Joining Caps defenseman John Carlson in Tampa for this weekend’s road trip are his wife Gina and son Lucca. Gina and Lucca spent the afternoon at the Lowry Park Zoo, which is where we learned that penguin-hating runs in the family.
Gina Carlson posted this video to Instagram.
Without provocation, Lucca smacks his hand on the glass on the penguin enclosure, startling and delighting onlookers who are old enough to remember any of the eight times the Pittsburgh Penguins have eliminated the Capitals from the playoffs since 1991.
Lucca joins another Caps kid, Lyla Oshie, in shared Pens-hate. Last April, young Oshie was filmed kicking a Penguins poster.
I should note that the hockey team the Penguins is not actually officially affiliated with penguin animals, of which there at least 17 different species under the order Sphenisciformes. The Penguins team is most often associated with Emperor or King penguins, who have yellow gradients on their breasts, whereas Lucca harassed an African penguin, or Spheniscus demersus.
Demersus is quite small compared to his prehistoric relatives, such as Palaeeudyptes klekowskii, or the colossus penguin, who stood larger than a man but smelled worse.
Palaeeudyptes klekowskii, el pingüino 'coloso', hace 36 millones de años… pic.twitter.com/LkHeQzJvna
— Gerardo Sifuentes (@Sifuentes) August 4, 2014
While Caps players and their children advertise their almost-inborn dislike of the Penguins, they probably hold no ill will towards actual penguins, who serve an important role in the interdependent intricacies of our planet’s ecology.
As always, we at RMNB will keep you posted about any further Penguin-related metaphorical violence.
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