Jun 15, 2017 By Rob Burchianti rburchianti@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read

Hockey players can be a very superstitious bunch, from playoff beards to when to and not to touch a conference trophy to goalies talking to goal posts.

Their fans can be just as obsessed as to what causes good luck and bad luck.

Of course, it’s all in people’s heads. We all know nothing like that has any effect on the outcome of a sporting event.

I was involved with my own set of quirky habits and rituals during the Penguins’ run to the 2017 Stanley Cup championship. Clearly, I realized all I was doing was a bunch of mularkey, but, hey, I did it anyhow.

There were three key points to my own “superstitions.”

The first, and maybe most important, was the family text thread. My circle of relatives found out early who had to do what during a playoff game.

My brother-in-law Randy usually started things off by asking us to text predictions. Almost all were positive Pens-will-win texts, except mine.

Being known as “Mr. Negative” with my relatives as well as on Facebook, I usually supplied the lone Pens-will-lose text.

The very upbeat Randy determined after awhile two key things during our pregame and in-game texts.

My sister Claudia, who, along with my positive-thinking brother Dave, live on the west coast in California, had to be in the house or in her driveway at certain times during the game, depending on when she arrived back at her house.

And I had to supply a negative, they-are-doomed text to align everything perfectly for a Penguins victory.

It, of course, was coincidence that the few times when I got tied up somewhere and could not type in my negative prognostication that the Pens invariably lost.

For Game 5 and Game 6 of the finals against Nashville, I made absolutely sure I got that text into our thread well before the game started, even though I knew it didn’t really matter.

Speaking of Game 5, that was the turning point of the finals.

As it turned out, for that particular game I was headed home from a long trip to Shippensburg to cover a PIAA softball playoff game and decided to flick the game on the radio, but, unfortunately, when I did, I realized the game had already started.

That was bad. I had to turn it off then.

Had I caught the game from the beginning, I would have listened, but, just by happenstance, the Penguins don’t play well when I tune in after the game has already started.

I shut the game off, looked at my CD collection and noticed a KISS Greatest Hits disc sitting there on top so I flicked that in. As I listened, I could feel my cellphone buzzing around with two different flurries of texts.

I pulled over to get gas, shut the car off and checked the family text thread and deduced from sorting through all the gibberish (which isn’t easy with all the quirky responses put on there from moms, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces, brother-in-laws and sons) that the Pens had scored twice early in the opening period.

I capped off the tank, got something to eat, jumped back in the car and turned the KISS CD back on. Almost immediately, the cellphone started buzzing again. Yep, 3-0 Pens now.

Again, all coincidence, I know, but I left the KISS CD in for the entire trip and game and the Penguins rolled to a 6-0 victory.

That led to Game 6, and my wardrobe.

Now, again, it surely has nothing to do with me … but … I can only wear Penguins attire when I attend an actual game. If I wear a Pens shirt on game day when I’m watching on TV, it just seems like they lose often, so I refrain, you know, just to humor myself.

For Game 6, I wore a gold shirt I got on a family vacation to Turks and Caicos. There was some actual rhyme and reason to why I chose this shirt to wear for that game. It was a karma thing, which I’m not sure is real, but I figured why not?

You see, while we were in Turks and Caicos, my sons and I watched the NCAA basketball national championship game. It was between Duke, a well-established program that had won several titles before, and Wisconsin, making its first ever appearance in the final.

Duke won.

So naturally, when you connect the dots, the Penguins were the well-established franchise with several Cup victories already in hand, while Nashville was in the final for the first time. You can see the parallels. So, naturally, it would seem wearing this shirt for this particular game would bring great karma to the Penguins.

That’s if you believe in that stuff, which, I undoubtedly do not.

Pittsburgh won.

If you were superstitious, of course you would think it had to be either the Turks and Caicos shirt or the KISS songs that won Game 6.

Oh, the KISS song. Forgot to follow up on that make-up wearing super group’s impact.

You see, as the Penguins and Predators fought and battled in a scoreless tie deep into the third period of Game 6 while I was at work that night I discreetly slid my earplugs into my speaker and called up a KISS collection of songs.

As the second song played, Patric Hornqvist scored what proved to be the winning goal for the Penguins with just 1:35 left in regulation.

Again, obviously, none of these unusual, strange traditions, rituals or superstitions have anything to do with the outcome of a game, and I certainly am aware of that.

Even so, though, from now on every time I hear Gene Simmons of KISS singing “Calling Dr. Love,” I’m going to think of Hornqvist’s goal and the Penguins winning the 2017 Stanley Cup.

Rob Burchianti can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com. Follow him on Twitter @rvburch.