The Washington Capitals are defending Stanley Cup champions. They’re in first place in the Metropolitan Division. Alex Ovechkin is leading the league in goals.
Beyond what the future may hold for Andre Burakovsky, there are not many questions for this team as it dives head first into the second half of the season.
And then we got this important Capitals-related email.
Eric V. writes:
RMNB,
So I tweeted a question to Ted and didn’t get an answer. What happened to Chick-Fil-A at Capital One Arena? They don’t seem to be hawking microwaved sandwiches anymore, and the temp booth on the fourth deck has been relegated to selling pucks from the warm-up session. And last home game we didn’t get to “Spot The Cow.”
Do y’all know what happened to Chick-Fil-A?
Eric was not the only Caps fan concerned with this issue. We’ve also gotten several tweets.
Why is @ChickfilA no longer @CapitalOneArena? What are @Capitals fans supposed to eat now! @russianmachine @ikhurshudyan
— Danielle Weinberg (@DWeinberg8) December 20, 2018
#capspens #chickfila @MayHockeyNBCS #capitals @Capitals where is Chick-fil-A? Why are they no longer in Capital One Arena? Gone overnight! Conspiracy theory?@russianmachine @JessicaChasmar @dcsportsbog @TedLeonsis @VogsCaps @realDonaldTrump @EmilyMiller @IngrahamAngle
— Bob Shepler (@bshepler) December 20, 2018
What do we know?
We can confirm that the Chick-Fil-A cart is gone during games.
Photo: Cara Bahniuk
And the Spot The Cow game, where the Chick-Fil-A cow comes out in a random section of the arena and gives away food and coupons, has also stopped occurring.
So what happened?
We reached out to the Capitals, who forwarded us to Monumental Sports’ Jodi Fick. Fick oversees communications for Capital One Arena. We asked her if she could confirm the relationship between Capital One Arena and Chick-Fil-A had ended. And if it did: Why?
“I can assure you the cow is still in the building,” Fick said in an email. “There are no longer stands at Capital One Arena but vendors are still walking around selling Chick-Fil-A and they are still a partner of the Wizards and Capitals from a marketing perspective.”
Fick did not return comment when I asked a follow-up question. How would a fan spot these specific Chick-Fil-A vendors?
I also reached out to Chick-Fil-A to find out why the relationship changed.
“Chick-fil-A’s presence at the arena was established due to a marketing partnership with one local restaurant, not a corporate one, and the individual franchise Operator decided to stop marketing/selling at the arena,” a Chick-Fil-A spokesman said in an email. “Local partnerships are at the discretion of individual Operators and can change occasionally.
“There are other ongoing market-wide partnerships with several of the area sports teams, which are still active,” the spokesman concluded.
In summary.
The Capitals and Wizards still have a relationship with corporate Chick-Fil-A promotion-wise. Monumental Sports also says Chick-Fil-A is being sold in the arena — just in a different way.
