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Technology

National Hockey League Comes Around to Digital Collectibles, Using Sweet Platform

NHL Breakaway launches with Sweet, a platform for brands to create NFT collectibles under the Ethereum ERC-721 standard on Polygon and the Ethereum mainnet.

By Bradley Keoun
AccessTimeIconNov 15, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. UTC
Updated Nov 15, 2023 at 7:27 p.m. UTC
Rendering of NHL Breakaway promotion on Sweet's website. (Sweet, modified by CoinDesk)
Rendering of NHL Breakaway promotion on Sweet's website. (Sweet, modified by CoinDesk)
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The National Hockey League is embracing digital collectibles, two years after several other major sports leagues aped into the NFT-fueled trend.

The initiative, NHL Breakaway, was announced in conjunction with Sweet, a platform for brands to create NFT collectibles under the Ethereum ERC-721 standard on Polygon and the Ethereum mainnet. Terms of the arrangement between the NHL and Sweet weren't disclosed.

Sports-league collectibles became all the rage in 2021, when the National Basketball Association jumped into the arena with NBA Top Shot and the National Football League announced a partnership with Dapper Labs. Major League Baseball unveiled a tie-in for NFT collectibles with trading card manufacturer Topps.

The official launch of NHL Breakaway was pegged for Wednesday, though earlier in the week Sweet's website was already promoting the new program. A beta version went live in April.

According to a press release, a "first-of-its-kind" feature of NHL Breakaway is "The Trade Lounge" – a "hub of collector community interaction where fans can trade packs and highlights of their favorite plays or NHL Players with others in the community."

Other NFT platforms have minted hockey-related collectibles.

The blockchain Pastel Network's SmartMint platform for NFT minting announced a new collection earlier this week tied to Bobby Orr, a defenseman who played 12 seasons in the 1960s and 1970s and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979.

UPDATE (19:25 UTC): Adds mention of release of Bobby Orr collection on Pastel Network's SmartMint.

Edited by Stephen Alpher.

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Bradley Keoun
Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is the managing editor of CoinDesk's Tech & Protocols team. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.

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