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NHL is looking to this initiative to extend its brand and give fans a way to support teams during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Fans will be able to download team logos to insert into their emails and the league hopes the scheme will entice more visitors to its newly revamped web site, which includes more interactivity, including live radio feeds, video features and up-to-the-minute news coverage.

The scheme is a joint venture with viral email marketers Favemail, who enable consumers to add hyper-linked graphics to email to help web sites and businesses drive traffic, encourage online transactions and raise overall brand awareness.

"This is a great viral marketing technique and it's an opportunity for fans to show support for their favorite teams," said Kenny Nova, sales and marketing director at NHL ICE.

It is also a chance for Favemail, launched last July, to highlight its capability in creating advocate-marketing programs.

"It's a natural fit for us to partner with NHL as we can now provide hockey fans with an exciting new way to support their favorite team," said Chris Plunkett, vice president of business development at Favemail. "The NHL wanted also to go beyond its existing portal content play and use email as a platform and channel to extend their fan's affinity."

"We're confident this campaign will help extend NHL brands throughout the email space and also drive additional traffic to individual team web sites as well as to NHL.com," said Rich Libero, NHL.com's director of editorial and production.

Fans can download the logos by clicking through banner ads for the service on the NHL.com site or by registering through the NHL's email newsletter.