If a Pittsburgh Bar Is Banning Sam Adams, Boston Should Ban Emoticons and Ketchup

Photo via Facebook.com

When a sports rivalry gets real intense, competing cities start to act out in an effort to honor their respective home team.

Take, for example, the Massachusetts businesses that temporarily changed their names during the Super Bowl showdown between the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens in January. More than one restaurant placed impromptu placards on the storefronts of their shops to save face as their beloved football team tried to secure another championship title. Albeit, the name changes didn’t help.

The latest example of this, however, comes from hockey fans in Pennsylvania. As the series between the Boston Bruins and the Penguins nears, owners of a bar in Pittsburgh have vowed to stop serving Sam Adams beers, because of its ties to the Boston, for as long as the series lasts.

In a Facebook post on the Howlers Coyote Café’s fan page, “a public service announcement” from the staff said they would cease pouring the specific brew (turns out some beers are actually made in Pennsylvania, so joke is on them), and all other Boston made beers.

Of course, once the photo was passed around the Internet on Thursday, just two days before the start of the series in Pittsburgh, both Penguins and Bruins fans reacted. “Oh that is so Vancouver childish of you. We would never do that in Boston even if [expletive-burgh] had anything worth importing. [The] series ha[s]n’t even started and you are already displaying your ignorance,” wrote one Boston fan.

Turns out, however, Pittsburgh does have stuff worth banning that originally came from the city, and if Boston should stoop as low as its competitor (which it should), hockey fans should stop using the following things until the series comes to an end:

Emoticons
That’s right, the little digital smiley-face that is used in text messages and e-mails was the product of a Pittsburgh professor. According to CBS Pittsburgh, some 30 years ago Scott Fahlman came up with the emoticon as he exchanged messages with colleagues during his time at Carnegie Mellon University. He had no idea it would catch, he told reporters in 2012. Lets end the popular trend of expressing emotion through punctuation marks by banning them in Boston during the upcoming series.

Emoticon photo via Shutterstock.com

Heinz Ketchup
This one may be difficult to avoid, especially when crowding bars along Causeway Street to catch the hockey games, but try and skip the ketchup on your burgers and fries, and maybe just stick to A1 sauce. Heinz is headquartered in Pittsburgh, and that’s where the business began.  While you’re at it, stop eating Big Macs for a few days, too.

Photo via Flickr.com

Bingo
This may only apply to a certain generation, however, it’s best to keep the gambling going with just scratch tickets and Keno during the faceoff between the Penguins and Bruins, because the old-timey game of Bingo was also hatched in the rival city of Pittsburgh. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the game was conceived by resident Hugh J. Ward in the 1920’s during carnivals held in the area. He later secured a copyright for bingo and in 1933 wrote the first book of bingo rules, according to reports.

Photo via Steve Annear