Man, It's a Good Thing The Eagles Made the Playoffs

Great, I have to go to Deadspin to find out the real reason my favorite hockey team is in a serious tailspin...

A season that many thought would be a promising turning point for the Philadelphia Flyers has devolved into a chaotic nightmare of failed playoff dreams. So obviously someone must be banging a teammate's wife, right?

Right around the time that the Flyers were drubbed by division rival Pittsburgh this week, the blog "The Philly Four" addressed the rumor that dissension had split the Philly locker room in half. The alleged cause of the partisan bickering? Centerman Jeff Carter is boning the wife of teammate Scott Hartnell. Ouch.

A source close to the Flyers (who is not the editor of this website) tell us that the affair rumor is untrue, although there is a history of these sorts of stories being bandied about. Urban legend has it that Philly's own Rod Brind'Amour was traded to Carolina after Eric Lindros slept with his woman. Ted Nolan was allegedly fired from his coaching duties in Buffalo because he slipped one past the goalie's wife. Brendan Shanahan's current spouse is the ex-spouse of his former St. Louis Blues teammate Craig Janney. (That one is true, actually.) Basically, anytime two guys on a hockey team don't get along, every one just automatically assumes that someone slipped into someone else's penalty box It's (almost) always nonsense, but it does make for good barroom talk.

The lesson here? Marriage ruins sports. See Woods, Tiger.

Jokes aside, I loved this comment regarding the Lindros/Brind'Amour rumors: "In Lindros's defense, he was unconscious when that happened."