St. Knicks

Back in 1996, I was in the 11th grade, watching the Knicks game with my Dad - it wasn't just any Knicks game though - the Knicks who were hovering around .500 were playing against the 54 win - 6 loss Chicago Bulls, The Jordan/Pippen Bulls - and the Knicks had a new head coach, a little guy named Jeff Van Gundy.  The Knicks played with a purpose that night, they played their best game of the season, Patrick Ewing had 26 points and 14 boards, altogether the Knicks had six players in double figures.  The Knicks ended up winning by 32 points, which was in fact how many points Jordan had in the game - cruising to a victory and handing the mighty Bulls only their 7th loss of the season.  It was simply put... fantastic!  But it was more than that, it wasVan Gundy's first win as a Knicks head coach, so I turned to my dad and said...

"VANtastic!"

Yes it was corny, and for those of you who know me well, I pride myself on being able to come up with catchy phrases or names of games, or nights for bars, that are usually extremely corny. I am used to the regular pathetic giggle from the friends, or the "cornball" comments from my students.  In fact when I worked at the Nutty Irishman my job was every Wednesday to sit down with management and give them 10 ideas. They told me 9 would be the worst ideas that they have ever heard of, but that 10th one, that 10th one was perfect - they would start to laugh, how come we never thought of that? Some examples:

Peat N Pong - Peat Moss, Beer Pong it was legendary

M.O.M.S. (Mondays on Main Street) ex. Where you going, I'm just going to Moms.

Double The Love Party - Twice as much fun as Valentines, this was for a friend's birthday which we held on the 28th of February, 28 is twice as much as 14, 14th is Valentines day, hence - Double The Love - that is how my brain works.

All this corniness started for me on March 11th, 1996 - the day after the Knicks huge win - my dad woke me up by calling my name, "Joe, come take a look at this!" - I run downstairs and see my dad holding the Newsday to the back cover, sports section, and there it is, in big words... my words... "VANtastic!"

I was hooked.  After any meaningful sporting event I would give it a shot, sometimes I would tell someone else so that I had proof, eventually I just played this game inside of my head...  I have gotten a few here and there, and I got today's - that is what brought me back to the first one.  Today I woke up and saw, "St. Knicks." - It was an easy one, Christmas, Knicks opening day, it wasn't rocket science - but I saw it coming.  It made me smile to think back to that day in 1996 when my corniness started.

Now my students get to experience it each day when they walk in my classroom, my friends get to experience it every time we get together for a few Bud Lights, my wife gets to experience it on a day to day basis (poor her), and eventually my son will get to experience it - and hopefully one day after watching a game together he will turn to me and say something extremely corny.  9 times out of 10 it might be something very silly, but every once in a while, it will be "VANtastic!"