The other night my sis Kim, niece Harley and I took in the Tampa Bay Lightning (Da Bolts) vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game in Pittsburgh. Harley is going to handle the blog from that game in the near future which is 14 year old speak for “get off my case Uncle B, I’ll get to it whenever.”

When I was watching game 1 of the Bolt – Penguin series I noticed the entire crowd was in white. It is a Penguin tradition, as it is in other hockey cities, for the crowd to wear white. At game 2 which we attended, everyone wore white again (except us, we were in our Lightning jerseys). This got me thinking about how dumb this is and then I started to noodle on other dumb or not so dumb sports traditions or annoying and funny stuff.  

So without further ado (thanks Teach) I present to you the “not necessarily all of the dumb or not so dumb sports traditions as listed by Bobby D.” Umm – Bob, you said there was going to be a blog about Spain next. Come on, stop picking nits. Spain isn’t going anywhere and hopefully I’m not either so I will save that for next or next to next or next to next to next…

The “white out” – I did some research on this really dumb and high def TV annoying tradition. It started with the Winnipeg Jets in the 80’s to intimidate the opposition during a playoff game. So those crazy Canadians said “eh, hoser, let’s wear white and freak out dem boys from the states tonight.” So the Pens adopted (stole) and market the white out, sell $14.95 official white out t-shirts and basically tell all their fans don’t wear your $200 official Pens sweater, wear this t-shirt instead. And the Pens fans do – amazing.

The Terrible Towel – After writing that last paragraph I remembered the Terrible Towel, another Pittsburgh tradition. Back in the 70’s a local Pittsburgh DJ asked all his listeners to bring a yellow towel to a playoff game and wave it. He did this in hopes that his bosses would see how many people cared for him and he would get a raise. Well we all know the rest – at least proceeds of sales of the official Terrible Towel go to charity. Not sure what happened with the DJ – time to oatmeal it.

Throwing stuff on the ice – things such as hats for hat tricks, octopuseseses in Detroit during the playoffs, bats in Buffalo and rats in Florida to name a few find their way onto the ice. All of these are annoying unless you are a fan of that team of that tradition. The hats for hat tricks date back to Cricket in the 1800’s. I could type a 1,000 word blog about Cricket and what a hat trick is, but I know nothing about Cricket so I doubt I could get to 1,000 words, much less 100. The octopus in Detroit dates back to the 1950’s when it used to take 8 games in the playoffs to win the Cup. The 8 legs (are they legs?) of the octopus signified one of the 8 games. Sure it takes 16 games now to win the Cup, but the octopus tradition lives on. The bats in Buffalo have to do with a bat flying around in a stadium during a playoff game. Some dude on the Sabres smacked the bat out of the air with his stick and was forever known as “Batman.”  The rats in Florida happened back in 1996 when a rat ran across the locker room of the Panthers and one of the players smacked the crap out of it with his stick. It made the news and the Panther fans throw rats on the ice during the playoffs (that is if they ever make the playoffs).

Before I move on and to save a text from Harley asking “Do they throw real bats and rats on the ice?” No they throw rubber bats and rats on the ice, but sadly the octopus is real. I guess there is no PETS (people for the ethical treatment of squid) in Detroit.

The guy yelling “Get in the hole” at a golf tournament – this is just dumb unless the golfer is putting, but you always hear some dumbass yell “get in the hole” on the drive at a 600 yard par 5. Now there is a joke in here somewhere about a guy making out with his girl and golf is on TV in the background and hearing the dumbass yell…

The hockey playoff beard – I actually love this hockey tradition as it deals with the superstitious nature of athletes. This one is across all players during the playoffs, they just do it – no questions asked. Even fans don’t shave, and don’t get me started about a girl I was dating during the New York Rangers Stanley Cup season of 1994 and her lack of shaving. Not sure who was happier when the Rangers won the Cup, me or her.

The Wave – I HATE THE WAVE and can’t believe it is still going strong at sporting events. I will admit it is cool at a football stadium with 100,000 people doing it, but at a ballpark with only 10,000 fans that barely fill 25% of the seats and you will have some moron, the wave runner, somewhere in the seats trying to get the wave going. And he keeps going until people do it. The wave runner is my least favorite fan next to…

The lady whose season tickets are behind ours in Tampa – this “lady” complains about everything us fans do. She doesn’t like me because I wore my Hawks jersey to a few games and God forbid anybody wears a jersey other than a Lightning one, the “Boston Boys” whose season tickets are next to ours can attest to this. I am sure every arena in the league has a “lady” like this – just hope you don’t sit near her especially for a whole season.

Other cool stuff I have seen:

·         Singing “Sweet Caroline” 8th inning at Fenway
·         “Take me out to the Ballgame” – 7th inning stretch at Wrigley
·         Mumbling thru the verses of “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” and then shouting out the chorus
·         National Anthem at a Blackhawk game
·         Yankee Roll call in the top of the 1st – Yankee Stadium
·         Shouting out “Leo” at a Columbus Blue Jackets game when they announce that Leo will be singing the    National Anthem
·         The UCLA song girls
·         Only NHL players, coaches or team executives that have won the Cup are allowed to carry the Stanley Cup (that’s why that guy in the commercial wears the white gloves, his skin can’t touch the cup when he carries it.)
·         After winning a championship – the champagne locker room celebration (see below)
·         And the UCLA song girls

And some not so cool stuff:

·         The really dumb chant at an Ohio State Football game – one half of the stadium chants “OH” and the other then chants “IO”. About the 100th time you hear this you really wish you were at an Ole Miss game – there is no way people are chanting the spelling of Mississippi, heck it’s the south – doubt that can even spell it
·         I hate the USC fight song and that stupid “V” thing they do with their fingers and pump their arms in rhythm with the stupid song. (Sorry, Irish fan here.)
·         Boomer Sooner – hate that they play that song after every…friggin…play or so it seems. (Sorry again, I saw Illinois State lose to Oklahoma in the 1985 NCAA Basketball Tournament and that song is still stuck in my noggin 26 years later.)
·         Hockey cheerleaders or “ice girls” as they call them. Why? Well I know why, but why?
·         Holy crap – I’m old
·         Just got an email from Bobby Jim Joe Bob in Missississippi (his spelling) titled – “it” and then the body of the email said “take that funnie man.”

·         After winning anything but the championship – the champagne locker room celebration. The worst is the team that earns the wild card spot in baseball – woo hoo, we came in 4th in our league – let’s get the champagne.

The hopefully soon to be an every home game National Anthem at a Penguin game – Friday night in Pittsburgh the guy who was singing the National Anthem stopped singing after the 1st verse of the Anthem when he realized all 18,500 people were singing along. It was like at a Bruce Springsteen concert and the crowd sings the first verse of “Hungry Heart” as Bruce just watches.  I have the You Tube video of the Anthem from the other night to the right of this blog. It gave me chills watching it.

I know I missed a bunch of stuff, either good or bad and will most likely have a part 2, 3 and 4 to this as I get emails from people “reminding” me of stuff. So for now this is so long and good bye from OH…IO, see told you that was annoying.

And one last thing, after having my sister and niece fly in last Friday and taking them to the Lightning – Penguin game in Pittsburgh while wearing my blue Steven Stamkos Tampa Bay Lightning jersey in the midst of 18,500 angry ass, white t-shirt wearing Penguin fans  - Who’s “All In” now, Bitch.

That last paragraph was dedicated to the fans in Section 304, Rows 1 to 3 at the St. Pete Times Forum who has to deal with the “lady” at Lightning games. Boy that feels better.