Happy Anniversary(April 15th)

[Wings4Life19 150]

60 years ago, April 15 1952, the Cusimano brothers started the most unique tradition in sports. The Wings better win game 3, if nothing more than just to honor some of the most important Detroit fans ever.

[Echolalia 2,961]

I guess I never thought about the date that started. It would be awesome to have the claim of contributing something that colossal to the Wings' franchise.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

Taken from a photocopy of the column "Fair Game", by Paul Chandler, Detroit News, Wednesday, April 16, 1952:

Any Significance in an Octopus?

Many things happend for the first time in the history of hockey as the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup at Olympia last night, and one of them was the appearance of a genuine octopus on the ice surface.

It flew out of Section 10 about the middle of the game, a blue-gray hunk of a thing with legs about 14 inches long. During the years all breed of normal fish have appeared on the ice and galoshes, girdles, beef steak and buttons, but never an octopus.

Some say the octopus was alive, some say it was dead and up to now the owner has not presented himself to expalin the origin. Bob Goldham ultimately turned it over to an usher, who brought it to the press box for inspection. A suggestion it appear between periods on television was rejected.

Thought Behind it?

It was good for chuckles, of course, but what one ponders now is whether the funster who made the toss was a thinking man, a prankster with a feeling for strategic significance.

An octopus has eight legs. Detroit was winning the Stanley Cup in eight games. Could this prank have been chosen with thought?

Nick Londes and Louis Smith phoned to point out that octopus is a word that stems from the Greek , oktopous, meaning eight-footed, okto plus pous, foot.

However, in terms of the Red Wings, Webster's second definition seems to be the best: "An organization with many branches through which it maintains a hold on others".