Things happen fast on the Internet. This should come as no news to people who, unlike myself, get around without the use of a cane and don’t spend large portions of the afternoon yelling at those damn kids to get off the lawn.
Monday morning, I checked Twitter around 9 or 9:30. I did a bunch of work and generally had to be away from the online world for several hours in a row.
When I returned, all hell had broken loose. Apparently, Chemmy from Pension Plan Puppets had floated the idea that fans of the Phoenix Coyotes ought to be throwing snakes on the ice as a counterpoint to the Red Wing tradition of cephalopod-tossing. He and Coyotes-blogger and PPP-friend @TravisHair started discussing it, and one thing led to another, and very shortly thereafter a twitter-meme was born; apparently, it became the #1 trending topic on Twitter for a while.
Travis ran with the ball and even tried to help the Coyotes out a bit by turning this awesome little groundswell of fan support for a troubled team into something positive for the club – he sought their official blessing for the phenonmenon, but was rebuffed rather summarily. Score one for suits with no vision.
The story got picked up by Puck Daddy, and from there, places like some blog that apparently NBC has.
All eyes in the PPP community were on the ice in Phoenix tonight when the Coyotes took to the ice against the Red Wings in game 1 of their first round series. Would the snakes hit the ice? The Wings scored first because they’re terrible human beings, but shortly thereafter Keith Yandle tied the game for Phoenix and at least one snake hit the ice.
Then the #throwthesnake phenomenon hit the big time as it was discussed at the intermission on Hockey Night in Canada during the iDesk segment by Jeff Marek and Scott Morrison. YouTube goodness follows:
Chemmy correctly pointed out thereafter on Twitter that he is responsible for getting the Coyotes their only positive publicity from the Canadian media since…well, forever.
UPDATE: The game is now over. Phoenix wins 3-2; the power of the thrown snake is not to be trifled with.
Apparently, the #throwthesnake phenomenon was also mentioned on the TSN broadcast tonight, but I was busy watching the Versus feed – where they were ignoring Muhammad Ali for a period and a half, so I missed that bit.