Hockey Tradition Lives On 8

Getting bigger in Michigan near Detroit meant supporting your sports teams without a doubt. I'm closing in on Forty years old and have moved off from "The D," holiday blindly keep the teams of my youth. Despite a whole life of letdown and disappointment surrounding my beloved Lions, I'd been lucky enough to get experience the back-to-back NBA championships of the Bad Boys, the '84 "Bless you boys" World Series victory, the pre-BCS sharing on the national title with Nebraska in '97, and 4 Stanley Cups.Manged to get to serious about many of the traditions that give my personal teams - Tiger's opening day, The Lions playing every Thanksgiving - but nothing stands out like chucking an octopus on top of the ice throughout an NHL playoff game. This tradition is time honored and respected, well at least in Detroit. In 2008, a transplanted Red Wings fan threw an octopus in the home ice of your rival Colorado Avalanche during game 4 of your series. Local authorities didn't look after the move and slapped the guy along with a citation. Luckily, the man had a first-rate lawyer who go the charges dropped. Both these are genuine sports heroes inside my eyes merely because both fought to uphold a hockey tradition.In 1996, the fans from the newly franchised Florida Panthers attempted to mimic the "octo-toss" by hurling plastic rats into the ice, a.k.a. "The Rat Trick." The outcome was complete mayhem. After any "big" goal, the ice was plagued by hundreds of the plastic critters and hands per hour was stopped longer periods of time to clean out them up. Opposing goalies were required to hide in their own personal nets to not have from getting hit by way of the faux rodents. The NHL banned throwing plastic rats following season.I believe it will have other tries to imitate practicing octopus throwing, but let's hope it's something fun like 5 lbs. of ground beef or Nerf darts! Go Wings!