Showcasing a game in an outdoor arena on New Year’s Day worked so well the first time, it appears the NHL is going to go for it again.

An announcement is expected later this month for the 2009 Winter Classic, the second one pitting the Chicago Blackhawks and the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings at fabled Wrigley Field, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on its Web site.

An announcement is expected next week before the “Blackhawks Convention” at the Chicago Hilton. According to the Star Tribune’s report, the game was approved last week when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman met with the Blackhawks, Cubs and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

Last New Year’s Day, more people tuned in to see the NHL play outdoors than any other regular-season game in more than a decade. (ESPN)

Looks like the NHL will reprise their successful outdoor game this season, this time at Wrigley Field in Chicago. No word if Tony Esposito, Michael Jordan, Oprah, or Steve Bartman will drop the puck.

I would praise the NHL more for the Buffalo game, however they rejected Gameops.com request to cover the game live….a snub I am still wrestling to overcome.

Stay tuned to see if I will give them a second chance in the Second City.

–cudo

The Sioux Falls Canaries, Miller, and 103.7 KRRO present Free Beer Thursday on every Thursday Night! Gates open at 5pm with the Miller beer free until 6pm.

If this doesn’t draw fans, I am afraid nothing will.

To see our database of over 1000 promotions, click here.

–Cudo

Most Fierce NFL Mascot Competition: Staley Da Bear vs. Packers

There aren’t too many rivalries with a richer history than the one between the NFL’s Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.

We present second-seeded Staley Da Bear, who gives the outwardly appearance of a furry, loveable mammal. Don’t let that friendly disposition fool you though. Brown bears are tough and mean, and would surely pounce all over the Packers’ mascot if given the opportunity.

Green Bay doesn’t have a mascot? Are you kidding me? Indeed it is true, and so the best thing we could come up with, which best symbolizes the Green Bay Packers in our mind, is the very popular cheesehead. Better yet, we offer a block of foam cheese being placed into a package.

CBS Sports has an on-going poll trying to sort out the fiercest mascot in the NFL.

While I like content building, fan-loyalty testing polls as much as the next web dork….but this is really dumb.

Most fierce mascot contest? While I understand this is just supposed to be fun content on the site, how about judging them on something every mascot is aiming to be….like entertaining, value-adding, or brand-building….but fierce?

And while I am ranting about this poll, who did the seedings? Roary the meek Detroit Lion is a #1 seed, while “Raider Fans” are a #7 seed? And the Saint Louis Rams with “no mascot” are a #4 seed. It’s hard for me to log in and vote every day when the folks at CBS Sports were a little thoughtless in their seedings. I trust they weren’t expecting anyone to take this quite so seriously….but then why run a 32 team bracket?
I don’t want to effect your vote, but Stanley is clearly more fierce than a quarter wheel of sliced cheese, so I voted for Stanley Da Bear. You can vote here.

–Cudo

Thanks (or blame) to fierce blog-reader Joel L for this link.

ALTOONA- The Altoona Curve, Minor League Baseball’s champions of fun, light-hearted ballpark theme nights announced this spring that it was planning a “Salute to Procrastination Night” at Blair County Ballpark, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Double-A club.

Today, the team is announcing that the promotion is still planned for sometime before September 1st, but that meetings to discuss the details of the event have been repeatedly put off until a later date.

“We’ve admittedly hit the snooze button several times when it comes to planning the details of our Salute to Procrastination Night, but we’ll get to it soon enough.” said Curve General Manager Todd “Parney” Parnell. “When we finally sit down to sketch out this promotion you can bet it will be worth the wait.”

The Curve’s summer college interns, the club’s resident experts in putting off projects until a later date, will be very involved in the planning process for the promotion, but the group has asked for more time to work on the details, thus illustrating a popular form of procrastination known as “Student Syndrome”.

The club will continue to provide updates on the status of “Salute to Procrastination Night”, assuming continued attempts to meet about the promotion’s details take place.

Perfect.

–Cudo

Thanks Glen Gower, MiLB.com and Benjamin Hill.

Here is another example of the time-lapse video of a building transformation from hockey to basketball.  These are great content pieces for your scoreboard pregame, showing what it takes to remake the building for different sports.  This one is about 3 minutes long and well done.

Edited by Bernard Weil and apparently it covers about six hours.  Here in Cleveland the turnaround has been done in about 3 hours (hoops to hockey) for the double dip of Cavaliers and minor league hockey.  Its one of the more memorable things you can watch in sports (outside of game action).

If you are looking for Scoreboard video ideas, we have hundreds of videos related to sports entertainment in our YouTube section.  Check it out here.

–Cudo

For your Friday entertainment, here is NBA mascot Rocky and 3 supporting guests in a halftime run-up of the internet sensation OK GO from a Feb 8th game in Denver.

Most NBA teams are doing some mascot party once a year (some teams are doing two a year) where mascots from around the league are flown in for a party.  The halftime variations range from roller derby, wrestling, basketball, musical chairs and now treadmill dancing.

For more mascot videos check out the Gameops.com YouTube pages where we have indexed hundreds of videos.

–Cudo