‘The Hockey Guys’ Tik Tok Account Drawing Millions of Eyes to UWS Men’s Hockey

What started as a personal account in 2020 for Lawson McDonald, skyrocketed into "The Hockey Guys" a brand with over a million followers.

SUPERIOR, Wis. — Wessman Arena is the place to be to catch the UWS men’s hockey team in action, but they’ve found a new audience, on Tik Tok, where they’ve been able to reach millions of fans.

What started as a personal account in 2020 for Lawson McDonald, skyrocketed into “The Hockey Guys” a brand with over a million followers.

“We kind of grow at like 100,000 followers on Tik Tok a month, and it’s been kind of like that from the very beginning,” Lawson McDonald, Founder and Creative Director of The Hockey Guys said.

And for these 10 hockey players from UWS, the social media platform has exceeded their expectations.

“It’s absolutely insane the amount of growth and just how powerful these internet platforms have become,” David Kaplan, Head of Business Operations said.

The brand has expanded to almost 14,000 subscribers on YouTube, as well as a 5-star rated podcast called “No Bad Days”.

“The outreach has been kind of incredible, we get questions from Australia every week, we get questions from England, questions from Europe, obviously Canada and the US as well,” Troy MacTavish, Producer and Host for the “No Bad Days” Podcast, said.

They have been seen by fans from all over the world, but one of the best parts is connecting with them

“I think we’re unique in the way that the interactions with our fans happens like more than other creators do just because there’s 10 of us constantly using the account,” MacTavish added.

“That’s been the fun part of seeing the level of impact they’ve had, and we see it on game days, whether that’s more fans coming to games, especially youth coming to games, wanting to meet the guys afterwards or see them play, but then we do see it from our online stream, from those who tune into the game all over the world now,” Nick Bursik, Director of Athletics at UWS said.

But reaching millions of people daily, has allowed The Hockey Guys to release merchandise with the screen printing company Flagship, and develop partnerships with DLH Clothing both out of Duluth, along with other twin-ports based businesses.

“One of the things that we really want to do is to try and be as local as possible, and that is even in knowing that our audience is world-wide,” Kaplan said.

But these partnerships are mutually beneficial.

“It really depends on how much your audience is interacting with your video, and that’s what brands want to see, I would say anywhere between like $5,0000 and $10,000 [dollars] for a Tik Tok,” Kaplan added.

As famous as these college hockey players have become, the dream since they were little was to make it to the NHL, and they got a taste of that dream when the NHL invited them to create content and promote the 2022 Winter Classic in Minneapolis.

“Definitely the biggest one was going to the Winter Classic, that for all of us was kind of a reality check when we were there, were like ‘wow because of what we’re doing we get to have this kind of opportunity’,” McDonald said.

Now they create content for other teams in the NHL like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets.

At the end of the day though, these guys are still college athletes, and that’s just one of the many things they balance with their Tik Tok fame.

“Not only are they focused on exploring their Tik Tok opportunities, or their social media opportunities in growing their own brand, but they’re so dedicated in terms of being student athletes,” Bursik said.

MacTavish added, “It’s had its challenges at times but I think it doesn’t feel like it because we have so much fun with it”.

So what comes next? The group says putting on youth and other types of hockey camps is a goal, but they want to continue bringing a fan base to the sport of hockey, and have fun in the camaraderie that surrounds it.

“I think next is we got to check out la for a little bit, I think that’s the big thing, so I think we’re ready now to check out some new NHL arenas, check out some new NHL events and just see how far we can go in the future with it,” said McDonald.