The Carolina Hurricanes are retiring the beer skate.
For now.
The viral beer glass shaped like a hockey skate went viral over the weekend when the team introduced it during Game 1 of their second-round series against the Flyers.
What the Hurricanes didn’t anticipate was the mugs being as popular as they were, and by the time the middle of the second period rolled around, they were completely sold out of them.
And Lenovo Center vice president for food and beverage, Adam Hoffman, told ESPN they will not be restocked for the rest of the playoff run, citing the difficulty in trying to turn around another order with the specialty promotional item vendor the Hurricanes used.
“We really thought we had purchased enough, and then this thing just blew up. Fans went crazy for it, which is great. We love that we created something that they wanted to have,” Hoffman told the outlet. “I don’t want to say we weren’t prepared for them to buy as many as they did, but obviously we didn’t think it was going to blow up exactly the way that it did, which is just so awesome.”
The Hurricanes join a group of NHL teams that have had specialty items for their respective playoff runs to generate buzz among hockey fans.
The Sabres reintroduced the beer sabre for the playoffs after they had sold out of them during the regular season and then restocked after their playoff drought ended.
The Mammoth unveiled the tusk mug at Delta Center last month.
The beer skate holds roughly 28 ounces of your favorite beverage and was sold for $19 for just the item alone and cost fans $12, along with the price of their drink, when they purchased it with liquid inside of it.
Local news station WRAL-TV reported that the Hurricanes had sold 4,687 beer skates during the Game 1 win over the Flyers and that the rush for them started during the pregame festivities in their fan plaza — where 300 were purchased.
Hoffman did suggest that they could make a return next season.
“We have already started talking about that,” he said. “I don’t know that I could say one way or the other whether or not that’s going to happen, but there also could be similar iterations. Maybe that’s the best way to call it.”
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