Whenthe  Checkers moved Uptown, we thought it would be a good idea to reinforce their presence in sports bars. Turns out that you can buy ad space above the urinals. Perfect. A captive audience with a bit of time on their hands. I came up with a poster campaign that would play off the fact that we had replaced the urinal cake with a hockey puck.

 

In a preliminary meeting, someone raised the question, "What if somebody takes the puck." To which we all agreed, "no one would steal a urine soaked hockey puck."

 

We were wrong.

 

Disgusting as it may be, all the pucks were stolen. And each week, we sent fresh pucks around. But we managed to turn lemons into lemonade (or urine in to urinade?) when we turned the incident to our favor. We created a false public service radio campaign that began, "And now, Jeff Longo, president of the Charlotte Checkers with an important service announcement." And Jeff came on and said, "Don't touch things people have peed on." And then he went on to offer free Hockey Pucks to anybody who wanted one.

 

You simply can't buy that kind of publicity.