The Gladiators' Margaritaville Jersey (via the team's Facebook page)

This yellow, teal and brown/burgundy on pink ice is going to be a tad on the color blind side. It’s for a good cause, so we will put this unfortunate color match-up aside. Also, is this the first ever pro hockey jersey to include a parrot?

From the Gwinnett Gladiators website:

“Wasting away again in Margaritaville or do you just wish that you were? Don’t miss this Gladiators special weekend as the team helps raise money and awareness for cancer research and local children’s charities. This year’s theme is Parrot Head inspired as we plan to dip our toes in the sands of good hockey and good fun during the 4th Annual Pink in the Rink Weekend at the Arena at Gwinnett Center.”

NHL: St. Louis Blues

Last night, the St. Louis Blues mixed their St. Patrick’s Day commemoration with environmental awareness, and gave away a “Green Game” t-shirt to all fans in attendance (quite a risky claim to advertise – from personal experience, you should always give an exact number of giveaways, a la “first 5,000 fans”). The shirt giveaway was sponsored by Monsanto, a Cambridge, MA based agricultural innovation company with an emphasis on sustainable practices. This was the second year for the Blues promotion.

Shirt Grade: B I like the muted, antiquey kelly green shirt and faded style of the print. It also helps that the Blues’ team colors happen not to horribly clash with green. Kudos for using that to their advantage and not changing the logo’s colors for the holiday’s sake. Environmental awareness initiatives during games are the new “it” thing to do in sports marketing – trust me, I participate in one – but the giveaway needs to be backed up with sustained, but subtle, green initiatives, otherwise it is just a t-shirt giveaway.

AHL: Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins

The Baby Pens (speaking of, we are long overdue for an edition of The Everyone’s Favorite Goalie Watch, but that’ll be another post) are selling two St. Patrick’s Day long sleeve shirts in their online store. The 2009 edition ($20) features their mascot, Tux, skating with a four leaf clover in the background on the front. The back reads “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” The 2010 version ($22) features the logo in what appears to be a very dark green (nearly black), with a four leaf clover on the sleeve. Long sleeve shirts are always key in that part of Pennsylvania, where the damp gray chilly days seem to out number any other weather.

Grade: C The effort is there, but the execution is not. The 2009 version is too campy, and the 2010 version shows promise, but the green seems too dark. Kudos, however, for the 2010 edition’s four leaf clover on the sleeve.

ECHL: Gwinnett Gladiators

The ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators teamed with Old Time Hockey, the same Salisbury, MA based company who partnered to create some of the NHL’s 2010 St. Patrick’s Day gear, to create a green t-shirt to sell this March. The shirt ($20 with free shipping through today) features a rather disturbed and surly looking leprechaun brandishing a hockey stick, with a small Gladiators logo by his right foot. The all-caps font is rather 1950s style, and arches above Surly Leprechaun’s head.

Grade: A This is the first ever St. Patrick’s Day shirt I would ever consider purchasing, and not just because I’m in the market for a shirt from the team where two of my most favorite former BU hockey alums play. What sold me was the 1950s fonts – I’m a sucker for fonts. Plus, I feel like Surly Leprechaun is going to hurt me with that hockey stick if I don’t like the shirt.

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This month, UPrinting is providing me 100 color postcards to giveaway to one of my commenters. I design and order a ton of custom printing both in my personal life and my full-time job, and 4×6 color postcards honestly are the product I order the most of. This giveaway is super useful – you can use them for invites to a shindig (like if any of ya’ll want to plan me a bachelorette party, cough, cough – no, I’m just kidding. My bachelorette party was the Frozen Four), or use them to advertise your own website.

How could you win these custom postcards? Seeing that one of the blog’s big themes lately has been featuring funny and unique minor league promotions, I figured I would giveaway this prize to the commenter describing the best sports team giveaway you’ve ever heard of. A giveaway for a giveaway, if you will. Comment on this post with the best giveaway you have ever heard of before Wednesday, March 17th at 10pm Eastern Time. I will pick the winner based on a stringent criteria of whatever makes me laugh the hardest. If there is a tie, I’ll just draw a name out of a hat.

The winner will be notified via email, announced via a blog post, and then contacted by UPrinting to obtain their prize.

Ready? Set? Tell me those awesome game giveaways!

The fine print: One (1) winner will receive a prize of 100 4 x 6 Postcards on 14pt Cardstock Gloss. Full Color Both Sides. 3 Business Days Turnaround. FREE UPS Ground Shipping. Limited to US Residents only (sorry my Canadian friends.)

Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy also featured the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers’ March promotion where their team will be dressed up in special Girl Scout jerseys.

Las Vegas's Girl Scout tribute jersey (Illustration from Puck Daddy.)

Former Girl Scout me would like to point out that that jersey is based off the Junior Girl Scout uniform, which when I was a Scout, came with the option of either the sash or the vest. In true Western New York fashion, I was forced into uniform hand-me-downs, so I wore the 1979 edition – flared paints and too-wide insignia prints! (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Lastly, the ECHL Utah Grizzlies will be celebrating a pair of unique promotions over the coming days. Saturday is “Guns and Hoses” night – a charity game between local police officers and firefighters will take place Saturday afternoon, and during the Grizzlies’ evening game, the team will don special “Guns and Hoses” jerseys (picture not yet available.)  I thought the name of the promotion was quite suspect, until @QuickFacts, one of the sources of hockey knowledge I totally defer to, informed me that many teams have such games annually. You learn something new everyday. I’m still interested in seeing how the Grizzlies will include both police and firefighter imagery in the same jersey.

Monday night, the Grizzlies are hoping down-on-his-luck and recently jail sprung Utah resident Gary Colman will join the team for the ceremonial puck drop. “The organization has reached out to his agent and attorney in an attempt to bring him to the E-Center and is hopeful to have him in attendance Monday for a ceremonial first puck drop,” read a Grizzlies press release on Thursday. Adrian Denny, the team’s Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting added, “Gary has struggled a bit since his move to Utah, but we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce him to Grizzlies hockey.”

Something tells me Gary’s not going to be there…

That is, until today.

On December 20, the ECHL’s Elmira Jackals will present “Christmas CD” night during their game against the Johnstown Chiefs. Attendees at the game will receive a Christmas CD of Jackals players singing Christmas carols. Yes, residents of the Twin Tiers and Southwestern New York, you can celebrate the holidays by being serenaded by ECHL players such as twin forwards Justin and Tyler Donati and minor league hockey journeyman Olivier Proulx (Look at his Hockey Database profile. Journeyman might be too mild of a term.)

In anticipation of their CD release, the Jackals posted the following behind-the-scenes video of the recording session. The voices. The majesty. The command. The….resemblance to thirteen year olds with cracking voices.

If this isn’t the perfect accompaniment for your family’s various holiday activities – such as driving around to find that street with the paper candelabras and white lights only to realize that the two feet of lake effect snow has buried the candelabras and knocked out the power (or maybe that’s just my family?) – I don’t know what CD is.

For those of you who follow my Twitter account, you will know that I have recently become obsessed with the ECHL. Sure, as a good hockey fan, I followed the minor league a little in the past. But this year, since my favorite Terrier of all time is playing in it, along with what seems like nearly every single college hockey player from the last two years, I’m following the league with much more gusto.

The ECHL’s Bakersfield Condors, located out in that Terrier-freshmen-class producing state of California, gets a lot of press for their inventive promotions. Already this season, they have held a Michael Jackson jersey night, which was featured all across the blogosphere. The Condors wore MJ styled jerseys with one white glove, and auctioned off the jerseys to benefit Children’s Miracle Network.

The promotion that caught my eye, however, isn’t as bold as the Condors’ tribute to America’s favorite petafile. The Condors announced this week their “Who Ya Bringing” program, where the encourage existing season ticket holders to bring friends by giving them a free ticket per every seat they own per month. For example, if you own two season tickets, you are eligible to claim two free tickets per month during the length of the promotion.

The hope of this promotion is to convert these guests of season ticket holders to ticket plan holders themselves. The Condors will offer $100 to any season ticket holder whose guest subsequently purchases season tickets, and $25 if a guest purchases a flex-plan.

How many guests are going to make the ticket plan investment? In this economy, especially near the holidays, not many. The Condors still stand to make out well with the deal. You may be giving away a free product, but you are standing to make money from concessions and memorabilia sales. The team also stands to sell more individual game tickets from those introduced to the team but can’t make the ticket plan outlay.  Season ticket holders stand to benefit from being able to use free tickets as holiday presents. If you have a client or friend, give them your December or January allocation of tickets, and you have a low-to-no cost holiday present.

Other interesting upcoming Condor promotions include Make Over Night, where a lucky fan will win a package including “microderm face treatment, tightening and shaping, and laser hair removal”, and my personal fave, Toilet Plunger Night, where the first 2,000 fans will receive team branded toilet plungers. Yes, you read that correctly, toilet plungers. As my fiance said when I told him the topic of this post, “I have the perfect tagline for the promotion. ‘Our season is in the the toliet and this plunger can be too!” (The Condors currently lead the Pacific Division, however, making that tagline not valid.)

If toilet plungers and cosmetic laser procedures do not suit your fancy, the Condors will be holding David Carr Night in late February, where attendees can hear about Bakersfield native Carr’s path to an NFL backup quarterback job and get his autograph. I can’t make fun of that – I’m from a town that will line up overnight to shake the hand of Roland Williams. (What, you’ve never heard of him?)