hoarfrost, tape & a smudgestick.

Sports is filled with rituals. Ask any player. Ask any fan.

My father pointed this out to me this morning - said, "take a picture before it melts." Hoarfrost (even hoarfrost in WI) in the morning means a bountiful Viking pillage and most certainly a pleasant tea time at 3 p.m.

The whole wrapping your fingers in tape thingy is in homage to the often unheralded football defense that has its most primitive origins in the ancient Norse custom of protecting your hands before a Sunday rape & pillage outing.

My brother assembled this "smudge stick", an indigenous American Indian tradition with origins in shamanism. We lit it and we purified ourselves and offered up a Viking Oath to Norse god Thor, for strength, and Loki, the Trickster, for needed change; specifically, to have the Minnesota Vikings play on ALL cylinders, and to help get the Vikes out of any predicaments.

Did these rituals help the Vikings beat the Cowboys yesterday in the NFC Divisional Playoff game? Didn't hurt. Vikings = 34, Cowboys = 3.

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The Viking Oath.

I am Jeffrey James Francis Ircink of Waterford, Wisconsin, son of James the Bald and Dolores, defender of Vikings from the Bad Lands to Winter Park. I will show my horns to both friend and foe. One to give cheer, the other to give fear, such that it freeze the hearts of men who dare come to the land of ice and snow. They will know by where green and gold fled, by our feasting on lion and bear, by the horns on our head. I will show my horns in weather fair and foul. I will show my horns until I whisper SKOL with my last breath. I will show my horns to the young, because our story will be their lore. To this I pledge my sacred honor and my purple blood!

SKOL! SKOL! SKOL! (My brother Jason swears by the same oath) KILL THE COWBOYS!!!!

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