Alright, Who Screwed Up and Forgot to Tell Micah Parsons How to Do a Ceremonial Puck Drop?

Not since Ricky Watters has Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, produced an NFL star on par with Micah Parsons, so you can’t blame the Hershey Bears, the nearby AHL affiliate of the Washington Capitals, for wanting to celebrate the native son by inviting him to do the ceremonial puck drop ahead of their game on Sunday.

What you can blame them for is not explaining to Parsons how the ceremonial puck drop works.

For reference, here’s what it looks like when these things go according to plan, as it did when Dirk Nowitzki showed up to drop the puck for a Stars game in 2019:

Unfortunately, it seems no one in the Bears organization bothered running down the protocol to Parsons, which is how we wound up here:

Thanks for coming last night, @MicahhParsons11!

We are so sorry for not explaining how a puck drop works. That one is on us. Our bad. pic.twitter.com/WESn2ahUkd
— x – Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) April 25, 2022

I love everything about this. The poor social media person’s extremely earnest apology in the tweet. The dimmed lights and stick-tapping crescendo accompanying Parsons—in a custom jersey, no less—as he walks down the black carpet. The jersey itself, which is phenomenal. And, most of all, the star linebacker’s shrug after he plunks the puck on the ice because, hey, you said drop it, and that’s exactly what I just did.

The whole thing is an inadvertent delight. But next time, maybe take a fiver and give him the lay of the land?