Gaudette has game — on Twitch
Until recently, Gaudette wasn't a gamer; now he's got himself an online following
It took the early days of a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown for Adam Gaudette to really get into video games.
Along the way he realized here was a way to relieve some of the #StayHome boredom while finding people to play against and also connect with fans: Twitch, the online streaming platform that's dedicated to gaming.
“I've never really been a big video gamer, up until March in the first quarantine,” he said Wednesday over a media Zoom session. “That's when I found out about Twitch.”
His younger brothers, Brady and Cam, are avid gamers. So is his brother-in-law. They showed him Twitch and the rest is ... well, you know. He now has more than 4,000 people following his Twitch channel.
“I gave it a shot. I was like hey, this could be a cool way to interact with fans and kind of build the brand a little bit,” he said. “As I got the hang of it more, it just started to take off and it's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun interacting with the fans and showing my personality off the ice.”
He got so into his new hobby that his wife Micaela — an engineer — built him a gaming rig for his 24th birthday last October.
He mostly plays Call of Duty: Warzone, but has also streamed himself playing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout with his wife.
Along the way he's found someone to edit his videos and create graphics — through Twitch.
Abroop Dhami is a Vancouver photographer/videographer and played against Gaudette last summer. He then got in touch, offering his services.
“It was the first experience I ever had with a hockey player,”
Dhami said. “The closest thing I had before that was meeting Fin (the Canucks' mascot) at a Future Shop many, many years ago. Crazy to think that the first time I'd talk to a player he'd be on Twitch and I'd end up working for him!”
Dhami said that Gaudette's personality shines on Twitch.
“He's super-interactive with the chat, answering questions when he isn't focused, so people are always getting their questions answered and learning more and more as time goes on.”
Jon Festinger, a faculty member at the Centre for Digital Media in Vancouver, was complimentary of Gaudette's decision to use Twitch.
“Especially to athletes, but I would say to most of us, games are a very natural thing,” Festinger said. “Games are generally a part of life. We probably play them more than we think we do. ... So what Gaudette is doing has a natural element, he's allowing himself actually to be human. It may seem like an outside-the-box thought, but it's not. It does show a certain character, as a positive thing. It shows he's a kid who will go with his instincts.”
As modern gaming is almost entirely played online, against other players, there's an obvious community to be found. But even in the pre-internet days of gaming, gamers built communities, Festinger pointed out.
“Gaming and communities have always gone together,” he said. “The ability to play with real people in real time in really sophisticated, creative ways, reinforcing community is easier than ever. If you're an athlete or public figure, that's where this becomes interesting.”
Gaudette is using Twitch to do basic things, such as connect with fans in a new way, but he also has realized its potential to raise awareness. He's begun to cultivate his own brand, dubbing himself “the Hockey Gaud.”
“It's just a fun play on words and the fans seem to enjoy it,” he said. “It's not just about hockey, it's about interacting with different people and helping out with charities and stuff like that,” he said.
So far he's been forwarding the donations people have made to his Twitch account, as well as the subscriptions to his channel — paid subscribers get access to a private chat that Gaudette occasionally participates in as well as the opportunity to set up private games against him — to the Canucks for Kids Fund, but he's got other ideas.
“We're really looking at — my wife and I — we're really looking into starting our own charity eventually and give back that way,” he said. “We've done a little bit so far with the Canucks for Kids funds through donations on Twitch. It's not just for us to build our followers and our brand; it's for us to give back and just make somebody's day here and there.”
Festinger said that Gaudette's presence on Twitch is a way for him also to “act normal.”
He pointed to the decision by American legislators Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar to play a game of Among Us last fall in a voter-outreach effort that was claimed to reach millions of eyeballs, far outclassing the more conventional online streaming efforts made by the likes of Joe Biden and yes, Donald Trump.
“When Gaudette does this, you're getting something that's real and normal, or feels real and normal,” he said. “It's hard to play a game and pretend to be somebody else. You're going to be yourself. The mask comes off. It's very hard to manage your public image in that kind of environment. So credit to Gaudette for putting himself out there.”