There’s nothing like the winter sport playoffs when it comes to constant drama and white knuckle rooting. It’s a season onto itself. That season also brings a sub-season, if you will: The season of political heads of each city betting food with the political head of the city whose team you are playing in the playoffs. The mayors of the Stanley Cup champion city and the NBA Champion city will acquire a lot of food over the next two months … and hopefully they will feed the good citizens of their city and not their own mouths.
The mayors of Calgary and Vancouver could have made a great food bet in advance of the Flames and Canucks first round series, but Calgary’s mayor isn’t a big fan of salmon and Vancouver’s mayor doesn’t like beef. To this I say … who elected these people??? But they have settled on a triple pronged bet that includes donations to a food bank, a jersey exchange, and poetry. (Yes … poetry. You see, Canadians are different than you and me.)
So leave it to the mayors of Oakland and New Orleans to throw down a great food bet, which they did on Friday … the eve of the first round matchup between the Warriors and the Pelicans. Spoiler alert: There’s no poetry involved:
“After a thrilling regular season, we’re pulling for the Splash Brothers, Coach Kerr, and the rest of this dynamic team to bring a title home to Oakland,” Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement.
Schaaf will send Mayor Landrieu of New Orleans five pounds of OCHO chocolate, a gift box of Numi Organic Tea, a bag of Blue Bottle Coffee and a t-shirt from Oaklandish if the Warriors lose. Landrieu will send Schaaf some Café Du Monde beignets, a bag of PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans, Pat O’Brien’s – World Famous – Hurricane Mix and a t-shirt from Fleurty Girl if the Pelicans lose.
“We’ve got a young, hungry team led by rising star Anthony Davis that is ready to make some noise in this year’s NBA playoffs,” Landrieu said.
Having had a World Famous Hurricane and those Café Du Monde beignets, Oakland had better get ready for some culinary pornography going on in their mouths because those beignets are outstanding! (Just be careful with that Hurricane mix. Too strong and you’re counting backwards from 1,000 and skipping 997 to 515 to three. And then you’re on the floor.) Oakland probably should have had Pat O’Brien’s throw in some jambalaya, because their version is severely underrated.
As for Mayor Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, sounds like she’ll really enjoy her haul. My bet is that she’ll have to order the stuff online on her own. Sorry, Pelicans.
(Image of Steph Curry going through three Pelicans by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
