When the University of Oregon mascot, Puddles the Duck, made a dramatic zip-line entrance at the team’s football game in Autzen Stadium on Nov. 24, he became just one on a growing list of such entrances. Zip lining, it seems, remains an adventurous and entertaining novelty in the public imagination.
To the beat of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” Puddles zipped to a spot over the center of the field before slowly rappelling 100 feet or so to the playing surface to the theme song of “Mission: Impossible.” The stadium installation was done by industry stalwart Synergo, which is based in Portland.
Earlier in the season, on Sept. 16, Yosef, the mascot for Appalachian State, N.C., also made a zip-line entrance into the team’s stadium, performing a flyover with the American flag. That line was engineered and installed by Aerial Concepts, a North Carolina-based company that creates grand entrances for stadiums and other large venues internationally. Brett Rhinehardt of Aerial Concepts told API that it took a year of “discussion, planning, and more” to pull off the stunt.
