Promotions round-up #287

• GameOps.com handed out its Best of 2009 Promotion Award to two winners this year: The Cleveland Cavaliers "Lebron's Powder Toss Night" and the Bowling Green Hot Rods' "What Could Have Been Night"
  
  Lebron Powder Toss Night: "Masters of marketing their athletes, Nike partnered with the Cavaliers to help them promote the debut of the LeBron XI shoes for the Christmas Day Game. As LeBron James performed his pregame routine of tossing hand chalk into the air, the sellout crowd threw packets of white confetti aloft with him, creating a blizzard-like effect inside Quicken Loans Arena. The theatrical stunt was to promote James’ new Nike “Chalk” shoe, one of several variations he has worn this season."
  
  What Could Have Been Night: ..."The fledgling Bowling Green Baseball Club held a name-the-team contest to determine what moniker it would employ during its inaugural 2009 campaign. Hot Rods emerged victorious, but "Cave Shrimp" proved to be a surprisingly popular choice (Mammoth Cave, in close proximity to Bowling Green, is home to a sightless albino species known as Kentucky Cave Shrimp). The unexpected popularity of the "Cave Shrimp" name led to "What Could've Been Night." On this evening of alternate reality, the club wondered "What Could've Been" had Cave Shrimp been the team's nickname"
  
  
• Cameron "Superfan" Hughes, who got his start dancing & throwing t-shirts back at the Civic Centre for the Ottawa Senators, was hired by Pepsi to promote their "Eh! O Canada! Go!" chant at the World Juniors. Puck Daddy has an interview...
  
  
• Partnership Activation has a great idea started: The 100 Hottest Promotional Items in Sports