Minnesota-Duluth Football Rituals

The next time you're downtown on Twins game day, stop by the Jimmy John's on Grand Avenue. Order a sub and wait for the show. Before the night is out, a giant Canadian individual with blond hair and a straight-laced haircut approaches the counter. In a deep Canuck monotone he will order a #4, the Turkey Tom, with no sprouts.

What you will have witnessed is one of the most perplexing sports mysteries known to humankind: the sports superstition. That routine is similar, if not exact, to what Justin Morneau does 81 times a year before every Twins home game. Morneau is no different from your everyday sports fan. From late-inning rally caps to those special Green Bay Packer fans that refuse to wash their old Brett Favre jersey, even after they have spent 29 consecutive game-day Sundays spilling Miller Lite and spraying bratwurst from the corners of their mouths onto the sacred green threads that compose the fabric of their fallen superhero.

When those NHL players find themselves playing in late spring, you'll undoubtedly notice their peculiarly intense jaw-full of facial hair. You guessed it, the playoff beard has arrived, and they're here to stay until that one lucky player holds up the Stanley Cup and gives it a nice little whisker brush as he passes it on to the next teammate. Unless it's Sidney Crosby, whose boyish face wasn't able to produce the full playoff beard; which resulted in abstract patches of fur seemingly fixed on with glue sticks, wielded by a craft crazy second grader with ambition. Apparently, Brad Childress is doing a bit of forward thinking. His chin music has been in bloom since Sage Rosenfels became the most useless trade in history. Don't kid yourself, if you're a hockey fan, you aren't shaving until your favorite squad is playing golf in April once those playoffs get underway. It gets to us too.

Sports superstitions are completely unsolvable puzzles of human psychosis. One would think that being hundreds of miles north, in the frozen tundra on the cusp of the Iron Range, that superstition couldn't flourish here. That it's too cold. That living in this weather, you have to make your own luck. Well, you'd be wrong. The grasp of superstitions has taken root even here, in the UMD Bulldog locker room.

The madness begins on Thursday nights. Isaac Odim and his small army of football players show up at Olive Garden and literally put an end to the Never Ending Pasta Bowl. Following the carbo-load, some players choose to relax, and clear their minds before gametime. If you stop by Tobias Lemke's place, you can catch him and Oscar Strauss sneaking in a game of NCAA '10 on his PS3. If only they included Division II teams. Stop by the stadium an hour early, and catch punter Alex Miller religiously count out two glasses of Gatorade, and then do it all over again with water. I'll bet you he doesn't have any of his top pads on yet. Kicker David Nadeau is no stranger to sports rituals. Being a kicker, he's on par with hockey goaltenders and baseball pitchers. Notoriously, these athletes are of a different breed. Any kid growing up knows you never talk to a goalie working on a shutout, or even SIT next to a pitcher closing in on a no hitter. Similarly, kickers are loners on the bench. They need their focus, and simultaneously, they have their rituals.

"I always listen to country music in the locker room before games," he says. "I always put on my left shoe before my right and I always tie my left shoe before the right one." Sounds crazy right? David broke the single-season extra-point record last season.

If you're lucky, D.J. Winfield will put on his best Hollywood Hulk Hogan impression as he struts down the 50 yard line jamming out to Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix just before game time.

So whether you're watching Scott Baker avoid base paths on his way back to the dugout on a Saturday afternoon, or sitting in the stands at Malosky about to watch some good ol' football, make sure you look out for Dan Beck and Ty Johnson. They'll be the guys air-guitaring the solo from Thunderstruck.