Dear hockey,
I love you man, but we gotta talk.
You're old as fuck now, congrats. The NHL turned 100 this year. You finally joined the Centenarian club. You're certified Old-balls now. Up there with major league baseball and Larry King. Just leathery old and senile. It's beautiful.
You and I have been buddies for more than 3 decades of that century. We're tight. Sometimes I hate you cause you're mean and make me sad. But I'll never leave you.
As a fan, you've dealt me my share of good and bad. Triumph and defeat. Top of the hill and bottom of the cellar.
The best part of it is that you know that I know that you know that being a sports fan is an absolutely asinine use of personal time.
You make me into a moron. But that's ok.
There are literally billions of dummies in the world, myself included, who watch sports and irrationally correlate the actions/achievements of strangers on a tv screen to their own self-loathing or ego-boosting.
"We scored! We won! I feel awesome."
"They lost. They sucked. Fuck, I feel like shit."
Real talk, that shit is ridiculous. If you can't see it then like Flavour Flav says - "You're blind baby, blind to the facts."
But fuck it. It's also extremely fun. Why should we have to validate our irrational behaviour if it makes us "feel" something so visceral. We shouldn't really. And we don't.
It's like the day I discovered Ma from Golden Girls was actually the youngest of the 4 women on the show. After that all rational reasoning went by the wayside.
But I digress, hockey. That's not what I'm here for. I want to talk to you about something else. Chucking of dead animals on the ice. What gives bro? Why you gotta take it there?
Shit's bordering on psychopathology.
Wings fans have been tossing dead Octopi on the ice for years. Think of all the sushi chefs in Michigan, cringing at the opportunity cost.
The list of shit tossed on the ice (and at referees) before, during, and after games is long. Rats, coins, teddy bears, beers, panties, bras, jerseys, tampons. The list is essentially endless, and is likely to continue, but where is the line?
Do we really need to see fanbases one-up each other? "You guys gonna kill a duck cause we're the ducks? Just wait til' you see what we have in store."
Lord help us if the Sabres ever get back into the playoffs. I'd like to see the guy in the stands trying to sneak a dead buffalo into the arena in his jeans.
You'd actually have to commend the guys commitment at that point, but I still think it's going beyond the call of duty to bring dead animals to the game. At least buy them a ticket, teach them a new sport. Grow the game. Don't murder new potential fans. Animal or not, every species deserves to enjoy the beautiful game of hockey.
Let's see what happens Saturday night in Nashville. If I see a dead penguin on the ice, I fear the impending wrath that will be bestowed upon Music City.
