Thursday, May 22, 2008

May 22, 1975 - Batman!

May 22, 1975, Buffalo Sabres beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-2 in Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals, to even their series at 2-2. The game will always be remember for other thing.

Just when the puck was about to drop for a face-off, a bat came flying in over the ice and started hovering over the players. Everybody jerked back except for Buffalo's Center Jim Lorentz. He hit the bat with his stick and it fell to the ice.
Lorentz used his stick to slay a bat, of all things, that was annoying players and fans. Nobody was sure whether the bat had found its way into the arena or was brought into the building by a mischievous fan.

"It was dive-bombing the crowd, and a couple of times it came near the ice and I remember Parent taking a couple of swings at it with his goal stick and missing," Lorentz said.

Fans continually reacted to the bat when it swooped down toward them, and it was a clear distraction. When Lorentz was standing still getting ready for a face-off and spotted it zooming toward him, he reached up and killed it with a slash of his stick. The crowd and the players were happy until they realized they had another problem.

"No one wanted to pick it up," said Lorentz, who instantly was dubbed as Batman. "Finally, (Philadelphia's) Rick MacLeish picked it up and buried it in the penalty box."

Finally, from the same game, a toe to toe fight between Philadelphia's Bob "Battleship" Kelly and Bufallo's Rick Dudley.

1 comment:

  1. I truly hope that all your blog readers have a fantastic 2011!

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