I have my comments about the Devils-Kings game here. But I have to talk about a particular promotion the Devils had tonight. Tonight was Go Red for Women night (Gulitti has a good summary), where there were numerous deals going on: fashion shows, silent auctions, and so forth.
To me, the big draw was that you could purchase an autographed puck for $20. The proceeds would go to the charity (American Heart Association, if I recall correctly) and you would get a puck randomly autographed by a Devil. For $20 you could get Patrik Elias or Zach Parise or Mike Rupp or something else. This was a very good idea, you could get something worth more than $20 pretty easily and help out a good cause.
It was so good, a lot of people came to the Rock early to have their chance. Unfortunately, the location of where it was set up was difficult for security to set up as it ended up being in the corner of the concourse. Not a lot of space for a lot of people. The security staff weren't pleased by it, though they didn't really do a great job short of corralling people into a massive line and complaining along with other complainers in line.
However, the big problem was that there were only 500 signed pucks and there were no limits on how many pucks you could buy. I can see why it is; the charity doesn't care where the money comes from - $20 is $20. Doesn't matter if it's seven people paying $20 each or one person paying $140. Still, way more than 500 people came and a good number of those first few hundred came away with way more than just one puck (I saw some with 7 to 10 pucks!!!)
I know with a limited number of pucks, there's always going to be someone missing out. Still, a lot of people who were quite willing to give $20 to charity ended up not giving that money being real unhappy with how it was "organized" and the fact that there was no limit on pucks so there were none left after 300 or so people. Basically, if you didn't get into the arena right away because you didn't know when it opened or if security was slow getting you in or if you had to use the bathroom, you weren't getting any pucks. It wasn't going to happen. Heck, I was going in as the doors opened and I was stuck on line waiting for 30 minutes only to get nothing! And there was no consolation or Plan B for the many who waited in line prior.
The idea of the autographed pucks was good. The execution was not, ultimately due to the lack of organization and a complete misunderstanding of how popular this could be. Hopefully, the organizers of this kind of promotion in the future learns from the mistakes made tonight. The charity could have made a lot more money with more pucks or other memorbilia available; and a lot more people could have been happier.