Minor hockey teams use all kinds of strategies to raise money for equipement, tournament trips and ice time. You’ve got your standard bake sales, car washes, 50/50 draws, naked lady calendars.. oh wait, that last one is Women’s Institutes. But you get the point. Good ol’ fashioned fundraising.
A youth hockey team in North Dakota is taking the good ol’ ideal a step further. The West Fargo Youth Hockey Association is raffling off 200 guns and an all-terrain vehicle next month to help raise money for its ice time needs. Now that’s a sports promo!
Giving out real live guns is the latest in the evolution of the hockey promo. This gives me an excuse to talk about perhaps the masters of the modern hockey promo. Ladies and gentlemen the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers. Sure, they’ve never handed out fire arms to fans, but they did have a Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night! They’ve also hosted a Rod Blogojevich Prison Uniform Night and, earlier this year, an “Indoor Winter Classic.”
To help recreate the atmosphere of an outdoor game, the Wranglers promised to leave arena doors open to get some wind into the rink and even got some fake snow to fall. On Feb. 4, the team became the world’s first topless professional hockey team with perhaps the funniest pro hockey sweaters ever made.
Let this be a lesson to minor hockey associations out there. If you can’t go full-on militia to make money, why not try humour? Oh and just so you know, Mar. 23 is the Wranglers’ third annual Regrettable Tatto Night.
