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.

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Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is CoinDesk's managing editor of tech & protocols, where he oversees a team of reporters covering blockchain technology, and previously ran the global crypto markets team. A two-time Loeb Awards finalist, he previously was chief global finance and economic correspondent for TheStreet and before that worked as an editor and reporter for Bloomberg News in New York and Mexico City, reporting on Wall Street, emerging markets and the energy industry. He started out as a police-beat reporter for the Gainesville Sun in Florida and later worked as a general-assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he double-majored in electrical engineering and classical studies as an undergraduate at Duke University and later obtained a master's in journalism from the University of Florida. He is currently based in Austin, Texas, and in his spare time plays guitar, sings in a choir and hikes in the Texas Hill Country. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.