Madison Capitols/Rosenau.Photography
Minor league baseball teams have a reputation for dreaming up wacky promotions to lure in fans, but there are plenty of hockey clubs at lower levels that also go a similar route. That includes the Madison Capitols of the USHL, who whipped up some amazing hockey jerseys for a temporary rebrand linked to their “Birds Aren’t Real Night.”
There are plenty of conspiracy theories that people are more than happy to buy into even though they have no basis in reality, and there’s at least one that has garnered plenty of attention that can be traced back to some individuals who actually set out to mock those hare-brained ideas.
There are far too many people who think the world is secretly controlled by the powerful elites that comprise the shadowy international cabal known as the “Illuminati,” an organization that was dreamed up by some pranksters in the 1960s who set out to construct a conspiracy theory that was absurd to the point where no one could possibly believe it was real.
In 2017, a guy named Peter McIndoe mounted a similarly tongue-in-cheek campaign known as “Birds Aren’t Real,” which hinged on the farcical notion that the United States government had slowly but surely managed to replace every living bird with robots that allow it to spy on people.
He spent years committing to the bit before coming clean in 2022, and the movement transformed into a meme that’s still alive and well to this day.
One USHL team decided to get in on the action with a temporary rebrand inspired by the conspiracy, and it whipped up some amazing jerseys for the occasion.
The Madison Capitals of the USHL rebranded as the “Surveillance Swans” for “Birds Aren’t Real Night”
The Madison Capitals are a USHL team based in Wisconsin’s capital city, and their promotional calendar for the 2025-26 season features games that are supplemented by wiener dog races and a couple getting married in a wedding ceremony held on the ice.
However, they really outdid themselves for their game against the Waterloo Blackhawks on December 12th, which has been dubbed “Birds Aren’t Real Night.”
Hockey fans who attend the game will get to watch a Capitols team that has decided to rebrand as the “Surveillance Swans” for one night only, and the club commissionerd some unreal sweaters for the occasion featuring one of those birds with a security camera for an eye.
The number one ball watcher 🤝 the number one watchers for the government.
We’ll be rebranding to the Surveillance Swans for one night only. Specialty Jerseys? Yep. Merch? Yep.
See you tomorrow.#GoCapsGo https://t.co/exye6bJnrO pic.twitter.com/gYcnXNnj2A
— Madison Capitols (@MadCapsHockey) December 11, 2025
There will also be 31 game-worn jerseys up for grabs in the auction the team is holding, and while there’s no telling how much they’re going to end up going for, I’m not sure if you can really put a price on anything that priceless.