What’s In A Number?

Some psychologists like to use a technique called word-association to reveal latent or unconscious associations that may assist their clients in progressing with the therapeutic process. For some caffeinated reason I tried this on August 2nd (using jersey numbers as my theme) and thought the results were interesting.

Try it with your favourite team in mind or no team or sport in particular and see what happens for you. If you try it again in six months, your results should be different and perhaps, revealing. The rules; get the numbers written or typed out first and then go through number by number and see what you come up with. I gave myself a time limit of about four or five seconds but I usually had the answer in less time than that. I started writing last names at #37 because the coffee kicked in. I didn’t go in with the Canadiens in mind as the team but clearly my mind went in with the Canadiens in, uh, mind. Feel free to share your results with us.

[column width="32%" padding="20%"]
1 Jacques Plante
2 Doug Harvey
3 Brian Engblom
4 Jean Beliveau
5 Bernie Geoffrion
6 Pierre Mondou
7 Phil Esposito
8 Doug Risebrough
9 Gordie Howe
10 Guy Lafleur
11 Kirk Muller
12 Yvan Cournoyer
13 Dan Marino
14 Mike McTague
15 Glen Metropolit
16 Bobby Clarke
17 Georges Laraque
18 Serge Savard
19 Larry Robinson
20 Bryan Smolinski
21 Chris Higgins
22 Steve Shutt
23 Bob Gainey
24 Chris Chelios
[/column] [column width="47%" padding="0"]
25 Jacques Lemaire
26 Pierre Dagenais
27 Sergio Momesso
28 Kyle Chipchura
29 Ken Dryden
30 Patrick Roy*
31 Carey Price
32 OJ Simpson
33 Patrick Roy
34 Peter Popovich
35 Tomas Plekanec**
36 Lester Smith ***
37 (Patrick) Poulin
38 (Mike) Lalor
39 (Cristobal) Huet
40 (Maxim) Lapierre
41 (Jaroslav) Halak
42 (Alexander) Perezhogin
43 (Patrice) Brisebois
44 (Roman) Hamrlik
45 Michael Jordan****
46 AK46
47 nobody came to mind
48 (JJ) Daigneault
[/column]
[end_columns]

* Roy was photographed in a #30 jersey once
** Tomas Plekanec started with #35 and now wears #14
*** This slot stayed blank for a while
**** Jordan wore #45 early in his first comeback before switching back to #23

Related posts:

1. Two Words, One Coach
2. Name That Stick II
3. Name That Stick
4. Process
5. Two Words, One Centre
6. Renaming the NHL