Last Thursday I took my son, Ben, to see the Washington Capitals play against the Tampa Bay Lightning.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously, celebrating both a Caps win and Veteran's Day.  November 11th marked the unveiling of "Courage CAPS", a program that the Caps run that benefits Our Military Kids, a nonprofit organization that supports National Guard and Military Reserve families – one child at a time.


As part of the program the Caps sold camo shirts and hats with the Courage Caps logo on them.  You can see the gear below and on Slap Shot in the picture above.  The line for these items stretched around the corner as fans looked to support their team and a great cause at the same time. 

                                                               

In addition to the Courage Caps program, the ARMY had a booth set up.  Unfortunately both Ben and I were told that we were not the target demographic (am I that old??).  However, they were very nice and gave Ben some really neat promotional items including a camo lanyard (with breakaway strap), a carabiner watch and compass and dog tags.  It was very cool of them.


                                           

It was great to see a professional sports organization go to such lengths to acknowledge the efforts of our men and women in uniform both overseas, here at home and of course, UNLEASHING THE FURY at the Verizon Center.  Thank you all for your service to our country.

I am a lifelong Washington Capitals fan.  When I was a kid, my parents would take my brothers and I to the old Capital Centre a few times each year.  Back then the seats, hot dogs and beer cost as much as one seat does now.  But I digress.  Perhaps the one thing that has always been constant is the marketing and promotion at the games.  Years ago it was free pucks, or sticks or a t-shirt with a player’s name on it.

Nowadays, companies have changed some of their promotional tactics to keep their reach large but their expense small.  Today’s example:  Chipotle.  During each game, when there is a random break in the action, the video screen will show a video of SlapShot (the Capitals mascot) walking into a Chipotle and having burritos made up which he then brings into the stadium and throws out to the crowd.  The video can be seen here:

At the last game I went to, I was lucky enough to catch one of the burritos.  I was so excited (and hungry).  However, the hunger turned into a bit of disappointment as I soon realized that it was not a burrito but rather a compressed t-shirt wrapped in foil and made to look like a burrito.  This soon changed when I realized that the “shurito” had a Free Burrito gift card on it.  Pretty cool.

I will say that the shirt itself was pretty uncool.  One color imprint on one side and on the left chest no less.  This was a great opportunity for Chipotle to have a cool design or at least a QR tag that I could scan with my phone while at the game.

I was still pretty psyched to catch one.  You can see the pictures below.  As you will see, I have two now.  The one I caught (unopened) and the one the guy next to me caught.  His response “Sure you can have this.  What am I gonna do with this boring shirt, especially when I am going to the bars after this.”