League Media Director of the Year

Jack CARNEFIX ECHL Class AA Hockey

Our first two-time Ralphie Winner is Jack Carnefix, the Media Relations Director for the ECHL. The Class-AA hockey league has always been one of the sharpest leagues in developmental sports. What brings them back to Ralphie's house?

The ECHL's story is a little like that of the Three Bears. Unlike other leagues, though that either do too little or too much to control their news flow, the league office of the ECHL does media just right.

Jack Carnefix leads the most efficient and well-run league media relations office in minor league sports, bar none. He centralizes some news, like transactions and fines, and puts out an outstanding daily brief on the league. The "ECHL Today" and his news bulletins and transactions are clear, thorough, and to the point.

He does not supercede the clubs, though. By way of his experience as an outstanding team PR guy, Carnefix knows that what is necessary to make his league shine is great local media relations departments who have an awareness of their regional and national face.

The result is that, both by example and by guidance, Carnefix has helped create the most solid media relations system for any league in minor league sports.

The ECHL has achieved the highest league press release submission rate to MLN - The Raw Feed, our national newswire. ECHL member clubs are equally as good at getting the word out to other interested putlications nationally, regionally, and locally.

The league's strong public face has paid dividends in the highly contentious marketplace of Class AA minor league hockey, where it vies for the NHL's attention with the Central Hockey League (CHL) and the United Hockey League (UHL). Even though the NHL continues a more casual system that blends both pro and junior hockey into its development system, the ECHL, both on the ice, and in the way that it promotes its NHL affiliated players, makes the most of its affilation experience of any of the AA hockey leagues today.

The icing on top of that cake was that Carnefix instituted a new "pressbox" system on line for the media this year. This allows us to grab logos, photos, and other information without having to hound either the league or the local media offices. It's a service that is an exceptionally smart idea that we find available at the big-league level, but has been sadly lacking in the minor and indy sports.

We applaud the ECHL's transparency in its access levels of information available to the media. Carnefix employs the same level of professionality used by the major league sports media, a lesson that could be well learned by other higher-level minor league media relations departments.

Ever modest, Carnefix reminds us that the great work of the ECHL's media department is a team effort.

Joe Siville was assistant director of communications from Oct. 28, 2004
until Oct. 19, 2006. On Dec. 18, Kelly Murray began as the new assistant director of communications for the ECHL. Nick D'Aurizio, Chris Gragnano and Craig Segal interned over the summer, and worked on the Official Guide and Record Book.

We salute Jack, his exceptional staff, and all of the ECHL media relations people at the clubs, for the outstanding work that they do, with this Ralphie redux.

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