A Birthday Gift…
By Omar Zaman
Some players must not be getting very good birthday gifts from their friends and family because a few of them this week decided to get themselves something. No, I’m not talking about players buying themselves the latest Warrior stick or some kind of hockey bag sanitizer. I’m talking about scoring goals.
In the last week alone three players scored a goal on their respective birthdays. Daniel Briere of the Philadelphia Flyers got the party started Tuesday with an overtime goal against the Washington Capitals to win an exciting game, 6-5. Briere’s teammate Chris Pronger almost had a game-winning goal on his birthday too, but the Ducks made sure Pronger wouldn’t celebrate as they came from behind to win in a shootout on Saturday. The final birthday boy was Rostislav Olesz (which is a lot harder to spell than I thought it would be) of the Florida Panthers, who also scored on Saturday.
Briere is now 32, Pronger is 35, and Olesz is 24. Congratulations to them all, even though only one of them was able to celebrate with a victory. In case you’re wondering, the next Duck birthday will be on Halloween when Steve Eminger turns 26 and the Ducks take on the Coyotes on the road.
An interesting note: Each home commentator uttered the same phrase in the same way at some point after the players scored on their birthdays. It was of course: “Happy Birthday [player’s name]!!!”