Welcome to Fun Friday, newcomers. Each week I’ll be putting out an article on Friday that falls squarely into the category of “random bullshit” for your entertainment. I’ve been doing these over at On The Forecheck for a while now, so go check out previous editions there under the Weekly Features and Nonsense tabs. With that out of the way, let’s get to today’s fun.
Let’s play a game.
Remember when you could only put three letters into an arcade machine to establish your name as a monument of video game greatness? The heroes of that age such as “ASS” and “BUT” will never be forgotten throughout the annals of American history. While playing a quick round of Dig-Dug the other day, I started asking how I could tie this funny little tradition into hockey. The answer? Writing words with names.
Assemble a starting lineup (twelve forwards, six defenders, two goalies) from former or current Flyers players. The catch here? Your lines, pairs and tandem must each spell out a word in the English language using the first letter of each player’s first name. It can be a gerund, an article, whatever. Don’t worry about handedness or winger vs center; that makes it too complex.
Get creative and have fun with this, and leave your assembled group in the comments below for everyone to marvel at. Feel free to swap the first name for the last name if you want to make it easier on yourself, and use this list of every Flyers player to ever suit up. I’ll leave you with an “artistic” attempt before I go.
Making a sentence
My goal here is to assemble a roster while forming a combination of words that could make a complete thought. I started by collecting vowels to work with, and ended up with Anthony Stolarz, Eric Lindros, Eric Desjardins, Ed Van Impe, Ivan Provorov, Ian Laperriere, Oskar Lindblom, and Yves Racine. As your English teachers always told you, don’t forget Y. From there, it got a lot more difficult.
I struggled to put together any kind of complete though and just kinda tottered my way through words hoping something comprehensible would form. Especially difficult were the defensive pairings, with Provorov being the only defenseman in Flyers history with a first name starting in “I.” Eventually, this was the best I could up with using just first names:
Line 1: Bobby Clarke, Oskar Lindblom, Yves Preston
Line 2: Alex Daigle, Nolan Patrick, Danny Brière
Line 3: Harvey Bennett, Ian Laperriere, Steve (Scott) Hartnell
Line 4: Adam Oates, Reggie Leach, Eric Lindros
Pair 1: Ivan Provorov, Nick Grossman
Pair 2: Oskars Bārtulis, Nick Schultz
Pair 3: Ulf Samuelsson, Shayne Gostisbehere
Goalies: Martin Biron, Anthony Stolarz
Sentence: “His ma and boy are in on us” – some mobster who’s trying to tie up loose ends, I guess.
Did you enjoy this little thought exercise? I hope so. Happy Friday everyone, and as always, go Flyers.
