By ABBEY BROWN DOYLE
Guest Columnist
I’m doing my normal procrastinating from going to bed by mindlessly doomscrolling on the ‘Book, and I come upon a hockey video.
I see a ref skate over and scoop up AN OCTOPUS.
NO! Surely that wasn’t real!
A replay shows an octopus being thrown onto the ice.
They throw REAL LIVE OCTOPI onto the ice during games!
I send the video to my husband, an avid hockey fan and former sports reporter and editor. Attached to the message is: “WHY!?!?” (He’s two rooms over. It’s 2024, it’s what people do.)
After getting no reply and REALLY needing to figure out what I just witnessed, I actually get up and walk into his home office and say, “Did you see that video? “ He hadn’t yet. So, unable to wait, I ask, incredulously, “WHY would they throw an octopus on the hockey rink???”
“Was it Detroit?” he answered, with no confusion or incredulity.
WHAT, this is so common he knew about it immediately?
As I go on and on about how this can’t POSSIBLY be a thing, he’s looking up why it’s a thing.
“WHY? Why would people throw real animals on the rink? Have people or players been hit by an octopus? Has a tentacle schmeared someone’s ear as it’s gone sailing through the air over the glass to go onto the ice?” I shout.
My mind is racing with questions and disgust. Octopi are incredibly smart, beautiful creatures. My tongue can’t keep up with the questions.
From Wiki he reads: “Having eight arms, the octopus symbolized the number of playoff wins necessary for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup. The practice started on April 15, 1952, when Pete and Jerry Cusimano, brothers and storeowners in Detroit’s Eastern Market, hurled an octopus into the rink of Olympia Stadium.”
BUT WHY A REAL OCTOPUS? How is this a tradition that sticks around?
My journalist brain (one stuck on Curious and trained to Research) goes into overdrive.
In one game in 1995, 36 octopi were thrown on the ice; one weighed 38 pounds! How did someone smuggle a 38-pound octopus into a stadium? And then how did said person HEFT such a thing over the glass and onto the rink. And what was the slime fallout to all those under the path of the creature.
My husband starts reading other things hockey fans have thrown onto the ice – plastic mice (which I quickly shout “BUT THEY AREN’T REAL!”), plastic snakes (again, not real), Nashville Predators fans throw catfish (these are real, also, GROSS, WHY, fans?), Oilers fans throw steaks, a fan threw a REAL SHARK with a REAL OCTOPUS in its mouth in 2010 in a Detroit/San Jose game.
During Stanley Cup finals in 2008, seafood wholesalers were requiring ID for all octopus sales and refused to sell to Michigan residents … There was a black market for octopus!
This whole thing has taken up residence inside my head.
I’m at a fever pitch firing questions away to Michael.
“How do they get them in the stadium?”
Tap, tap, tap … and then he starts to read.
I do WANT and NEED to know.
You wrap the slimy, squishy, deceased cephalopod around your body with plastic wrap.
I learned, boiling in white wine and lemon juice is the proper way to prepare for tossing (better for smell and projection).
And there’s a THROWING TECHNIQUE.
Here’s a quote from a New York Times piece about the tradition: “Inexperienced octopus throwers sometimes make the mistake of holding the tentacle tips, only to have the octopus head break off during the windup.”
The article described what happened to a hockey fan with the misfortune to sit behind someone unfamiliar with the proper technique: “She was rather dignified, and there was this octopus in her lap. He had part of it in his hand and part of it was in her lap back there.’”
Also, there used to be a shtick where the Zamboni driver at Detroit would swing an octopus over his head during the game, like a battle cry. The NHL banned it – prompting what became known as “Octopus-gate.” It was banned because “matter flew off the octopus and got on the ice” when it was swung above his head. BUT … they loosened the ban soon after to allow for the octopus twirling to take place once a game.
Sanctioned octopus twirling.
It’s 12:45 a.m.; my brain is racing with Octopus-gate.
But, like I said, I do WANT and NEED to know. Anything to avoid sleep.
Abbey Brown Doyle is a mother of two and lives in Evansville, Ind. You can contact her at abbeydoyleevansville@gmail.com.