Sighs of relief were heard all over Calgary Wednesday when Big Eddie was safely returned to Big Rock brewery after being “kidnapped” three weeks earlier.
No, not Ed McNally, founder of the Calgary-based craft brewer, but his eponymous eight-foot statue that went missing after the June 7 annual Eddie Awards–the brewer’s 17-year old consumer generated advertising celebration.
Although the two perpetrators were caught on surveillance video absconding with Big Eddie, the brewery decided not to notify the police and to wait and see if the statue was returned. When it hadn’t appeared by June 29, the brewery issued a news release promising no legal action and free beer “if our Eddie makes it back to us in one piece, literally.”
The release got wide play on local media, and within hours two young Calgary brothers called the brewery promising to return the statue that they had stashed in their garage.
“The two men are huge Big Rock fans and regular attendees at the Eddies,” said Aisling Tomei, manager of corporate relations for the brewery.
Although it all sounds like a publicity stunt, Tomei said the heist was real. “In fact the day we put out the news release, I got a call from the Calgary Police Service asking if this was a publicity stunt and I assured them it wasn’t.”
After confirming his styrofoam namesake was unharmed, Ed McNally lived up to his promise and gave each man a six-pack of the brewery’s new Gopher Lager beer.
“We originally offered the free beer for information from anyone and never thought we would actually hear from the culprits,” added Tomei. “We didn’t want to condone their actions, but we had promised the beer.”
Tomei said the missing statue was one of two specially commissioned works used at the four Eddies events across the country and was irreplaceable since the Calgary-company that made them is no longer in business. Next year promised Tomei, the two Big Eddies will be securely locked down. “We’ll probably make a joke out of it, cover it with chains and locks.”
