Look I’m not superstitious, but if I put my pants on right-to-left instead of left-to-right, I take them off, light them on fire, throw them in a trash can, and jump back in bed. Try again tomorrow, right? I hate it when people call me superstitious. No, I’m not superstitious.

[Realizes I forgot to dab 3 drops of shampoo in my hand instead of the customary 2, begins panicking.]

Okay, fine, I’m superstitious. But this is why I needed to share this with you. Over the weekend, my parents visited my house and handed me a light-blue tin can, which had an embossed gingerbread man design on the top. I had no idea what was inside, but my mother had this crazed, excited face like she had just won the lotto. I opened the tin can only to find the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I understood.

It was a potato chip, but it’s not some ordinary potato chip. It’s a special potato chip. It has a dark brown number 8 spot fried into that slender slice of potato. It’s an Utz salt and pepper chip.

You know who’s number 8? Alex Ovechkin.

You know who has salt and pepper hair? Alex Ovechkin.

You know what’s not getting eaten and having a shrine built around it until the 2015-16 season is over? This potato chip.

You guys, this is a sign. I don’t care what you think. This is the opposite of the oil painting. Every year, the Caps always come up short. The Caps didn’t win with more talent or better players. We needed a magical object sent to us from the Hockey Gods to give us good luck. This is that thing.

I keep thinking about it and yeah, I really think this year might be the year for the Caps to win that thing I’m totally not saying. No, I don’t have a neurosis.

This is my everything. This is what we all rally around: the Ovechchip.

Now please, no one screw this up.