25 YEARS AGO TODAY, I STOPPED BEING A HOCKEY FAN: 25 years ago today, Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh died when, as today's Philadelphia Daily News recalls, his "$117,300 Porsche 930 hit a wall in Somerdale, N.J., at 5:41 a.m. doing 80 mph. Lindbergh had been drinking with his Flyers teammates at the after-hours bar above the team's practice rink in Voorhees. His blood-alcohol level was 0.24, well above New Jersey's legal limit of 0.10 at the time." Lindbergh was 26 years old. I was 13, too damn sad to think of watching a hockey game again anytime soon, and scared enough that I didn't touch a drop of alcohol until Admitted Students Weekend at Amherst four-plus years later.
The Inquirer has more remembrances from his teammates.
Interestingly, 26 year old men do stupid shit.
ReplyDeleteWow, random. A few weeks ago I was looking up the value of some old hockey cards and thought it was hilarious that some guy I'd never heard of was one of the most valuable cards in the set.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, is anybody interested in a Pelle Lindbergh rookie set?
As stupid as the team running an after-hours bar above its practice rink?<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteThis, and of course the Dany Heatley incident, make me worry on a near daily basis about our hockey hero (Ovechkin)'s penchant for fast cars and reckless driving.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite confident I'm not the only one whose mind immediately went to this.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Tim Hortons donut franchise.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that caught my eye and I had a serious "Wait, what?" moment.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably not the right time to tell you about what I remember from that event, which is a joke about him and his car.
ReplyDeleteGo for it. But it's still too soon for Kennedy assassination jokes.<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteDid you hear Pelle Lindbergh was on the radio? And the dashboard. And the steering wheel.
ReplyDelete"I was 13, too damn sad to think of watching a hockey game again anytime soon, and scared enough that I didn't touch a drop of alcohol until Admitted Students Weekend at Amherst four-plus years later." What, you thought you were going to suddenly find yourself flying into a wall if you had a drop of booze? The ghost of Hunter S. Thompson shakes its head.
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