GDB79: A chip and a chair

Sometimes you find yourself walking into a casino and you tell yourself “Self – you have exactly $100 to play with tonight. Ok, if you really want to you can also hit up the ATM for another $100 but seriously that’s it.” Then you blast through the first hundo, hit up the ATM twice for a pair of centuries and find yourself sitting at the table with $40 you borrowed off your buddy. It’s just you and the dealer and the two of you know it’s time for one thing and one thing only.

The miracle gambler’s run.

We have a buddy Smigs who is the master at the one-in-a-million-bounce-back-run. The run where they call the pit boss over and Security first pats you down and then sends you through a portable MRI machine they bring out on to the gaming floor. After a few minutes of trying to figure out how you are beating the system they come to the horrific realization. You aren’t cheating with secret electronic devices. You aren’t counting cards nor is the dealer playing with a marked deck.

Even a garbage can gets a steak on occasion Nation. And that is basically what we are looking for tonight. The Oil have maxed out the proverbial ATM, borrowed cash of everyone they could and they sit at the black jack table down  to their last chip. But the wonderful thing about gambling and having a 0.0015% chance of making the playoffs is that you aren’t out until you have absolutely nothing left. As long as you can steal from the waitresses tip jar, as long as you can pray for a influeza epedemic to hit St. Louis, as long as you have a whisper of a chance it ain’t over.

It’s all you really need. A chip and a chair – and you can bring it all back from the dead. You repay all your buddies, graciously overtip the waitress you robbed earlier, tip the dealer and bounce from the casino with your wallet stuffed full of Bordens. It don’t happen every day and it don’t happen to everybody.

But it can happen.

So bring on the Vancouver Canucks and their army of hippie Sedin-loving fans. What do we collectively have to lose?

Chip and a chair.

Right Smigs?