After 33 years, the Canberra Knights folded a month before the 2014 Australian Ice Hockey League season. This is how we resuscitated ice hockey, united a community to inspire success and built a niche sport in the nation‘s capital.

“If anybody is looking for a local story to turn into a movie, well this is a script that writes itself. Here is a story about a couple of local ad guys with no sports management experience who took on a seemingly impossible task, who managed to pull business and government together and garner support for a fringe team in a fringe sport, and to make it a runaway success.”
— Alex Tricolas, Editor, This Is Canberra.

After thirty-three years in the Australian Ice Hockey League, the Canberra Knights were forced to call it quits three weeks before the first game of the season.

When news of the franchise’s collapse surfaced, Coordinate stepped in to become a co-major sponsor and help resurrect and reinvigorate the team.

Services Branding, Campaign, Digital, Photography, Video

It’s a BRAVE new world.

Pulling together the resources of the entire agency, the name BRAVE was decided as an immediate fit, reflecting the nature of the team, the players, the fans and community who came together to donate time, money and resources into keeping ice hockey alive in the Nation’s Capital.

Once the name was established, Coordinate developed the brand identity, designing a custom hand drawn typeface that could be used in entirety or by extracting the “B” as a stand-alone icon. However, an ice hockey team is more than just a logo, and the new brand needed to be rapidly applied across a variety of touch points including on player uniforms, fan merchandise and collateral, a membership video and interactive website (all developed in-house) where fans could buy memberships and tickets. All of this was achieved in less than two weeks.

Sell out games. Record membership numbers. Big name sponsors. Global media attention.

The birth of the CBR BRAVE attracted media attention across the country and set a new benchmark for sports branding and marketing in the Australian Ice Hockey League.

The Canberra Knights had lost 26 out of 28 games prior to their collapse. Since then, the CBR BRAVE have made three successive finals campaigns, finishing second in 2016.

The CBR Brave enjoy sell-out crowds at almost every home game, attracted big name sponsors and players and have captured the hearts and minds of sports fans in the Nation’s Capital.

Coordinate continues to play an important role in the development and management of the team both on and off the ice.

CBR Brave