Why Does He Do That?: Andrew Gordon

I've decided to start a new feature on my blog, "Why Does He Do That?" - dedicated to hockey players' strange quirks or routines that may leave fans with questions. 

We'll start off with Andrew Gordon of the Hershey Bears. Over the past several games (well, not the past two as he was recently injured) I've noticed that after he hits an opponent, he will often pause and pat the fallen opponent on the head before skating away. Take a look at the video above from the Bears playoff series with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. At around 1:02, Gordon lays a nice hit on Sound Tiger Jesse Joensuu. Joensuu is is knocked to the ice from the force of the hit, while Gordon is able to stay on his skates. As he starts to skate away, he pats the fallen Joensuu on the helmet. Joensuu, clearly ticked off at this gesture, grapples with his stick to try to maybe hook Gordon as he skates off.

I'm friends with Andrew Gordon on Facebook, and he's very active with fan outreach on there. So I asked him what was up with the love pats. He answered my question later that day.

He said he doesn't do it every time, but sometimes he does if an opponent is going to hit him and he ends up taking the opponent down on the hit instead. "Tipping their helmet after you've already embarrassed them just rattles them a little more," he says. He does it to build up rivalries with guys on other teams, so that when he lines up for a faceoff, he knows who is going to play him physical, and thus he's able to see the hits coming in advance.

Now that we know, that little quirk makes a lot more sense. I mostly just found it amusing that our smiley Gordo has a little mean streak in him! RoaRR wishes him a speedy recovery, especially now that the Manchester Monarchs have tied up the conference series. Go Bears!

See any other players doing weird stuff you'd like explained? Make suggestions to me on Twitter for future "Why Does He Do That?" posts.