By Sean McAfee
Tribune reporter

     Contrary to what you might have heard, the New Mexico Scorpions won't be playing the El Paso Cow Pattys tonight.
     Nope, the publicity stunt is over and it's back to the Buzzards sweaters for the WPHL team that will face the Scorps tonight at Tingley Coliseum.
     New Mexico is coming off a tough road trip through the WPHL Eastern Division in which the Scorpions were 1-2-1 in games against Monroe, Bossier-Shreveport, Tupelo and Lake Charles.
     However, the team remains in first place in the Western Division at 36-15-3, eight points ahead of Lubbock. El Paso is 23-23-7, two points behind fourth-place San Angelo.
     The Buzzards have suffered from poor attendance all season, ranking last in the league with an average of 1,753 per home game.
     The Buzzards organization held a news conference Feb. 15 and sent out a news release which announced the name change and unveiled the team's "new" mascot, a cartoon cow on skates wearing a helmet and holding a hockey stick.
     The next night, El Paso took the ice at home against Odessa wearing white and black-spotted jerseys with the Cow Pattys logo. The following night, a Saturday home game against San Angelo, the team wore the jerseys for the first period then changed back into Buzzards gear for the rest of the game.
     The Cow Pattys game-worn sweaters were auctioned off Wednesday at an average of $275 per jersey. High bid was $325, said Duke Keith, the team's director of communications and, along with general manager Tom Benezio, the perpetrator of the Cow Pattys stunt.
     Attendance also rose, Keith said, with more than 5,000 total fans attending Friday and Saturday's games. Just as important, the team got the attention it was looking for.
     "It went pretty well," Keith said Thursday. "We got ripped a little locally, but people talked about it, and that's what we wanted. People pretty much understood it was a joke."
     Keith, who also does play-by-play for the Buzzards, said he was surprised by how much national and international attention the stunt attracted. In the past week, he has done interviews with publications and radio stations from all over the country, Canada and even Europe.
     "The national and international response has been incredible," Keith said. "That surprised us."
     For the record, the El Paso Cow Pattys are, and will forever remain, 1-0 after their 4-3 shootout win over Odessa on Feb. 16.