Brothers Peter and Jerry Cusimano — storeowner’s in Detroit’s Eastern Market — started the tradition of throwing an octupus onto the ice at Red Wing games. The fish market owners flung the premier eight-legged cephalopod across the ice at Olympia Stadium on April 15, 1952.
Why an octopus? Having eight arms, the octopus symbolized the number of playoff wins necessary for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup.
Since 1952, the practice has persisted with each passing year, moving from the Olympia Stadium to Joe Louis Arena and now to Little Caesars Arena. In one 1995 game, fans threw 36 octopuses, including a specimen weighing 38 pounds (17 kg).
Eventually, the Red Wings would adopt the octopus as their unofficial mascot, creating a purple octopus named Al. During playoff runs, two of these mascots are hung from the rafters of Joe Louis Arena, symbolizing the 16 wins now needed to take home the Stanley Cup.
The practice has become such an accepted part of the team’s lore, fans have developed various techniques and “octopus etiquette” for launching the creatures onto the ice.
Al Sobotka (Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports)
Al Sobotka, the head ice manager at Little Caesars Arena and one of the two Zamboni drivers, is the person who retrieves the thrown octopuses from the ice. When the Red Wings played at Joe Louis Arena, he was known to twirl an octopus above his head as he walked across the ice rink to the Zamboni entrance. On April 19, 2008, the NHL sent the Red Wings a memo that forbade this and imposed a $10,000 fine for violating the mandate. In an email to the Detroit Free Press, NHL spokesman Frank Brown justified the ban because matter flew off the octopus and got on the ice when Sobotka swung it above his head.
In an article describing the effects of the new rule, the Detroit Free Press dubbed the NHL’s prohibition as “Octopus-gate”. By the beginning of the third round of the 2008 Playoffs, the NHL loosened the ban to allow for the octopus twirling to take place at the Zamboni entrance.
Sources :
Colleen Burcar, It Happened in Michigan : Remarkable Events That Shaped History, Globe Pequot; 1st edition (January 11, 2011), p.131.
WXYZ Detroit video about the tradition of throwing octopus on the ice at Red Wing Games.
The Legend of the Octopus : A Detroit Red Wings’ Tradition
Legend of the Octopus Wikipedia Entry.