So mad! Daughter's won hockey tickets delivered too late.

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My oldest entered a contest and won two tickets to the local team's hockey game (not the NHL team but the level under that, I'm not into hockey so I don't know what that's called). She was so excited when she received her tickets in the mail last Friday...until she saw that they were dated last Wednesday! We've made phone calls to the people in charge of the contest and they refuse to replace the tickets, they claim it's not their responsibility if they were delivered after the game. I understand that to an extent BUT it's not like they were being sent across the country and these people knew they would be going through the mail during the holidays. From where they were sent would normally take 2 days, three days tops. Judging by the dates involved and the postmark date, they were just plain irresponsible about getting them sent in time. So my daughter missed the game...at which more prizes were supposed to be awarded to those in attendance with winning tickets. She is so disappointed. I've just sent a none too polite e-mail to the hockey team itself explaining the situation and am about to send another one off to the news station in that city. I'm hoping that someone will decide to do something about this. Have you ever had a similar situation? Maybe not with hockey tickets but with a contest you won but couldn't use the prize due to the promoters' mistake? What steps did you take to get things fixed? Any other ideas on how to get something out of this?