Coyote Tails

I started this sign while in the car on the way to the Canes vs. Arizona Coyotes game on Halloween 2021. I finished it while I was in my seat before the game. Not the best lettering job I've ever done with that third line. Oh well. Canes won!

Trick or Treat, Coyotes

I made this sign while in my seat just before the Canes vs. Arizona Coyotes game on Halloween 2021.

With You Thick or Thin

Just when I was finally able to move back to the Triangle after five years in the minors (Atlanta), a pandemic hit and I still couldn't safely attend a Canes game. But even a plague can't keep me from supporting my team. I am told this fan cutout attends the home game in my stead.

The Struggle Is Real

COVID-19 social distancing makes playoff hockey impossible right now, but I feel like I need to keep my sign-making skills sharp. It doesn't hurt to spread a little positivity. If the TP shortage continues much longer, I may have to repurpose my sign supplies for other doodies!

We Are All Essential

Spreading a little positivity in my own way.

The Dark Side

The Canes play New Jersey so often that it's hard to come up with new signs for them, so that's when I reach for something topical in the news. The Force finally awakened in the third period of tonight's game, and the Canes defeated the dark side. Tonight some New Jersey fans were actually really nice and asked if they could take photos with some of my signs, so took their pictures. (That's right, Buffalo: even New Jersey fans suck less than you!)

Incidentally, this is not the first Star Wars-themed sign I've made. See here.

Turn It On

The game on Saturday, November 14, 2015 was preceded by La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem, in honor of the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris the night before. Props to my high school French teacher, Madame Vertreese, for ensuring I still know the words decades later.

A couple other noteworthy occurrences:

--At 8:59pm, the sound system played the Billy Joel song "Piano Man." ("It's nine o'clock on a Saturday....")

--After a penalty that turned a power play into a 4 on 4, the sound system played the Pearl Jam song "Even Flow." (I see what you did there.)

--Random flutterings of confetti squares kept falling down from the rafters. What was that all about?

--For the second game in a row, there was no camera man in my corner, so I never made it onto the Jumbotron. WTH? Are the Canes literally cutting corners?

The game was against the Philadelphia Flyers, yet another team I've seen countless times. It's hard to keep coming up with fresh rhymes and puns related to the same team all the time, yet I challenge myself to create at least one new sign for each game I attend. If the new sign doesn't relate to the opponent, another option is to create a sign for a Canes player.

You might think I make a sign for a player because I particularly like him, which is sometimes true, but other times, I admit, it's because he has an easily rhymable or punny name. Not much rhymes with Hainsey, though. Yet this is the third sign I've made for him. (See here and here.)

Though a defensemen, Ron Hainsey has scored two goals and 17 points already this season. As I normally sit in section 109, I see him stretching out in my corner between periods. During the second intermission, he always taps the glass near the tunnel in section 108 next to me. If anyone has the scoop on why he does that, please message me.

As he stretches, I can see him scanning the crowd, trying to be all nonchalant and secretive about it. But I am pretty sure I saw him smile after he saw this sign. So even though the Canes lost in OT and I never got on the Tron, it wasn't a total loss.

The Canes Give Me an Election

Ottawa Senators at Carolina Hurricanes, November 7, 2015. The Canes rose to the occasion.

Run, Senators!

For the Hurricanes vs. Ottawa Senators game on November 7, 2015, which the Canes managed to win in a runoff (overtime).

Cackle-acky

If you don't know what Cackalacky is, here is an explanation. Happy October!