Capital Daily:
The BC Hockey League club’s president says he was so embarrassed by his team’s recent 11-2 shellacking at the hands of the Alberni Valley Bulldogs, he decided he had to make amends.
“You ever go to a movie, and you pay all that money and walk out and go, ‘that sucks’?” David Michaud rhetorically asks Capital Daily.
“Obviously, they're not giving you a refund because the flick was bad. But, you know, for me, I did see it as an opportunity.”
And so, in an uncommon gesture from the wide world of sports—seen on rare occasions in European football—anyone who watched the Griz get owned “pillar to post” on New Year’s Day afternoon is asked to come back to watch tonight’s rematch—on the house.
“You know, hopefully, nobody came away from that game saying, ‘Well, that was a waste of time, and I’m never coming back,’” Michaud tells Capital Daily.
“But just in case there were a few of those, then maybe this will, you know, soften that blow a little bit and get them back into the Q.”
Michaud himself was among the disappointed 1,200 or so at the Q Centre last Thursday. In fact, he walked out.
“This is my 15th year running a hockey team, and you can't control wins and losses, but you can control effort, and I just did not like our effort on New Year's Day.”
The next day, he let his players have it. And whatever he said worked. The following evening, the Grizzlies beat the league’s best team, the Cowichan Valley Capitals, 8-7 in overtime.
Michaud said he spoke with a few other league governors before announcing the freebie special.
“They thought I was crazy, but we had a good chuckle about it, too.”
It’s a sharp PR campaign in keeping with the Grizzlies’ goal of making the game accessible. The club has a deal with Maxxam Insurance; anyone 18 or under, accompanied by an adult, gets into games for free.
“As I often joke, it's junior hockey. We're not curing cancer here—this is meant to be fun and a great experience for our families.”
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