So I’m in the Penguins locker room, which is about the size of a port-a-potty, and get chastised for stepping on the logo in the carpet.
Some equipment guy or PR flak comes up to me and says, “Can you please not step on the Penguin?”
Well, if it’s alive I’ll try not to step on the penguin. Or was some symbol representing something more important than a sports team.
Are you kidding me? Wow.
His name is John Shipley, and he stepped on THE logo.
It's been said before but I'll say it again - hockey is a sport founded on tradition. Players and teams take it to heart. That's just how it goes and any writer should know that. Maybe there's a sign on the way to the concourse that all players tap on the way out to the ice. Something like, "It's a great day for hockey" or "Play like champions today." A glove tap on the way out, no matter the actual significance, flicks the switch from "game off" to "game on."
Well in the Penguins locker room (or as John Shipley would put it, "port-a-potty") there's a tradition that all players, personnel and (I thought) writers upheld. Never step on the logo. It's not so hard. Frankly you have more than enough landscape around the logo to avoid the thing. A lot of teams respect this even in their own port-a-potties. You can't tell me the Penguins are the first team you've encountered that have asked you to kindly remove your feet from their logo.
I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure Rob Rossi or Joe Starkey wouldn't step on your logo. At the least they'd show a little respect and not label your locker room a port-a-potty. But whatever. Such is the superiority complex of a writer for a team that hails from "The State of Hockey."
Sorry the symbol that represents the sports team is held in higher regard than your own. We're sorry the Penguins' logo with a definitive Penguin ON the logo is held in higher regard than...whatever that thing is on yours. A bear? It's as if the person who created the Minnesota logo thought to themselves, "You know what would be REALLY Wild? If we took the head of some kind of animal and fit as much crap into the logo as possible. And we'll throw a stupid North Star in there as well to pay homage to the team that didn't survive here the first time."
John, you get one blessing. Everyone gets one. But please show a little respect next time.
Stick tap to Hockey Wilderness for this one...