Mark Willand - Founder Whaler Nation.

Mark Willand, Senior Vice President of Business Operations, Whalers Sports and Entertainment.

In his current position, Willand is responsible for running day-to-day activities of a 30-person sports marketing firm, which manages the American Hockey League's Connecticut Whale and the successful 2011 outdoor Whalers Hockey Fest. He oversees WSE's marketing, branding, communications, community relations, human resources, game operations, merchandising and events. He Works closely with ticket sales, corporate sales and finance departments.

Willand also produced the CT Whale's official "Take it Outside" video. He created the popular "Whaler Nation" blog (www.whalernation.tv) and companion Facebook and Twitter sites.

His career began with a stint with the Small Business Service Bureau before he was named Assistant Director of Public Relations with the National Hockey League's Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes) in 1986.

During Willand's six year career in Hartford, the Whalers were recognized for having the NHL's premier media guide (1987,1988, 1989) and top press box (1988, 1989, 1990).

In 1993, he was hired by the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins to spearhead the team's pay per view cable network, PenVision. In addition to marketing the new entity, Willand also produced a home shopping program and television commercials for PenVision.

When the Penguins sold their TV and marketing rights to Fox Sports in 1995, Willand and his staff joined the network and made a major impact on the Pittsburgh sports media scene.

While with Prime Sports and later Fox Sports, Willand created and produced the "Players' Show", a sports magazine program that served as the pre-game show for the Penguins and baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates.

In addition to televison production,Willand secured lucrative marketing deals with hockey legend Mario Lemieux and produced numerous TV commericals and the Penguins official team video, "Fire on Ice."