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Popular revolt

Angry fans turn back Pardubice's attempt to corporatize the team mascot

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
November 19th, 2008 issue

ISIFA
Forward Jan Kolář is the leading scorer for Pardubice, whose management tried to switch to a new sponsor-themed mascot, below.
Four years ago, the Pardubice hockey club brought its fans to their feet by winning — for the first time — the country’s top-flight Extraliga.
In November, Pardubice fans were on their feet again — this time in protest, angered by a change in the team mascot.
After five years of enjoying the financial backing of the organization’s main sponsor, electrical firm Moeller, club officials wanted to please the sponsor by introducing a new mascot to help promote the company. Instead of the town’s traditional mascot of a horse head that commemorates the town as the venue of one of the world’s most grueling horse races, the Grand Pardubice Steeplechase, the hockey club’s management picked a truly unexpected character: a clumsy green figure that the club’s managers named “Circuit Breaker.”
Club manager Zbyněk Kusý denies that the mascot and its name sought to provide additional promotion to Moeller, saying the reason for pursuing the new mascot was to attract parents with kids to hockey games in the Pardubice arena. “Our ambition was to come up with something lively and funny that could become popular with parents and their kids,” he said.
In fact, Kusý added, the green figure was better able to walk in the stands than a horse.
“A horse is much bigger, and making a walking horse mascot would be quite difficult. Also, I’m not sure whether kids would like a horse as a mascot in the stands either,” he added.
But fans were furious.
“It’s an ugly green figure that has nothing to do with hockey or the club’s history,” said Karel Klodner, leader of the hockey club’s fan club.
In order to involve fans in the selection process, Kusý and company even invited the club’s supporters to submit a name for the green creature.
The angry fans chose the name Zbyněk — after Kusý — but the club’s general manager overruled the moniker.
“People took it as an opportunity to make fun of me. ... We could not accept that one,” Kusý said.
Instead, some fans submitted a request for a homemade horse mascot — which had already become a symbol for the Pardubice basketball club — to also work in the hockey club stands.
Klodner said that, rather than merely selecting the name, fans should also be invited to choose the new mascot.
After weeks of fans’ pressure on club management, Kusý took a step back in mid-November. He said introducing the clumsy green figure as the hockey club’s official mascot was his personal mistake and a misunderstanding.
“The truth is that I did not read the promotional guidelines properly, and so I mixed up the official mascot with a teaser for kids,” Kusý said.
He said that the club’s official mascot could only be the traditional horse head and that the green Circuit Breaker would only be walking in the Pardubice stands as a teaser for kids.
In order to emphasize his new position, Kusý said Circuit Breaker was not the only marketing tool to attract more fans to Pardubice’s home games.
“We also plan to introduce cheerleaders to our home games — and some other things, too. We simply want to provide more entertainment for our fans,” he said.
Klodner said the club’s supporters do not believe the affair was “just a mistake,” as Kusý claimed, but, rather, that it was a result of the fans’ pressure on the club’s management.
“Having the green character as the official mascot was not acceptable,” Klodner said. “Having Circuit Breaker as a mere teaser for kids is not harmful to the club, and we don’t oppose it.”

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com


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