The Thrashers Once 'Arrested' Their Own Mascot for Stealing a Zamboni in an Attempt to Sell 5,000 Tickets

Ah, the Atlanta Thrashers. A franchise with the fan support of the Miami Marlins, just with even less success.

During the 2010-11 season — which turned out to be the team's final season in Atlanta — the Thrashers were 28th in the NHL in attendance, despite being surprisingly not awful several months into the season. So in quite possibly the most desperate ploy to sell tickets in the history of professional sports, the team had its mascot Thrash "steal" a zamboni from the practice facility and lead the police on an O.J. Simpson-esque, slow-speed chase around town before being arrested. They said Thrash would remain in the Gwinnett County Jail until they reached their ticket sales goal.

And how many tickets were they trying to sell, you may ask? Maybe looking to sell out a big homestand? Nope, the Thrashers just wanted to sell 5,000 tickets to their remaining games in December. Five thousand.

I don't think there's a bigger indictment you could make on a professional sports franchise than putting together a marketing campaign so elaborate it gets the cops involved all to sell a quarter of your arena. I wonder why the team moved.

And it's such a shame. Nashville, Tampa and Carolina have proven that hockey can work in the South. The Thrashers just never put a product on the ice worthy of any more support than they had.

The Thrashers played a grand total of two playoff games in Atlanta in franchise history and you know what the atmosphere was like? Sold out and loud as hell. Give people something to support and they'll show up.

But whatever marketing person came up with that promo was at least doing a better job than pretty much everybody else in that organization. Take the Coyotes or Panthers and give Atlanta one more chance at hockey with a roster that won't lose 50 games.