Wanna Bet?: Gambling and the Masculine Ego

In an unexpected moment, this Montreal theoretician,

adorned with a stiff poker face, offered me a $50,000 wager

on the Caps missing the playoffs in three years.

This week the NHL playoffs begin and beards across the country begin to grow. For the fourth time in five seasons, my beloved Capitals are once again slated to face the New York Rangers. It should be a knockdown, drag out melee that will likely last seven brutal games. After a disastrous start to the season, that saw them last place in the league, the Caps stormed back, clinching another division title with games to spare. They continued their run of consecutive seasons in the post season; they have six in a row, the fourth longest active streak.

As I recollect each of the past seasons, one experience from three years ago stands out. The Caps had captured their first Presidents’ Trophy, for the best record in the league, and were favorites for a Stanley Cup appearance. Their first round match up was against the eighth seeded Montreal Canadiens.

I was at a bar, watching game three of the Capitals/Canadiens series. It was a big place, filled with televisions, but the back bar area was fairly empty. I was rocking some red, of course.

The first period was scoreless, but the Caps blistered the Habs for four goals in the second, tying a franchise record. The game put them up 2-1 in the series. My mood was elevated and relaxed as the Caps cruised, and I noticed a guy in a Montreal jersey. He and his friend were the only other people watching the game, so we started to talk hockey.

The Habs fan was in a surly mood because of the game. The conversation proceeded in a relatively friendly manner. He was an amateur player/official himself and pontificated at length on the nature of hockey for the benefit of his friend, who was but a dilettante. In an unexpected moment, this Montreal theoretician, adorned with a stiff poker face, offered a $50,000 wager on the Caps missing the playoffs in three years.

I immediately figured the Caps were a favorite to achieve this. Ovechkin, Backstrom, Laich, and Green were locked in as the long term core of the team. I also knew that the Capitals had a very strong farm system. The Hersey Bears of the AHL repeated as Calder Cup champions that 2009-2010 season. Six players from this season’s Caps team are listed on that championship banner.

The problem was two fold: $50,000 is a huge bet and I just met this guy. In fact, despite this stranger’s sane appearance, it was a completely insane offer. What type of person throws a number like that at someone they have known for an hour? In my mind, only someone who isn’t too serious.

Suppose I had said, “Sure, here is my lawyer’s number. Let’s set up an escrow account.” He would’ve smiled, taken my number, shook my hand, and I would’ve never heard from him again.

A bet like this strange, nose-bleed proposition is an interesting example of male posturing. It offers lessons on the connection of sports and the human psyche. A fan ties a portion of his/her self worth to a specific team. That team’s accomplishments fuel the ego, while each failure stings the soul. I felt this bitter sting one week later, after the Caps blew a 3-1 series lead and saw to Stanley Cup slip away, yet again.

Because the Canadiens had laid a dud of a game, this gentleman felt personally injured. To avenge this wound, one suffered in public, he found another venture in which to compete: gambling.

It has been a roller-coaster season for the 2013 Capitals: lockout, new coach, dismal start, and red hot finish. I have felt every climb and plunge with a theoretical $50,000 bump. And now, with a slow click, click, click, the cars ascend the tower of steel again, granting a wide, beautiful view of the world to all aboard. After this brief respite before Game One, the precious moment comes as we are thrust one more time, one hundred miles an hour, headlong over the horizon, into the future unknown.

Keno: The True Junkie’s Choice

When I’m browsing the gambling titles in the bookstore, sometimes I come across general copy on basic strategy for all the modern, common casino games. I typically judge this type of material on one factor alone: comments on the game of keno. The very best advice I’ve ever seen was very straightforward; it was one sentence and it simply read “never, ever play keno.” Next chapter, thanks. Any other keno “strategy” is completely asinine.

 

Keno is the ugly, bastard child of the lottery. Players pick a few numbers, 1 through 80, and if their numbers come in, they win. It’s simple and fast. However, no casino game gives up more of an edge to the house than keno. Contrary to games like craps and blackjack, where the house edge is under 2%, the juice for keno is as high as 25%. It is gambling suicide.

 

I first encountered keno as it spread throughout bars on the east coast, offering self-loathing drunks a way to piss their money away even faster. When I started visiting casinos, I was amazed by the existence of keno parlors. Inside, hoards of degenerates crawled, hands and knees, down towards inevitable bankruptcy.

 

My favorite keno memory (pretty much my only keno memory, hence my “favorite”) comes from years back, when I was drinking with a buddy at a local watering hole. He was bored and kept bugging me about keno, begging me to pick some numbers. Finally, after an hour of his badgering, in order to shut him up, I picked four numbers: 7, 13, 27, and 77. Then, pain in the butt that he is, he didn’t even use my numbers! He picked four other spots and submitted his ticket to the bartender. Well, we proceeded to watch as my numbers hit one by one, game after game, racking up over $900 in theoretical profit! Ugh…beer please.

 

Do you enjoy keno? Congratulations, I can unequivocally state that you have a gambling problem. Seek help immediately.

SpongeBob ShovePants and the Blind Straight Flush

“When you use your IMAGINATION you can do anything!”
–SpongeBob SquarePants

At the poker table you often meet fascinating people and see events that you wouldn’t dream were possible. During this past trip to the poker tables of Biloxi, I meet one of the wildest gamblers I’d ever sat beside and observed an incident that I never would have believed had it not occurred in front of my own eyes.

I sat down to a ½ No Limit Hold’em table early Friday afternoon next to a young guy from Jacksonville. His forearms were covered in tattoos and he was knocking back tall vodka cocktails. Around his neck hung a jewel encrusted SpongeBob SquarePants medallion because he liked the popular children’s cartoon.

“SpongeBob ShovePants” liked to play just about every hand. He called large bets with hands that had little chance of winning. He urged other players to put their entire stack into the pot with him before the cards were dealt. His chip stack went up and down like a rollercoaster without tracks. “SpongeBob ShovePants” played poker like it was Russian Roulette; it was frequently all or nothing.

After watching his reckless, financial self-destruction for awhile, “SpongeBob ShovePants” leaned over to me and complained that the cards were simply against him. I kept my thoughts on the matter to myself, but he persisted. To prove his point, before the cards were dealt for the next hand, “SpongeBob ShovePants” put the remainder of his chip stack into the pot blind.

The hand ran out with an older man matching his Ace-King with two more Kings: a monster, virtually unbeatable. However, there were three clubs on the board, making the flush possible. I peeked over as “SpongeBob ShovePants” rolled over one club…then, you guessed it, a straight flush! He jumped out of his chair and started shouting like he had won the lottery.

Although the odds against what had just happened would have been too unbelievable to include in a movie, the money he won on that miracle long shot only lasted “SpongeBob ShovePants” another couple of hands before it was gone. In a little over an hour, he dumped about $1000 into the game. After he left the game, four other players got up. I was sad to see him go.

Don't Scare the Fish!

“There is a lot of money to be made off of stupidity”

-“Alabama Man” 

After playing poker for so many years, there really isn’t too much that bothers me at the tables. One glaring exception is when seasoned, skilled players are condescending or impatient to others who are just learning the game.

A lot of people gravitate to poker as a form of entertainment; winning money isn’t their primary goal. They just want to have a good time and don’t care if it costs them a few hundred dollars. This is an attitude that is often hard to find in poker and it should be greeted with a smile and nurtured with kindness.

Playing cards in Biloxi last week, I was moved to the left of a jovial man from Alabama. He was swilling Coronas like an unemployed Charlie Sheen and punctuating his dialogue with profanity and bleary-eyed laughs. Talking with him, it was apparent that a few hundred dollars didn’t mean too much to him. The way he played poker confirmed this suspicion. His goal was simply to have a good time and there was no denying that he succeeded.

Although I had just sat down, I noticed immediately that no one else at the table was enjoying the “Alabama Man” show. There were a lot of shared grimaces and mutterings about “idiocy.”

The dealers and other players complained about nearly everything this poor fella did. They objected to his language, to his failure to follow the action, and to his general poker strategy. Essentially, they objected to him as a person.

Sensing the animosity at the table, “Alabama Man” began to consider abandoning cards and returning to the casino’s dice game.

One especially egregious example of this behavior occurred from a younger kid at the table who had amassed a large stack of chips. When the kid made a river bet, “Alabama Man” drunkenly shoved out a sloppy pile of chips with each hand in an attempt to raise the bet. The kid complained that “Alabama Man’s” hands crossed the table’s betting line a split second apart and the raise shouldn’t count. Then, in the very next breath, the kid said that he had a good hand and wanted the raise to stand. His fundamental dislike of “Alabama Man” was at war with his desire to make money. It was a weird example of the competing instincts within a lot of poker players.

Moments like these at the poker table bother me. Oftentimes players who are technically proficient fail to understand this basic premise of the game: DON’T SCARE THE FISH! Laugh at their jokes, listen to their stories, offer condolences for their losses, and complement the good plays when they make them. Be friendly because they are your true poker friends. When they are kind enough to throw a party, sit back, enjoy yourself, and have a big ol’ piece of fishcake.

From our discussion together, it was clear “Alabama Man” understood this basic carnivorous principle. Although he may have been a red-shirted rube at the poker table, he was all shark in business. He looked me dead in the eye and opined, in a self-assured and slurred tone, “There is a lot of money to be made off of stupidity.” I nodded my head in quiet agreement.

The Ass Dart

There are many reasons I love my brother Joe, but the biggest are probably that hanging out with him is always a good time and that he has a bigger heart than anyone I’ve ever met.

Over the years, Joe has developed a proclivity towards perverse prop bets. His outgoing personality relishes the performance, enjoys the pressure, and savors the accomplishment.

For example, I designed a noxious concoction specifically for him, called the “Chocolate Olive Drop.” We had a standing wager on whether he could get it down without gagging. The specific ingredients varied slightly, depending on availability, but the drink usually consisted of a large tumbler full of whiskey, chocolate milk, lemon juice, clam juice, and, of course, a couple of olives. The combination of liquor and milk is off-putting enough, but just as the alcohol starts to kick and mix with the acidic lemon and briny clam, down come those olives, like bowling balls, rolling right over a man’s puke button. The “Chocolate Olive Drop” is a drink designed to make a man lose his lunch, but my brother is a tough customer and he is a lifetime winner on his encounters with them.

The wackiest prop bet I ever witnessed Joe undertake started innocently enough. We were killing time at my parents’ house with a friend of his that was having some girlfriend troubles. My brother was really looking for a way to cheer up his buddy and distract him from his troubles. As luck would have it, we just so happened to be messing around with a blowdart gun. So, when I casually inquired how much someone would have to pay Joe to shoot him in the ass with the gun, a price of $40 was quickly settled upon.

Before I knew it, I had shot him in the ass. Somehow, we talked him into getting shot four times. We made him go bare ass to earn the money, and had got the video set up just right (above). If you look close, the red marks from the previous shots are visible. Nice grouping!

Body Shots

A number of years back, when I was first learning the game of Hold’em, some friends and I were sitting around with nothing to do. We had finished all the beer on the premises and the only other libation was a bottle of tequila (Cuervo, I believe). Because none of us particularly cared for the beverage (myself especially), we decided to play poker, with the loser of every hand taking a shot of the noxious liquid. After about half an hour, the bottle was empty, to a room full of regret.

Now sufficiently lubricated, a couple of the guys (for this was a particularly masculine endeavor), decided that we could continue to gamble by exchanging punches to the gut, instead of shots of rotgut. The rules were simple. We dealt the cards face up to two players, a practice in poker commonly called a “coin flip.” The loser received a punch from the winner in the stomach. This game, “Body Shots,” as it might be called, was infinitely more entertaining than traditional poker and elicited riotous cheers from the onlookers. We played until the wee hours of the morning.

The utterly barbaric and juvenile game of Body Shots illustrates several unavoidable truths about the nature of gambling:

1) Gambling is intimately connected with personal risk.
2) The risk of gambling inevitably takes the form of physical pain.
3) Gambling has a curiously self-destructive element.

And, finally…

4) Gambling is more fun, yet vastly more self-destructive, with the addition of alcohol.

Visiting Churchill Downs

There he was, by God—a puffy, drink-ravaged, diseased-ridden caricature…like an awful cartoon version of an old snapshot in some once-proud mother’s family photo album. It was the face we’d been looking for—and it was, of course, my own. Horrible, horrible...

-Hunter S. Thompson

“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved”

A few years back, I happened to be in Louisville, attending an academic conference with a good friend and native Kentuckian. After reading our papers, I insisted, being the inveterate gambler that I am, that we visit the sacred dirt of Churchill Downs. In the spirit of things, we had a couple slugs of Basil Hayden before departing…only good bourbon for this adventure. Why not, after all? When in Kentucky…

It was the off-season and there were no races. There were, however, still plenty of gamblers milling about and betting on races around the country via simulcast. Immediately, in the spirit of things, we ordered up a couple of mint juleps. They arrived in commemorative Derby glasses. Delicious!

Outside, there wasn’t a soul around. We were able to stroll down to the Winner’s Circle and run our fingers through the earth that had been trod by such legends as War Admiral and Secretariat. I vaguely considered running the final 20 yards to share the energy of the victorious beasts that trod before me, but under the elegant shadow of history, I filed that in the “maybe later” category.

We headed back inside and indulged in a few of the generously tall $2 beers. When I found the $2 pulled pork slider tray, I thought I’d walked into heaven. After studying a racing form, we picked a winner our first try and won another of our bets to cover our alcohol and cab fare.

Feeling great, we left the ponies to the serious gamblers and headed back to the hotel. The heavy consumption of bourbon somehow managed to become a theme of the evening and the strict attention to memory became rather Swiss cheesy. So here is all that I can recall:

There was a lesson in bourbon by a bartender who could have had a Master’s Degree in the subject…did we actually walk under some giant, neon guitar, or did I just imagine that?...some random girl, neither of us had set eyes on before, felt the need to come and tell me that my buddy was “an asshole”…just a couple of fingers and a few cubes for me, thanks…convinced a teacher from Mississippi State was trying to philosophically trap me, every time he started to speak, I cut him off with a smile and “oh no, not this time Mississippi State”…goddamn elevator keeps trying to tell me what to do…my comrade in booze ended up meeting the woman of his dreams, an ex-ballerina, and by the fates, she was living in the same city as us, over 500 miles away…hello, cowgirl in the sand. hello, ruby in the dust.

The friendly custodian of libations at the hotel bar gave us free samples of their finest bourbon: some beautiful brown elixir from the Van Winkle line. Only in Kentucky would a hotel bar even have such a valuable and esoteric product. I was at Borgata, the nicest casino in Atlantic City, and the best bourbon they had at the bar was Knob Creek. Not bad, but with the rivers of money flowing through that place, the manager should have been hoisted up by his genitals next to all that ultra-swanky Chihuly glass sculpture. God bless the magical Bluegrass State!

Falling Up an Escalator

We have a patron down! Patron down!

 

A couple of years ago, I innocently visited Iowa for a cousin’s wedding and ended up in a bloody casino escapade.

Weddings are almost always among the most fun events to attend, especially big ones. My Iowa relatives truly went all out to make sure everyone had a great time. It was a monstrous event with a cathedral style assembly hall filled with hundreds of people. I let them know my appreciation by periodically bellowing “IOWA!” as loud as my lungs would permit. The groom’s friends, being the youngsters they are, put on a good show and even had me playing the drinking game with a dangerous punch: Flip Cup. Ahh…good times.

It had been years since I visited Iowa. Life out there has a slightly different pace to it; everything is about a half hour drivem through endless corn fields, and every breath delivers the faint hint of cow manure.

In Iowa, there seems to be a universal bonfire that you eventually discover at some point in the night. After the rehearsal dinner, I was heavily plied with alcohol when we ended up there, and somebody mentioned a casino located in nearby Des Moines. My card playing cousin was miraculously sober, so off we went.

It turns out that this beautiful country is literally infested with places to gamble; God, I love America!

Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino doesn’t have the opulence of Vegas or the beach of Atlantic City, but it has the only thing that matters: action. Drunk as I was, I deftly sniffed out the poker room on the top floor and was saddened to discover an hour long waiting list for the tiny room. Dejected, I returned to find my cousin parked at a roulette table with a stack of chips.

Now, I know I was severely intoxicated because I actually decided to pass the time by playing a few spins of the wheel (by the way, if you ever catch me playing roulette, I freely invite you to give me a good healthy smack in the face). However, I hit a lucky streak that night and my patented “IOWA!” cheers reverberated around the casino. I was making such a scene that people started yelling back “CAROLINA!" One woman, playing blackjack at a neighboring table, even had me placing bets for her. What can I say? Stupidity is infectious.

The hour passed rather quickly; in no time I was racking my chips and heading upstairs to claim my seat in the poker room. The difficulty arrived when I tried to utilize the escalator; in my state of intoxication, operating the device was surprisingly challenging.

My sandal refused to obey my commands and tripped on the first step; I fell hard on the sharp metal, and my chips scattered about in the chaos. Stunned at the sudden turn of events, I desperately tried to scoop them up, fearing they would be lost in the teeth of the machine as it approached the top. In the final panicked moments of the ride, I scooped up the last one and rolled forward off the final step.

Dazed, and trying to figure out what just happened, I looked up to a security guard speaking hastily into his radio:

“We have a patron down! Patron down!”

In the moments it took to force myself back to my feet, two more guards had come running. Despite the long scrapes, and blood trickling from my leg, I insisted I was fine and tried to slip around them as I counted my money. I was half sure they would try to kick me out, right then and there, through door, or even window.

When I miraculously escaped to the poker room and located my seat, I noticed all the players eyeing me with more suspicion than is typical when at a new game. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see a security guard motioning me out of the room. “Damn,” I thought to myself, but it turned out, that unknown to me, I was bleeding rather profusely from the chin, no doubt aided by the alcohol in my bloodstream.

After being bandaged, I returned to play some cards.

I’m sure the players were licking their lips to get their piece of this new arrival reeking of booze, but I had to disappoint them and showed I could actually play, even in my condition. I hit a couple of sets and ended up making a few bucks.

I’m not sure why, but the casino has a no profanity rule that my drunken attention span couldn’t seem to grasp; my foul mouth violated it worse than a hotel heiress in The City of Lights. It all goes to show how far a casino will go to keep an inebriated patron inside…as long as he is gambling.

"Drunkie" and Strangeness in Tunica

On a recent trip to Tunica, I sat on a poker table that epitomized the need to pick a good game. I was in no real condition to play, having worked all morning and driven all day, but I hadn’t played in awhile and had to scratch the itch. I took a seat in a $1-3 No Limit Hold’em game at Harrah’s and built my stack for a couple hours. One by one, the little fish went broke, until I looked around at the grizzled faces of local grinders and it was my turn.

There were a couple of weird hands and bizarre rulings that occurred before I went broke. A couple of younger men sat and one announced that he was teaching his friend to play. Anything said by a stranger at the poker table should be taken with a degree of skepticism, but on the first hand the “newbie” certainly went broke like a first-timer. During the hand, however, despite being warned earlier about speaking English, the men casually refused and the “newbie” chatted in an unidentified Asian language with his partner as he played the hand. The floor manager was called, but no penalty was issued and he lost the pot, so it was quickly forgotten.

The real strangeness occurred on another hand and involved the drunkest member of our table. On the turn, he faced a smallish raise from his only opponent. Our hero, “Drunkie Red Nose,” silently pushed out his remaining chips, a stack of red $5 chips, about three times the bet.

The dealer announced him all-in and counted down the bet.
“Drunkie” didn’t say anything.
His opponent thought for a moment, called, and the dealer counted out the call.
“Drunkie” didn’t say anything.
The dealer pushed all the chips together in the middle and dealt out the river.
“Drunkie” didn’t say anything.
The hands were flipped up: a third nine and good hand for “Drunkie,” but a nine with a better kicker for his opponent.
“Drunkie” didn’t say anything.
The dealer shipped the pot and shuffled the cards.

Now, after all that, “Drunkie” suddenly says he never went all-in. Hmmm…things just got spicy. The dealer, a younger baby-faced type, says it’s really too late to do anything. Yes, by rule, a single oversized chip would just be a call, but given the events and the tall stack of chips pushed out, it was the perfect ruling. The dealer should have shut it down there, but “Drunkie” insisted and the “Floor” was summoned. Amazingly though, the young dealer did such a poor job explaining the situation, and he and the manager obviously had history of some sort, that the ruling was reversed.

After a quick guesstimation, the winner was ordered to cut the approximate surplus from his stack and return it to “Drunkie”! This was an outrageous injustice! “Drunkie” never said one single word until he found out his very good hand was beaten by another slightly better hand. His opponent was so justifiably angry with the ruling that he racked up and left. “Drunkie” actually managed to make things worse, in the manner that only truly drunk people can, by apologizing. He tried to give the money back, but his opponent refused, more angry at floor than the drunken fool earnestly pushing money at him.

How to Be Drunk in a Casino

While I never advocate drinking to excess when gambling, here are a few pointers on handling the free lubrication that casinos offer.

For years I watched closely as a good friend wandered through Atlantic City and explored the nuances of these little bits of wisdom.

1) Be sure to utilize the long drive. Sure, the casinos might be a ways off, but you can take advantage of this opportunity to get properly juiced. Pick up a case of beer and, just as important, a paper cup from your local convenience store (this way those sneaky, good-time spoilers working for law enforcement will be none the wiser). This is also the ideal time to get amped up with some killer tunes that encourage serious pounding; AC/DC’s Back in Black and Guns N Roses’ Appetite for Destruction are personal favorites.

2) Just pretend you ordered that drink. Been on the casino floor for more than an entire minute and don’t have a drink yet? Sickened to death by the idea of waiting even one instant longer for a taste of more delicious alcohol? Combat this frustration by sidling up to the first waitress you spot with a friendly smile. Quickly eyeball her tray, and ask her if the (burbon/coke, gin/tonic, beer, whatever) is for you. For this move, it is essential to have a couple dollars tip visibly at the ready.

3) Use the slot machine coin cups to hold beer. Admittedly, this suggestion dates me, but the thimble-sized pittance of alcohol that some casinos offer is an embarrassment. Order two beers and when they arrive, order two more immediately. For convenience sake, combine them into one of the jumbo cups most casinos set out near the slot machines. Don’t worry about hygiene issues. Alcohol can kill anything…I thought you were a rock star anyway. And ignore the Judgey McJudgertons that you encounter; they are just jealous that they didn’t think of it first.

4) Be careful to avoid walking into mirrors. Casinos are designed like mazes to trap patrons inside and keep them gambling. Many rely upon mirrored walls, particularly around the restrooms, to create an atmosphere of luxury and the illusion of space. These facts can be extremely frustrating when drunk. For God’s sake ! Look where you’re going! And never. ever, under any circumstances, run inside! And, if you find yourself strolling toward someone wearing vaguely familiar clothing, and matching your stride step for step, don’t play a stubborn game of chicken and see who turns first.

5) Do not inquire about a dealer’s bra size. Sure, you might be having a grand ol’ time, burning experiences out of your already depleted brain cells, but it is important to remember that dealers are at work, and they might not share your exact sense of humor. Now, I know what you’re thinking; the average dealer is slightly north of petite and more than a couple years into peak menopausal activity. If you encounter one that doesn’t seem to be enjoying the party, do not try to build a conversation around the size of her brassiere. It’s large and amply filled; leave it at that. This is not a good ice-breaker.

Alcoholism is no laughing matter, but sometimes drunks can be pretty funny.

So, I have concluded, the best way to be drunk in a casino is to surround yourself with people who are drunker than you. Remember, it’s much funnier to watch someone get thrown out, than to actually get thrown out yourself.

Hockey Players Love to Gamble

As the Oakland Raiders prepared to meet the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII, a friend of mine called to tell me the New York Rangers had rented the Georgetown restaurant/bar he managed to watch the game. They were in D.C. after playing an afternoon game with the Capitals and because he knew I was a huge hockey fan, he invited me to watch the game also.

The entire two floor club was empty except for the players, a few girls, and a handful of random people (like me). The Rangers were easy to spot, even if you didn’t know hockey from hop-scotch, because they were very, very large, and fairly well-dressed. They sat around on the bar’s black leather couches, like hulking wise-guys, and watched Tampa’s defense dismantle Rich Gannon with a record five interceptions, three for second half touchdowns.

The final treat for the evening, aside from the exciting game and famous athletes, was the open bar which everyone abused in copious amounts (I suppose this means that I drank courtesy of the Rangers organization…thanks guys!).

The alcohol and sports mixed well to create an exciting energy; it filled the club as the Rangers took shot after shot and cheered at the jumbo television screen. It was hard to tell this team had taken consecutive beatings and was in desperate need of a playoff push.

Former MVP Eric Lindros stood quietly next to me for the duration of the third quarter. At the time, I was trying hard not to be an annoying fan, but I regret not chatting him up a little bit about his days in Philadelphia. His career was winding down because of concussions, and as he stood by himself at the bar, he seemed like the quiet type anyhow.

However, I could not resist talking to notorious instigator Matthew Barnaby about a fight he had that afternoon. I will never forget it because, as he was getting pounded in the face, he stopped fighting, looked over to the Rangers bench, and laughed like the devil’s own son (above). Barnaby was in the middle of all the action at the bar; that guy’s loose screws make him very entertaining.

The real shock of the evening was witnessing how much these hockey players liked to gamble. Many of them had thick knots of bills and yelled out strange and drunken wagers. For example, I watched one player bet a grand that a catch under review would be ruled a touchdown.

This proclivity toward financial risk is shared by many NHL players. One time MVP Jaromir Jagr lost several hundred thousand betting college football during his short tenure with the Capitals. Rick Tocchet lost his job as Phoenix’s assistant coach when his book-making operation got busted. Gretzky's "wife" was one of his clients. Of course, the NHL forgives and forgets, and Tocchet was promoted to Tampa Bay’s head coaching job this year.

Gambling with money must be a frivolous thrill when placed next to the potential for extreme bodily harm these players skate with every day. I wonder if there is any correlation between the two...