Cup Mojo and Other Miscellanea

Well, another NHL regular season has been put to rest, with the Stanley Cup playoffs starting tomorrow.  As you may know, to me, the regular season is nothing but an opportunity for me to gain data on which Penguins game jerseys to wear for the playoffs.

For each game (most of the time) I select a game jersey and track the results.  Over 82 games, it comes to a pretty good bit of data.  And each year, I run down the results for you here, because it is just that fascinating.  (Snork!)  Hey, if I’m going to put this much effort into tracking, or anything, I expect to get a blog post out of it.

I didn’t obtain any new hockey jerseys this year, (most of my jersey acquisition went into baseball jerseys), so you’ll see the same options I’ve been rolling out.

This year’s clear winner was the black Brooks Orpik #44, which I wore for most home games.

18 wins 6 losses, and a .750 win percentage.

Next best was the black Evgeni Malkin #71. 

7-3, .700

I didn’t wear it as much because A) the Orpik jersey was hot and B) Geno was hurt a lot.  I tend not to wear the jersey of a player who’s out of the lineup.  Most of the wins here came from when Orpik was hurt.

Next was my go-to jersey for away games, the white Sidney Crosby #87.

11-8, .578

The white Sid was streaky, but still piled up a lot of losses.  When I didn’t go with this one, I went with my white James Neal #18.

3-4, .428

Because neither of those two white jerseys was very reliable, I went with a number of alternatives for away games, usually in powder blue.  The blue #87 from the first Winter Classic (vs Buffalo) went 1-1.  I had better luck with my blue “Pensblog” jersey, which went 3-0.  Other times, I wore a white Mario #66, with the 80s-90s Corporate Pigeon logo, which went 2-0.

All of my other “home” jerseys went 1-1: Snoop Dogg-era #66 with Pittsburgh down the front, early 2000s-era #66 with Vegas Gold trim, and early-90s-era #66 in black and yellow.

There were occasions where I didn’t wear any jersey at all, usually because I was otherwise occupied, often with a certain person who was moving into and then out of my apartment.  When I wore no jersey, the Pens went 3-6, .333.  This clearly proves that the Pens have a better shot at winning when I’m working the jersey mojo. 

So with the playoffs looming, it looks like I’ll be working the black 44 and white 87 most often, and bringing in the occasional Mario jersey off the bench, when an extra bump is needed.

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The apartment is coming along nicely; I’ve been busy assembling new parts and pieces to classy-up the old man-cave.  I keep telling myself I have all kinds of time to work with, but the other part of me keeps whining, “But I want is all done NOW…”  I swear, I’m keeping Amazon in business singlehandedly.

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And I know I said I wouldn’t mention it again, but there is still time to help some people out by donating to March of Dimes.  You can read about the lengths I’ve come to throw active support behind this organization, and find a link to donate, in this post here.  The link for donations will be open until 5/1.

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Lastly, let me just remind you that you can still vote on whether I should shave my head.  The poll is open until Thursday at 6:00 PM, and can be found on the right hand margin, just under my Twitter information and recent tweets.

I’m not saying the results are legally binding; I’m just seeking outside opinion.  It may not be as important as Game Jersey Mojo, but you know how I am about gathering data…