My stag ran into Emery and Heatley 5 or 6 years ago one summer in Kelowna. In our beer filled splendor, my bro (who is a HUGE Isles fan) bet him $500 the Flyers wouldn't make the playoffs that year (a lot of dough for my brother, but f-all for Emery). They shook, phone numbers exchanged, and that was the end of it.
Emery almost single handedly got the Flyers in that year with his play down the stretch. When they made it in, almost immediately my brother got a text saying thanks for the bet, but don't worry about paying it. All good.
I'd like to think the Flyers owe my stepbrother a lot of thanks for giving Ray the motivation to play like that. I doubt it had anything to do with it, but hey it's a #coolstorybro for a guy that was pretty cool to hang with a bunch of drunk dudes talking trash about his team, took it all in good fun, and made a friendly bet that he actually remembered 8 months later. Guy seemed like a bit of a hot head on the ice, but that wasn't the impression I got off ice.
Anyway. RIP.
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