You might not remember, Gentle Reader, but a bunch of years ago the Devils had Dave Andreychuk. He did his Andreychuk thing, was a pretty good player, got his 500th goal at a game we attended, and then moved on. And we proceeded to pretty much forget all about him. Not that he was necessarily awful or anything once he left the Devils, just that he became pretty irrelevant in our own hockey worldview. So a few years after all trace of him had been eradicated from our lives, we were watching a Lightning game and the camera lingered for a long close-up view of Dave on the Tampa bench. There was a pause, as we soaked in the sight, and then, in unison, the three of us said in exactly the same deep, low, drawn-out tone:
“Daaaaaaaaaaaaave Andreychuk.”
It wasn’t meant in a laughing way, nor was there any mockery involved, nor any disdain. It was just this totally blank sort of vacuum, like, “Yeah, remember that guy? Huh. Well, there he is.” And since then we’ve found this cadence remarkably useful:
“Hey, look! The Canucks are on. Whoa. Brennnnnnnnnnndan Morrison.”
“I guess we can watch a few minutes of this Nashville game and– Jaaaaaaaaason Arnott.”
And as the king of Daaaaaaaaaaaave Andreychuck, we give you “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill Guerin.”
Anyway, this came up tonight because we were watching the Rangers/Penguins game on Versus, and suddenly Pookie had a shocking discovery about the man who has been, for many years, our Archnemesis. She noted in that careful, bland tone, “Considering the fact that he’s now played for both of these teams, I think it’s time to say it. Peeeeeeeetr Sykora.”
We can only assume this is not a phenomenon unique to the Devils. Really, every team has their Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaave Andreychuks, right?
