Go Flyers !!!!!

Saturday night at 8 my Philadelphia Flyers return to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1997. For you none hockey fans the Stanley Cup is the ‘holy grail’ of the NHL. The finals can become a grueling seven game death match. And yes I take my hockey seriously.

I started playing field hockey before any other sport and played till I graduated from high school. Sadly, as with many things, I was never as good as my sister so my career ended there. Hey how many arrogant dark brooding lesbian field hockey players does the world need? I have also played ice hockey off and on for years. I remember when I went to skate with my brother and his PSU friends for the first time. I may be 5’ 10” tall but still they laughed. A girl wanted to play hockey with the macho guys? How rude! Now the typical ice hockey skate adds four or five inches to your height. The laughing stopped. After that I had a lot of good times with those guys. I often woke the next morning bruised and sore but they always treated me as an equal.

Thinking of my brother I have to laugh. He informed me that he has grown a ‘playoff beard’, you know one of those ‘I’m not shaving till the last game’ superstitious things. Now, sorry, but the kid can’t grow a mustache so I just can’t picture it.

Hockey is a very superstitious sport, not that I believe any of it mind you. Wayne Gretzky would never get his hair cut on the road and Patrick Roy would talk to his goal before the game. Everybody seems to grow the playoff beards. The team captain of conference champions almost never touches the trophy for fear the hockey gods will think they are satisfied and not let them hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup. That was the case with the Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Towes. But not Flyers captain Mike Richards (vid) who picked it right up saying “Well, we have not done anything conventional all year or in the playoffs, so why start now?” I had to smile.

This year I have my own good luck ritual which seems to be working just fine. I’ll continue to do may part and hopefully celebrate a Stanley Cup championship in a couple weeks. What is it? I’m sorry but it’s a very personal thing so I’ll have to keep it to myself and a few select others. But thinking of it I have to smile yet again.

Go Flyers !!!!!!

tuneage, God Bless America (yes another superstition)