T-BIRDS EDGE OUT PATS

KENT, April 30, 2014 – The Western Hockey League today announced the Seattle Thunderbirds are the recipients of the annual WHL Business-Marketing Award. The announcement was made at the WHL Awards Luncheon at the Deerfoot Inn in Calgary this afternoon.

“This is a team award and shows all the hard work of our staff this past season. We owe a big thank you to our fans and partners for helping us win this award,” said Colin Campbell, T-Birds Vice-President. “Our fans passion and involvement with the team make the ShoWare Center an exciting place to watch our games. We are looking forward to next season and all that we will have going.”

The T-Birds were the Western Conference nominee for the award while the Regina Pats were the Eastern Conference nominee. The WHL selects the two nominees for the award. All teams in the league then vote on the award winner based on team specific business and marketing information provided by the league, including:

• T-Birds utilization of the WHL FTP to provide audio and video play-by-play highlights to local and national media outlets.

• Second consecutive season team has produced a free Game Day Digital Program that is promoted on the teams website, email newsletter, social media channels and mobile app. This program is something several others teams in the league are now producing due to success of T-Birds with our program.  The distribution this past season of over $100,000 by the Thunderbirds Community Sports Foundation to local youth and amateur sports associations, schools, teams and individuals through 50/50 and Jersey Raffles bringing the total to over $300,000 the Foundation has distributed the last two seasons. 

• The team helped raise $200,000 for the Seattle Ronald McDonald House at this year’s Hockey Challenge to bring the 16-year total for the Challenge to over $4.5 million raised.

• The weekly mentorship program at Neely-O’Brien Elementary School in Kent through the team’s partnership with Communities in Schools of Kent. This partnership also gave the team the chance to participate in assemblies on responsibility, bullying and goal setting at numerous area elementary and middle schools and at the Muckelshoot Health and Wellness Center. 

• The Thunderbirds annual attendance has increased every year the team has played in the ShoWare Center.• The success of the Director’s Mortgage 2-for-Tuesday games which have averaged over 5,000 fans a game for the 10 games, including playoffs, this past season.

• The team’s successful third annual Pink The Rink Night partnership with UW Medicine/Valley Medical which raised awareness for early prevention and detection of breast cancer.