Superstitions

In my last blog I told you I would write an entire blog on weird superstitions I have seen in my career. So that's what I am going to do today. I really don't have to look far either cause I could've been the most superstitious person in the history of life early in my career and in college. Hockey players are no no notorious for being very superstitious...Here are a few examples starting from pre-college days...

I would get dressed the same exact way everytime I put my equipment on. Everything left to right. I always had my stick to my left as well while getting dressed. I then would put my gloves on, left, then right, without touching anything else. So I would have to put my left hand into the glove without touching anything else. Then my right hand into the right glove without touching anything else. That was just weird.

During warmups and in between period I used to have to skate 3 circles, then stretch again. The refs used to get mad at me cause I would delay the faceoff, but I had to do it.

I used to stretch before the games in my dress clothes before getting dressed. I would be stretching out in my khakis, dress shirt and shoes. That was just uncomfortable. I probably did this once and played well that game so I continued to do it every other game. Yikes. I think I was the only person to have superstitions back then too.

During my college days our lives were much more structured so the superstitions would take on a whole new level. It all started from the top. Our coach was very very superstitious, to say the least. He wore the same "coaching shoes," said the same things all the time, came in to talk to us at precisely the same exact times. He would not use a marker in practice that was the same color of the team we were playing! PSYCHO!!! We had a goalie that never spoke on gamedays..not even in class, even if he was called on. One guy wouldn't talk to girls on gamedays, not even his girlfriend. How about eating the same Bertucci's meal every night before a game. (on the road he would call 411 asking for the local bertucci's seeing how far they would deliver). These were just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone would get dressed and do their own little quirky things while getting ready. One game I read a newspaper on the way to our pregame meal and played well that night so I continued to read a newspaper before pregame meal. Sometimes there were no new papers so I just read the same one over and over again. How weird is that! I also wore the same pair of socks for a long time before they got too many holes in them and were just pieces of cloth on my feet. Our trainer Larry Venis picked up on some of my rituals and just looked at me in astonishment. During the game, I would never use the gate on the bench, I would just hope the boards everytime. I would also squirt the water bottle, before I drank it, then spit half it out. Don't ask me how I started all of these, they just evolved and then it turned into what it was. Now since the pro season is a lot longer and a lot less structured my superstitious ways have calmed quite a bit, but I still have a few here and there that I'll keep to myself. I know this blog was kind of all over the place and there were no pictures but I was just typing what came to mind. Hope you enjoyed!

PS. It's playoff time now so the time honored tradition of growing playoff beards starts now. WOO!!!!