The NHL learned a crucial lesson back in 1975: don’t f**k with bats. As if carrying Ebola isn’t enough of a warning already. Keep your sticks away from the fuzzy little mammals, or they will fly like a bat out of h*ll, rolling the fog in with them.
Fog? Bats? Hockey? Ebola? What is going on here? All that fun and more (besides Ebola) is below when we discuss the infamous Stanley Cup finals game of the 1975 season.
The 11th Plague of Egypt
Bats flying around in NHL hockey games punishing players with fog sounds like a continuation of the 10 plagues of Egypt (bonus points if you get the reference).
So what exactly happened that fateful day back in 1975?
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The Buffalo Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers faced off for game three in the Stanley Cup finals.
In the third game, the teams played in Buffalo, New York, in a stadium built in 1940. Apparently, air conditioning was not a primary focus between the Great Depression and WWII because the building didn’t have any.
The arena was nearing 90 degrees inside, and the humidity levels were rising. And that’s when an act of animal cruelty like none other happened.
That’s a Bat, Not a Puck
A tiny little bat was hanging out in the rafters of its home (i.e., the arena), and it was getting toasty. The little black mammal wanted to get a little closer to the ice and cool down.
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That’s when it met someone who has a personality on par with Ted Bundy. He “flicked” the bat with his hockey stick when it flew a little close to the sun (or ice, in this case). The bat died then and there.
In what is often described as an act of mercy, Philadelphia Flyers Rick MacLeish picked up the dead bat and put it in the penalty box. Punished until the end for no reason.
The videos of this awful moment in NHL history will not be included in this article. It was almost too hard to watch, and the nonchalance with which many people view this video is shocking.
The NHL Learns a Lesson
Maybe the NHL thought they could kill a helpless little bat and there would be no consequences. They could not be anymore wrong.
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In what can be described as a bat sh*t crazy moment, fog rolled in and wouldn’t leave like that one friend’s ‘on-again, off-again boyfriend” from college during a house party.
That tiny bat created a fog so intense it obscured the lower half (and sometimes the full body) of players during the game. The game had to be stopped five times in the first three periods and more times during overtime.
When the fog piled up too high, the game would be stopped, and players and rink employees would skate around. For some reason, this skating was different from the playing an NHL Stanley Cup final game kind.
In a final moment of injustice, Buffalo took the win despite being the bat bludgeoners. It’s a sick world.
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Even if it didn’t work out the way it should have, the little bat taught us all a valuable lesson with fog that tragic night in 1975.
The bat also told us that you should read other Total Apex Sports articles here.