Nothing says "Detroit hockey" like an octopus tossed out on the ice. This practice is not limited to home games, where the occurrence of dead cephalopods getting thrown onto the playing surface. Al Sobotka used to twirl them vigorously in the air has he would clean them off his ice, but the NHL issued a waring that the Wings would be fined $10,000 if he did that again, as bits of octopi were freezing to the ice and getting on opposing goaltenders. I submit that Al would NEVER intentionally get dead octopus guts on an opposing goaltender. Yeah, right. I bet that Al would, given the opportunity, shove said octopus down the opposing goaltenders pants. On purpose. Because Al is all about the Red Wings. Note: The included picture is most assuredly NOT Al Sobotka.
Other teams have tried to emulate this tradition, but none have even come close, and some are just downright disgusting. Like the dead duck thrown on the ice in the Shark Tank the other night. I mean, thats just not right. Further, how do you smuggle a dead waterfowl into the arena in the first place? You can't bring coolers, big bags, or anything of the sort. Hell, you cant even smuggle in a camera with a lens longer than 55mm into the arena, so how do you get a 6 pound deceased waterfowl in?
The shark with the octopus in its mouth, also in the shark tank, was by far the biggest mess. Since San Jose fans are rank amateurs at tossing things onto the ice, they neglected to perform a few simple tasks prior to the toss. First, you need to boil the octopus. This prevents it from becoming something slightly less dense than warm jello at room temperature. Likewise, it keeps the players from having to skate through semi-frozen octopus slime for the rest of the game.
Way back in 1988, a fan threw a LIVE chicken wearing a blue cape onto the ice during a game. The chicken survived the toss, and stood motionless in abject terror while the players skated around it, continuing the game until the referee saw that the chicken had shit on the ice in fear and whistled the play dead.
Also a few nights ago, a dead catfish hit the ice in Nashville. Big deal. They have been doing that for a couple seasons now, and I imagine that its pretty hard to sneak fresh catfish past any security guard in the south. Nothing has the tradition of the octopus, and everyone knows it.
Do the refs have to be such sissies about it though? I mean, these guys put themselves in harms way, and have no problems getting between two guys the size of tanks who are trying to kill each other. Then somebody tosses a dead thing onto the ice and the ref suddenly becomes a squeamish little girl, and on occasion, calls the ACTUAL squeamish girls (ice girls) to clean up the mess. Again, in Nashville, this becomes a race to see which ice girl is going to have fresh catfish for dinner tonight.
Does anyone else hear banjos?
The Red Wings return home tonight to play the Blues, hoping to embark on another multi-game winning streak.
In other news, for Kenny, the Rangers are tops in the East.
