In the U.S there are five major sports organizations they are Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League, and Major league Soccer. There are about 4,132 starting players combined from all of these professional sports teams. With that, many starting players there are bound to have some weird pre-game superstitions and rituals. To have a weird superstition, it has to be something unique and not very common. A common example of a game superstition is not stepping on the foul line during a baseball game, or putting your hockey pads on in the same order before a game. A few well-known superstitions are worth taking a closer look at, such as The Detroit Redwings octopus tradition, Rat tradition, Richie Ashburn baseball bat superstition, and The Madden Curse.

It all started when a Redwings fan threw an octopus onto the ice during a playoff game. The eight tentacles on the octopus stand for the eight wins they needed to get to the Stanley cup.  That same season, the Redwings ended up sweeping the playoffs to advance to the Stanly Cup. Now almost every playoffs, people try and throw out octopi onto the ice hoping that it will help the Redwings win again as it once did in 1952.

An octopus isn’t the only animal believed to bring good luck to hockey fans. Rats are also known to bring luck. In 1995, Scott Melanby on the Panthers, killed a rat before the game and scored two goals in it. They went on to the Stanley Cup and ever since then, the fans of the Panthers have brought rats to games. They even had to stop selling plastic rats because of the fear of them having to stop the game because of fans throwing them onto the ice.

Another weird tradition is The Richie Ashburn baseball bat tradition. If Ashburn was doing well at the plate, he would keep on trying to use the same bat for as long as he could. He didn’t trust the equipment mangers to handle his bats because he feared that they might lose or mishandle them. Ashburn would take the bats home with him and he would even sleep with them in his bed. You might call him crazy, but what he did worked. Ashburn was a player for the Philadelphia Phillies and was inducted into the hall of fame in 2004. Lafayette High School senior, Drew Ramos, who plays for the 2019 state championship Rams, wears the exact same baseball pajamas before every game in the hopes of winning.

Madden might be a fun game to play with your friends and family, but to some, the Madden football games bring a curse to whoever is on the cover. Some people don’t believe it, but there are many occurrences that make it very real.  Starting with Michael Vick, he was put on Madden in 2004 and the next year, Vick broke his leg and that was the same year people found out about his dog fighting. Another Philadelphia Eagle, Donavon McNab, was featured on the Madden cover in 2006 and the first game of the season he got a sports hernia. After appearing on the cover of madden in 2002, Daunte Culpeper finished the season 5-11 and broke the NFL record for fumbles. There are many other occurrences of the madden curse. This makes it one of the biggest curses in sports history and the most feared by NFL players. Lafayette High School senior Tyler Neville who plays football for the Rams, listens to the same country playlist before games to relax him.

These are just a few of the many sports superstitions in the world. To be successful in any sport, having a superstition or a tradition is a good thing. If the superstition worked once, then it will most likely work again. If it doesn’t cost any money, then the tradition does no harm and there is no reason not to try it before a game. Unless, of course, you are killing rats or throwing octopi onto the ice of a hockey game because that is just gross!