Toronto Blue Jays: Jose Bautista’s Bat Flip Is Now An NHL 17 Goal Celebration
Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista’s epic bat flip against the Texas Rangers in Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS after his decisive three-run homer will forever be one of the biggest moments in baseball history.
Baseball historians, the Texas Rangers and the older demographic of baseball fans were enraged by it. They took exception to the bat flip, saying Bautista disrespectfully mocked the game.
The younger demographic of baseball fans, Toronto Blue Jays fans and the Latino baseball community loved it. They saw the bat-flip for what it was – a player in the midst of a heated moment coming up clutch and showing raw emotion.
Either way, EA Sports has revealed that Jose Bautista and his bat flip will be featured in the new NHL 17, which is set to be released on September 13th, 2016.
While Joey Bats himself won’t be featured in the game, (even though he would probably be a great fit on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first line with Auston Matthews and James van Riemsdyk), his iconic bat flip will be featured as one of the NHL goal scoring celebrations.
Other EA Sports Goal celebrations include memorable hockey moments like the Jaromir Jagr salute, Teemu Selanne’s glove toss and even ‘the dab’.
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Clearly if you don’t use the Jose Bautista ‘celly’ every time you score on an opponent, you’re doing something wrong!
Haha!
But on a more serious note, I can’t find a better example of the NHL and EA Sports tapping into both the younger and older demographic of NHL fans and NHL 17 video game players alike than the new collection of goal scoring celebrations.
For older guys like me, we can pay tribute to future Hall of Famers Jaromir Jagr and Teemu Selanne every time we score a goal. For all the younger guys who pump six goals in on me when we play online, they can pull the Joey Bats bat-flip and dab all over the ice.
Next: Eduardo Nunez to the Giants
Perhaps MLB might learn from this and can take a page out of the NHL and EA Sports’ playbook as they continue to struggle in identifying with the younger demographic.