North Dakota Hockey Player Was Dominating A Pound Of Chicken Wings When He Found Out He Was Playing That Night, Scores First Career Goal
Grand Forks Herald - Josh Rieger wasn't supposed to play Saturday night.
So, he didn't take the bus to Magness Arena with the team at 4:50 p.m. Instead, Rieger and Zach Yon -- the two players not scheduled to play -- walked from the hotel to the Cherry Cricket to grab dinner. Rieger ate a pound of buffalo wings.
Then, his phone rang.
Back at the arena, defenseman Jonny Tychonick had fallen ill with the flu and wasn't going to be able to play. Rieger was going to have to go in for him. Rieger quickly changed and got onto the ice seven minutes into warmups. Rieger usually arrives at the arena three hours before games, so this was quite a bit out of his routine.
But the night turned out to be special for Rieger. The junior defenseman, playing his 26th career game, scored his first-career goal in the first period and it stood up as the game-winner.
Okay so firsts things first--I need to know just exactly how hard Josh Rieger shit his pants when he first saw that he was getting a call right before the game started. At that point your mind immediately has to go to worst case scenario. You're thinking that you're about to get reamed out for something. You can't remember doing anything that would get you in trouble but you also don't remember not doing anything that would get you in trouble. You start thinking that maybe your coach is mad that the healthy scratches are crushing a pound of wings at a bar right before game time. Either way, you shit your pants right then and there when you see you're getting a call from the team at that time.
But what a turn of events, eh? Not only is he not getting chewed out for something, but he also found himself in the lineup that night. And not only did he get to log some TOI, but our guy over here ripped home the first goal of his college career.
First tuck after dummying a pound of wings. That right there is how legends are born. A story that will be passed down from generation to generation at NoDak.
And now the greatest part of this story is that hockey players are all such superstitious bastards that you can almost guarantee that Josh Rieger is going to work this into his gameday routine from here on out. Poor guy is going to have to tear through a pound of wings before ever game. I mean, it worked the first time so it's not like you can stop doing it now. But yeah, definitely going to have to check out the weight difference on his roster bio between this year and next year.