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Monday’s FTB: luck, jinxes, and a winning mentality

So, it’s today. Game 7. Never thought we’d be here again. Remember when Dave Hodge said after Game 4 that this series lacked interest, was that a jinx? Or when we all (ok, me) seemed pretty confident the Leafs were going to win Game 5? Or when fans started speculating about third round opponents before the playoffs had even begun? Seems far-fetched.

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out where jinxes and superstitions come from, especially in sports, and I found a couple really interesting papers. Links below. In the first one, the authors say that people try to create the perception of a relationship between two unrelated things in order to blame something obvious and visible rather than the combination of many smaller things.