Just when you thought shower curtains and bathrobes were the pinnacle of Angry Birds cross-promotion saturation, today Rovio has unveiled a new partnership with the National Hockey League that sees the introduction of a new mascot born from the Angry Birds flock: HockeyBird. Billed as “a true symbol of the energy, intensity and joy of the game" HockeyBird will debut during select NHL Stadium Series games, which is a new initiative this season to hold professional hockey games in outdoor arenas. HockeyBird will host two different stadium games on the arena jumbotron, Slapshot and Slingshot, and his performance will be determined by how loudly the crowd cheers.

Ok, so this isn’t related to any iOS games that we know of just yet, and pretty much everybody is sick of hearing Angry Birds this or Angry Birds that. But this strikes me as especially crazy that a little game that started life on the iPhone has grown to such an incredible level of popularity that there’s now an NHL mascot based on the franchise. And, as Rovio points out on their blog, there is HockeyBird merchandise and videos in the pipeline so I’m not going to be at all shocked if he ends up with his own game eventually. I love hockey, but I just don’t see how Angry Birds fits into the equation, but here we are. So, does anybody think that Angry Birds hysteria will let up any time soon?

[Polygon]