A University of New Hampshire Wildcats hockey fan had some serious trouble getting a massive dead fish onto the ice to celebrate a goal against Boston University.
It is UNH tradition to throw a dead fish onto the ice for the first goal, but the young UNH fan just couldn’t get the job done Saturday night, and now the video is blowing up on ESPN and other sports outlets. (SLIDESHOW: Celebrate The Anniversary Of The ‘Miracle On Ice’ With These Historic Pictures)
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According the UNH athletics website, the tradition has an interesting origin. The story in part is:
According to Bob Norton, a former UNH assistant coach, the fish-tossing tradition began in the early 1970s. “It goes back to when we were playing a Division II team, and our program had gone way past theirs. I remember (the UNH fans) threw out this little dinky thing and they called it a Division II fish. I guess they were trying to tell them they weren’t worthy of a first-rate fish.”
This tradition caught on as a local fraternity made it a ritual to throw out the fish after UNH’s first goal. The fish was used to resemble the visiting team, “fishing the puck out of the net.”