I did a little Guerrilla Marketing for the Sens last week. I put a definition of Spartacat (the Ottawa Senators Mascot) on UrbanDictionary.com. It’s free and gets lots of traffic.
It’s also good PR for Spartacat! During the first couple of years of the Sens rebirth when they were not a very good team, Spartacat was the most popular ‘player’, signing and handing out his ‘player’ profile more than 100,000 times. His signature was, of course, a paw print.
I also did a tribute to a deceased friend of the Senators, former US Attorney General, Elliot Richardson by adding his version of the words ‘Intricate’ and ‘Intricated’ too.
Here are the definitions I used:
A combination of Spartacus, Sparta and cat implying a brave soul; one who stands up to bullies in every facet of life– in sports, business and in his or her personal life.
Example: “Holy smokes, Batman, that’s a guy we should have on our side– he’s a Spartacat.
Links: sparta spartacus brave cat standup courage king trustworthy trust fearless
by Prof Bruce Mar 5, 2009
To bring people on board or to get them onside with an idea or a proposal or an initiative of some type by getting them ‘intricated’ into the process bit by bit, almost without their noticing that they are making a commitment.
Example: When a group was trying to Bring Back the Ottawa Senators in 1990, a team that had not played in the National Hockey League for nearly 60 years, one of their key advisers, former US Attorney General, Elliot Richardson (now deceased) said: “First we’ll intricate the League then we’ll get the (expansion) franchise!”
Links: commitment intricated onside promise franchise concession commit grant agree vote majority decide favor
by Prof Bruce Mar 5, 2009
To intricate someone; to bring people on board or to get them onside with an idea or a proposal or an initiative of some type by getting them intricated into the process bit by bit, almost without their noticing that they are making a commitment.
Example: When a group was trying to Bring Back the Ottawa Senators in 1990, a team that had not played in the National Hockey League for nearly 60 years, one of their key advisers, former US Attorney General, Elliot Richardson (now deceased) said: “First we’ll get the League’s Board of Governors intricated then we’ll get the (expansion) franchise!”
Links: commitment intricated onside promise franchise concession commit grant agree vote majority decide favor intricate
by Prof Bruce Mar 5, 2009
ps. Here is a cool story about our first year mascot; he was a wild American, maybe the best mascot we ever had. We didn’t know it but he was working in Canada illegally. He got caught on the wrong side of the border with a few hours to go before game time and couldn’t get through border security. So he rowed across Lake Erie.
pps. There is another story about our mascot. We originally wanted it to be Marvin the Martian, the little guy from the Bugs Bunny Show who dressed up in Roman Garb. But Warner Brothers wanted a huge license fee; we thought they should pay us instead! For the great exposure we could give him through national television. (This brings up the who pays whom problem quite typical in the post modern information economy.)
So we looked around for another creature and settled on Sparty. A minister called me up after our home opener and complained about him– the Romans put Christians in the Coliseum for sport where lions ate them. I was very apologetic; it had never occurred to us. We sold Sparty dolls as the ‘Friendly Lion’ and we used the lion because we hoped that one day the Sens would be King of (their) Jungle!