Merry Christmas, hockey fans: Time for the ‘Funeral Burgers’

We have but three traditions here at Puck Daddy for Christmas.

The first is to wish all of our readers a happy and healthy holiday season, and to thank you for your continued support of this blog and its many offshoots.

The second is to eat cookies. Many, many cookies. Enough cookies to choke a brontosaurus.

The third is to publish The Funeral Burgers!

In 2008, the story of the Chicago Blackhawks' surprise bus trip to the wake of then-General Manager Dale Tallon's father, and subsequent visit to a small-town McDonald's in Canada, became a national sensation after an anonymous email spun a tale of rickety bus rides (no heat!) and frozen landscapes and acts of generosity.

It was an instant Hockey Holiday Classic, for all the right reasons; at a time when athletes' reputations are only as admirable as their next contract negotiation or TMZ video, the Blackhawks reminded hockey fans that tremendous moments of kindness and consideration can still come from professional players.

In order to give this inspiring yarn a proper presentation, we enlisted the help of the great Wes Johnson -- actor, comedian and arena voice of the Washington Capitals -- for a dramatic reading of the story we formally dubbed "The Funeral Burgers," because every hokey Christmas story needs some sort of object-based title. (See: "The Christmas Shoes," "The Christmas Toy," yadda yadda.) And we celebrate it every year.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Dec. 26, unless something huge breaks today. Merry Christmas to all, and thanks again for supporting this silly blog.

What was your best gift today? Did you, like, get anything NHL related?