Reading Diary A: Great Plains

I’ve heard the story about The Buffalo and the Grizzly (The Great Plains unit) before in a previous class, but it’s still one of my favorites. I’m already thinking about ways that I could possibly do this for my storytelling post. There are even two hockey teams I could use if I wanted to continue putting hockey twists to things: the Buffalo Sabres and the Boston Bruins.

One player I could feature for the Sabres would be Marcus Foligno, and for Boston it would be Matt Bartkowski. Bartkowski currently plays for the Vancouver Canucks, but he and Foligno fought each other last season when he was still on the Bruins.

I think they would work because this folktale kinda resembles what started the fight. Bartowski laid a hard and high hit on Gianta, making him go down to ice hard. In the story, the buffalo is just standing around, minding his own business, when the grizzly bear attacks him.

Unlike the story, Foligno immediately attacks back (technically, that would make him a second buffalo in the story – which isn’t canon – but just go with it), which the buffalo eventually does. Foligno goes on to win the fight (in my opinion, and according to the consensus of voters on the fight on hockeyfights.com) – much like how the buffalo wins the fight against the bear in the story.

Or, I can just treat the whole thing as a metaphor for Jack Eichel – one of the most highly touted American rookies from the 2015 NHL draft – being harassed by a Bruins player for the puck. The buffalo “winning the fight” would be Eichel scoring a game winning goal in overtime.

Jack Eichel (I saved this picture a long time ago from Twitter and now I
can't find the source but it's just too great to not use)