Angry Birds Flips the Bird to Hockey Fans

The Angry Birds game may have hit half a billion downloads recently, but the characters have yet to have their own animated show or appear in advertisements or actually represent anything other than the nice slingshotted birds they are.

But that’s all about to change. In the last month came the news of an Angry Birds TV channel and an Angry Birds movie in the works. And now a real, live, skating Angry Bird – with a stick. More precisely, a Hockey Bird. 

Toni Kysenius at Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish-based developer of the game, has created the new bird to be the mascot of next year’s Hockey World Championships in Finland and Sweden, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s website.

Yes, Angry Birds fans and hockey fans — HockeyBird is your official mascot of the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

"For us, getting the Hockey Bird was fantastic,” Mika Sullen, general secretary of the Finnish tournament organization, told the site. “Angry Birds is Finnish, known worldwide, and one of the hottest topics of conversation wherever you go."

As for Kysenius, he found the process exciting as well: “(Hockey Bird is) the first Angry Bird who gets to break free from the Angry Birds game environment,” he told the site. “His job is to bring bird energy to a big sports carnival and basically, be everywhere."

[image via]