Legend of the Octopus
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The Legend of the Octopus is a sports tradition during Detroit Red Wings home playoff games involving dead octopuses thrown onto the ice rink. The origins of the activity dates back to the 1952 playoffs when a National Hockey League team played two best-of-seven series to capture the Stanley Cup.
Twirling ban
The tradition 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. Having eight arms, the octopus symbolized the number of playoff wins the Red Wings needed to win the Stanley Cup at the time. The team would go on to sweep the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens en route to winning the championship.[1]
Since then, the tradition has persisted with each passing year. In one 1995 game, fans threw 36 octopuses, including a specimen weighing 38 pounds (17 kg).[2] The Red Wings' unofficial mascot is a purple octopus named Al, and during playoff runs, two of these mascots were also hung from the rafters of Joe Louis Arena, symbolizing the 16 wins now needed to take home the Stanley Cup.[3] The practice has become such an accepted part of the team's lore, fans have developed various techniques and "octopus etiquette" for launching the creatures onto the ice.[4]
On October 4, 1987, the last day of the regular Major League Baseball season, an octopus was thrown on the field in the top of the seventh inning at Tiger Stadium in Detroit as the Tigers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 1–0, clinching the American League East division championship.[5] In May of that year, the Red Wings had defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Stanley Cup playoffs.[6]
At the final game at Joe Louis Arena, 35 octopuses were thrown onto the ice.[7]
Al Sobotka, the former head ice manager at Little Caesars Arena and one of the two Zamboni drivers, was the person who retrieved the thrown octopuses from the ice. When the Red Wings played at Joe Louis Arena, he was known to twirl an octopus above his head as he walked across the ice rink to the Zamboni entrance. On April 19, 2008, the NHL sent the Red Wings a memo that forbade this and imposed a $10,000 fine for violating the mandate. In an email to the Detroit Free Press, NHL spokesman Frank Brown justified the ban because matter flew off the octopus and got on the ice when Sobotka swung it above his head.[8] In an article describing the effects of the new rule, the Detroit Free Press dubbed the NHL's prohibition as "Octopus-gate".[9] By the beginning of the third round of the 2008 Playoffs, the NHL loosened the ban to allow for the octopus twirling to take place at the Zamboni entrance.[10]
