Hot for Hockey got pulled faster than a Leafs lead

The NHL launched a romance series on opening night and dumped it by Monday. I've had gym memberships last longer, and I never even went.

Here's what happened. On Oct. 1 the league dropped "Hot for Hockey" on Spotify: seven audio shorts, 30 to 90 seconds each, written by real romance authors off real NHL news, with voice actors and soft piano underneath.

Six players got the treatment: Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor, Sebastian Aho, Mika Zibanejad and Trevor Zegras. It was billed as a season-long thing.

By Monday the episodes were gone from Spotify, and no new ones are coming. Season-long, NHL style, which is about the length of a Leafs playoff run.

Soft piano, for Kyle Connor, a man with 20 shots in three games. Give him a drum line.

The reviews came in at 2.4 stars on Spotify. That's the rating you leave a bus station hot dog after it didn't kill you.

Then the league explained it. "As a start of the season concept, these were matchup specific posts," the statement said, "designed to run during our opening games in the first week."

Buddy, I'm begging you. Last week it was a season-long effort. This week it was always a one-week thing. That's not a pivot, that's my cousin explaining how he meant to get dumped.

The league also said the players approved the creative and were having fun with it. The players' union wouldn't confirm that, before or after. When the union leaves you on read, the fun part is over.

The Ferda number: 28. That's how many points the six leading men have in 20 combined games, by our count from NHL data. McDavid has nine in three by himself. Eichel's on a three-game point streak. These guys didn't need a love story, they needed the league to get out of the way.

Kept off the sheet: Zegras. One assist in four games on 18.7 minutes a night. Kid, the script had you as the leading man. The box score has you as the friend who drives everybody home.

Yes, the romance readers are real, and the commissioner is right to want them.

He said he binge-watched both "Heated Rivalry" and "Off-Campus." Great, somebody in that office should be watching hockey. The fix is simple: sell the actual game to the new crowd. It's fast, it's mean and it has fights. Leave real players out of the piano music.

Grade: D-plus for the league office. The plus is for paying real authors, illustrators and voice actors instead of making the interns do it.

Bruins tax: in Boston, this pitch dies in the first meeting. Somebody says "soft piano" and a guy from Southie throws a coffee.

One week, seven episodes, no second date. I said what I said.