BOSTON -- About 5,000 fans lined up outside the TD Garden on Thursday for their chance to win free tickets to every event at the Boston Garden for its entire 2009-2010 season.

One lucky winner will get a pair of tickets to every Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics and Boston Blazers game, as well as concerts and family shows, said Bharat Masrani, TD Bank president and CEO.

The candy bars -- nearly 20,000 in all -- were distributed Thursday at the arena and at select TD Banknorth locations in Massachusetts.

The promotional campaign is designed to bring attention to the arena's name change from the TD Banknorth Garden to the TD Garden later this month.

Five of the candy bars hold "golden tickets" that give the winners a behind the scenes tour of the TD Garden. At the end of the tour, one winner will receive the free tickets to every Garden event.

Some fans waited in line for as long as five hours on Thursday to pick up their candy bar and a chance to win.

"We are going to win a golden candy bar. We waited for the Celtics, and we didn't get in the front of the line, but we waited around the corner and we won that," one fan said.

"We got nothing else to do, we might as well come down and hang out," one fan said. "It's my birthday and we had nothing better to do. So, this is my birthday present."

Phillip Lussier, of Milton, was one of the five lucky fans who found a golden ticket.

"I got a golden ticket. I don't know what I won yet, but I am going to find out," Lussier said. "I like to go to a lot of Bruins games. I love the Bruins."

On Friday, Lussier and the four other golden ticket holders -- Beth Lynn Wegner of Needham; James Lynch, of Natick; Trudy Crowell, of Wilmington; and Eileen Boyle, of Dorchester -- will unwrap 6-foot mock-ups of the candy bars to see if they are the grand prize winner. Wegner found her winning ticket at a bank branch.

"We said all along that we want to make this fun, have the fans come in and participate in this, and this is all built so they can do that," TD Garden President John Wentzell said.

Hundreds of other prizes will be awarded in the chocolate bars, including tickets and suites to sporting events, concerts and other shows.

Crowds forced two TD Banknorth bank branches to close for a time on Thursday.

The candy bars were made by local chocolatier Hebert Confections of Shrewsbury, Mass.

Read the contest fine print.