Freakin' Gooch

Well, most people who know me probably know that I am mildly superstitious, particularly when it comes to sports. When I used to play baseball, I went through the exact same ritual before every game, plate appearance, and pitch. In my more recent sporting past, I was playing goalie. I had lucky underwear that I would wash after every game, so long as we won. If we lost? Change it out to a new pair. I would put on my pads in the same order. Stretch the same number of times. And always three sips of water before hitting the ice.


Did any of this help? Well, I wasn't the best goalie, so you can draw your own conclusions. Although, I should point out that maybe I would have been worse had it been four or even five sips of water. Who's to say?

But back to the point. It was Saturday night, and I had a couple of extra tickets to the Sharks game. The Sharks, for those of you not in the know, are doing fantastically this year. They are in first place and setting records en route to a very memorable season. So anyway, I used the extra tickets to take Stacy and a co-worker from Juniper. I don't want to incriminate him, so I will just say that his name rhymes with Bel Latzis.

It was a pretty decent game - the Sharks were dominating play but not the scoreboard. Still, it felt like they had control of the game. As we neared the end of the game, though, Mel asks, "Haven't the Sharks not lost at home all season?" After I shushed him, he kept on. Suffice it to say that a couple of minutes later, the Sharks lost.

Coincidence? Maybe. But do you really want to tempt fate like that?

For the record, the Sharks lost the game in overtime. In fact, it was their second OT loss this season. But it still counts as a gooch in my book.