Around 11:20 or so on Wednesday morning, we had the following exchange via IM:
Pookie: Hey, according to TG, the Devils have the whole day off in Vancouver today! I wonder what they’re up to.
Schnookie: Drinking and whoring!
Well, guess what, Gentle Reader? We have photographic proof that at 11:40, at least, they boys were neither drinking nor whoring! They were doing the next best thing — curling! Today the Devils website did something it hasn’t done in ages and has posted interesting off-ice content about our boys, in this case, photos from the team’s trip to a curling rink for some of that fun-times team building that Bobby Holik pooh-poohed so unnecessarily. The photo gallery is available on devils.nhl.com. We took a gander, or two, or a thousand, at it after the one and only Morgan brought it to our attention this afternoon, and we’ve got some questions.
Question the first: What’s with the dress code? What were they told to wear to the curling lanes (lanes? Is that the right word?), and how did they end up in such a wide array of styles of dress? We’ve got just in this picture alone Paulie in a suit with dress shoes, a bunch of guys in informal athletic wear, and Langer (more on him later). In a later picture we also see Mottau in full suit/dress shoe splendor. Were they, like Morgan suggested, told to wear curling clothes and those guys didn’t believe it? Or were the guys in suits all out of curling clothes after hitting up curling activities on their own in previous cities on this trip? Were they playing “suits vs. skins” but it was cold enough in the rink that the skins guys got to wear sweats? And why no middle ground? Does Lou still taser guys who think about wearing jeans and t-shirts?
Question the second: Dude, Langer, what is going on there? Is it just us, or is he wearing a cashmere bathrobe and pajamas? Boomer suggested that wasn’t Langer at all, but rather a homeless guy the team adopted for a fun curling outing as an act of charity. The more we think about it, though, the more it makes sense. We mean, if we were told before seeing the pictures that one of the players was going to appear in baggy plaid pants, we’d assume it’s either going to be Patty and that’s his dress suit, or it’s Langer in pajamas.
Question the third: Paulie is wearing his sliding curling shoe on the opposite foot from most of his teammates; does this mean he’s left-footed as well as left-handed? We’ve read that he can shoot both-handed at basketball, so if he was pressed, could he curl ambifootedly, too?
Question the fourth: We don’t understand curling footwear at all. Yes, we know that’s not a question, but it needs to be said. Schnookie was supposed to be taking a 90-minute online training at work today and spent the majority of that time studying this set of pictures and trying to figure out the shoes instead. And she got nowhere with it.
Question the fifth: Speaking of footwear, check out Pando’s dress socks! Henceforth when celebrating his accomplishments, PandoNation shall bedeck the streets of the capital city with gray pin-stripe argyle sock fabric. And speaking of footwear, why does Pando seem to have different styles of curling shoes on each foot? Is he ambifooted, too?
Question the sixth: How does Pando curl, anyway? Is he the guy who always drops his rock into perfect defensive position? Can he never be the hammer? Does he just smartly bank his stone off the glass to get it safely out of the zone every time he takes a turn?
Question the seventh: Why is Zach wearing nurse shoes?
Question the eigth: When Schnookie pointed Zach’s nurse shoes out to Pookie, Pookie rather pathetically suggested all the other guys were wearing the same ones (they’re not). That got us wondering if the guys buy their own sneakers, or is it like getting office supplies at Pookie’s workplace? Do they just fill out a little form on which they check a box for “sneakers” on a list of athletic gear, specify in “notes” which size they are, leave the form in their stalls, and then in a few days the sneakers are delivered to them? If that is the case, it still doesn’t excuse him, though, because the other guys are all wearing normal shoes, and Zach’s still in nurse shoes, which means he specified that’s what he wanted when he filled out the “notes” section of his form.
Question the ninth: If the curling ice melted into a giant lake, which Devils would sink and which would, oh say, swim?
