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Alaska, Reading Earn Marketing Campaign Awards

June 17, 2008 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release


PRINCETON, N.J. - The ECHL announced that the Alaska Aces are the National Conference recipient of the Marketing Campaign of the Year award while the Reading Royals were chosen as the winner in the American Conference.

Team marketing campaigns are reviewed and the winners are chosen by Princeton Communications Group in Pennington, N.J.

Alaska had back-to-back sellout crowds for its "Paint the Rink Pink" preseason games against the Texas Wildcatters. The Aces donated a portion of ticket sales while also selling special corporate sponsorships and holding a jersey auction to raise $103,000 for Alaska Chapter of the American Cancer Society and Breast Cancer Focus, Inc.

Celebrating the connection between the tradition of Royals hockey and the history and ongoing development of the Greater Reading, "R-Team/R-Town" was incorporated throughout the season in giveaways, promotions and events. It is the second year in a row that Reading has been chosen, having won the inaugural award in 2007-08 with "Proud To Be A Royal".

ECHL Marketing Campaign of the Year

Year Team
2007-08 Alaska Aces and Reading Royals
2006-07 Reading Royals and Stockton Thunder

ECHL
Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2007-08, the ECHL is the Premier 'AA' Hockey League and the third-longest tenured professional hockey league behind only the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League.

ECHL began in 1988-89 with five teams in four states and has grown to be a coast-to-coast league that will play with 24 teams in 16 states and British Columbia in 2008-09.

The league officially changed its name to ECHL on May 19, 2003.

The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 30 teams in the NHL in 2007-08, marking the 11th consecutive season that the league has had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL.

There have been 355 former ECHL players who have gone on to play in the NHL after playing in the ECHL, including 99 in the last three seasons. There have been 210 former ECHL players who have played their first game in the NHL in the past seven seasons.

There are 15 coaches in the NHL who have ECHL experience including former Mississippi and current Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, who is the 2007-08 winner of the NHL Coach of the Year award, and former Wheeling coach Peter Laviolette, who is head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes.

The ECHL is represented for the eighth consecutive year on the National Hockey League championship team in 2008 with Detroit Red Wings forward Aaron Downey.

The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 29 teams in the American Hockey League in 2007-08 and for the past 19 years there has been an ECHL player on the Calder Cup champion.

In each of the last two seasons there have been more than 225 players who have played in both the ECHL and the AHL and there were over 800 call-ups involving more than 500 players. In the last five seasons the ECHL has had more call-ups to the AHL than all other professional leagues combined with over 2,000 call-ups involving more than 1,000 players since 2002-03.

Further information on the ECHL is available from its website at ECHL.com.

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ECHL Stories from June 17, 2008


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


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