Boston ? Unbelievable as it may seem, not everyone in New England is thrilled about the Red Sox winning the World Series.

Retailers of everything from T-shirts to ice cream and cookies had been making money off the team’s championship drought for years. When the Red Sox finished off a World Series sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals this week to win their first title since 1918, the long-reliable marketing strategy fell apart.

But the retailers aren’t surrendering to history; they’re just modifying their messages. An ice cream company is staging a contest to rename its “Reverse the Curse” flavor, and apparel makers are trying gimmicks like printing the word “curse” backward to signify its reversal.

“This is a challenge for creative thinking,” said Stephen A. Greyser, a Harvard Business School professor and marketing expert.

No matter what new slogans emerge, retailers admit it will be tough to top “The Curse of the Bambino,” named because of Boston owner Harry Frazee’s decision to sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

“I think it’s naive to think it won’t tail off some,” said Chuck Green, president and chief executive of Brigham’s Ice Cream, the company behind the flavor renaming contest. “But a lot of people said, ‘Just because we won, don’t stop making this stuff.’ We think it has a little more legs to it than what I would call ‘hula hoops’ items.”

Brigham’s, which sells its ice cream at its 26 Boston-area shops and at supermarkets, introduced the Reverse the Curse flavor in May. The flavor — vanilla with chocolate, fudge, caramel and peanuts — became the fastest-selling new flavor in the chain’s 90-year history.

At a downtown store Thursday, the line of customers extended out onto the street, where store owner Vinnie Jankord had placed special orders to keep the flavor in stock.

Brigham’s plans to announce a winner of its renaming contest Sunday. Hundreds of suggestions from customers — including some unprintable references to the hated Yankees — have been narrowed down to four finalists: Curse Reversed, Believe It, Sox Rock and Fenway Faithfuls.

Sharon Fernald, of Raymond, N.H., votes for a new name for Brigham's Reverse

Greyser said getting customers hooked on the flavor, rather than its name, would be the key to its survival. Nonedible curse-themed products like shirts, hats and posters may be doomed, however.

That hasn’t stopped retailers from rushing out gear this week that proclaim Boston’s long-await success: “From cursed to first,” “Now I can die in peace” and “It happened in my lifetime.”

Moments after Wednesday night’s game ended, LogoSportswear.com began offering T-shirts and caps bearing the word “curse” in reverse text. The shirts feature an image of a gravestone reading “RIP 1918-2004.”

Dozens of orders were coming in every hour on Thursday, and the shirt was outselling more conventional “Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series Champions” shirts 10-to-1, said Frank Nevins, owner and president of the Cheshire, Conn.-based business.

“I think there’s a certain kind of spiritual effect that this Red Sox victory has had for the fans,” he said.

The curse legend has been chronicled in books, including Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s “The Curse of the Bambino,” which has had more than 20 printings since 1990 and been updated three times to add a total of 41 pages.

But Shaughnessy suspects the book’s popularity is like the Babe himself: dead and buried.

“I would think it would be time for that book to hit the road,” Shaughnessy said. “It now stands as ancient history.”

In February, Shaughnessy began writing a new Red Sox book to be published in March. The working title: “Reversing the Curse.”