that is faster now than it has ever been. You can’t have players skate in stilts. Nobody is doing a backflip or cartwheel while skating. So, how do these four gentlemen plan to bring the fun back to hockey?

“I’ve been (working in) hockey for probably 20 years now,” Pedatella said. “And I’ve been doing youth programs. Every once in a while, we’ll run a practice and I’ll throw the music on. And all of a sudden, I see a whole different tempo in the practice. It’s more upbeat, more excited. It’s just a totally different way that the kids react, because they shut out the outside noise. They’re listening to the music. They’re doing the drills. The music’s not overpowering, but I see that smile coming back.”

Okay, music definitely helps pump up the players, but there’s music during NHL games. It just stops during the action and then resumes during stoppages in play. So that can’t be the secret sauce.

“One of the things that we thought about in the name, Celly Series Hockey, if you go back to the ’80 Olympics, when a goal was scored, the benches cleared and they all celebrated together,” Pedatella explained. “So one of the things that we are doing is going to have, every time a goal is scored, it is going to be a bench-clearing celebration, which is going to be a scripted, music-choreographed, probably a 15-second, maybe a little bit longer depending upon the choreography. 

“Something that shows, going back to the olden days when everybody was allowed to celebrate. I mean, sometimes, guys, now, when they celebrate, they run away from each other. We want to bring back that team camaraderie. So that’s one of the things we’re gonna bring to the table. A lot of fan interactions are another thing.”

Team celebrations sound nice. It doesn’t really change the flow of the game, but it is fun to see. 

“One of the examples of fan interaction is when a player takes a penalty, our arena host will go to a young fan and they’ll do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see if he has to serve the full minute, two minutes, or he’s gonna get out early if he wins Rock, Paper, Scissors,” Vetere said. “That’s one of the options of having fan interaction and having fans participate in this game, so they’re not just sitting in their seats watching a hockey game and only cheering for goals.”

Now that’s interesting. A penalty might not result in a power-play if the player is good at Rock, Paper, Scissors. These players better start practicing, because having the ability to get out of a penalty could be crucial in determining the outcome of a game. Also, what if the fan is rooting for the opposing team? The Rock, Paper, Scissors match would then carry even more weight. 

“We’re still writing some of the rules as (tryout) callbacks go on,” Nelson said. “With the callbacks we’re gonna introduce some of the rule changes with the players out there so they can see what it’s gonna feel like in real time. I mean, just the structure of the game itself, we’re not having three periods. It’s gonna be two periods or two halves, per se. I don’t wanna give it away too much.”

We know the games will be played at four-on-four, which will give the players more room to operate on the ice. We also know there will be certain aspects of the game that are scripted, although we have been assured that the outcome of each game between the Bronx Danglers and the Tri-State Mayhem will not be predetermined. 

“Let’s say, for example, there is an altercation between a player and a goaltender and the goalie is injured and he comes out. Do we bring a fan in who has won a certain type of raffle, a certain type of game, per se, so that the fan can be the EBUG? But is that goalie injured, or is he not injured? Maybe that ‘injured’ goalie then comes out and is now a player. And now we have that ‘injured’ goalie who’s not really injured and is now a player in the game. Maybe that ‘injured’ goalie who’s now a player scores a goal.”

That sounds like a WWE match where a player gets taken away on a stretcher, only to then return to the match and continue as if nothing happened. It’s certainly not something hockey fans are used to seeing during a game. 

Speaking of the games, there will be one per month from October through May, in the series’ first season. There will also be a game in September that is not part of the official season, but is rather a soft-launch of sorts. The September tilt is for community engagement, which is a good idea and a great way to build anticipation for the actual start of the season in October. 

All games will be played at the Danbury Ice Arena in Danbury, Connecticut. You can find out more about the schedule and The League at https://cellyseries.com/ or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/cellyseries/.

Of note, the talent level should be pretty high as the two teams will feature a mixture of players with various degrees of hockey playing experience. From former pro players to junior players, semi-pro guys, collegiate and high club levels, the Danglers and the Mayhem will have plenty of skill to go along with the fun that is the main objective of the founders. 

“There’s gonna be character rivalries,” McKenna explained. “Obviously, we have a team rivalry built in the fact that we have two teams playing every night. But we’re gonna lean into pieces that can build on those rivalries and then get the fans involved as well. So this could be scripted, everything from fights and altercations to different plays that could lead, in a series of events, to an unbelievable trick play that’s done.”

Scripting some parts of the game while still allowing the final score to be organic and real is going to be a challenge, but it sounds like this quartet of founders is thinking outside the box on how to inject the game of hockey with some “fun.” 

As they said during our phone call, “This is not your daddy’s hockey.”