ECHL player takes break from hockey to play 'meow game' in interview

He wasn't jumping around all nimbly-pimbly or drinking milk from a saucer, but it was obvious that something was amiss not too long into Ray Kaunisto's interview during the intermission of his Kalamazoo Wings' ECHL game.

If you haven't seen the 2001 comedy "Super Troopers," in which the "meow game" made its first appearance, Kaunisto's feat won't have much meaning. But the Wings' forward slips an impressive seven "meows" into his 40-second interview, surpassing the rate of ten "meows" in 82 seconds set in the movie.

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Kaunisto isn't the first interviewee to allude to "Super Troopers," a movie regarded by many as a seminal work of western canon. Panthers safety Thomas DeCoud, then with the Atlanta Falcons, worked multiple "meows" into a live interview on Sportscenter in 2012.

Why so many references more than a decade after the movie was released? Like DeCoud before him, Kaunisto proves that great works of art have enduring power, providing inspiration for generations after their creation.

- Christopher Woody