Vikings Fans Can Now Literally Knock On Wood

“Don’t jinx it!”

“Oh great, you blew it. Now that you mentioned it, it won’t happen.”

“You better be knocking on wood!”

Every time I write or tweet something even remotely hopeful or refer to the Vikings being in a playoff round that isn’t the actual game on Sunday, I immediately get a handful of responses like those above.

While Vikings fans are incredibly excited about the potential of a deep playoff run right now, it’s practically illegal to vocalize it in any way. After decades of soul-crushing losses in the NFL’s second season, we’re understandably wary of anything that might ruin the momentum with this team. These beliefs are in no way based in reality or logic, but they are still very real in our minds. We want to be positive, but we also don’t want to hex the Vikings’ possible good fortune. It’s a difficult conundrum.

Thankfully, some innovative fans have the perfect do-it-yourself solution for this problem. Introducing: Victory Blocks.

Some employees of Little & Company, a Minneapolis-based design firm, were talking about how ridiculously superstitious every Vikings fan is when the playoffs roll around. As a joke, they started saying that every Vikings fan needed to carry wood around with them so they could knock on wood all the time and not jinx anything. That night, one industrious innovator went home and created just that: Vikings-themed blocks of wood that you could take everywhere. Suddenly, Victory Blocks were born. Their site explains it perfectly:

After decades of heartbreak, missed field goals and fourth down mistakes, we’re feeling it. We’re dreaming our crazy dreams.

It’s our time. But, good God, let’s not jinx it.

So when you need to say it loud, when you want to believe the unbelievable...just knock on wood.

Knock loud. Knock proud. And believe.

Because this is our year. (Knock on wood.)

This isn’t anyone trying to make a quick buck on the team’s success or anything. It’s simply a fun idea to get Vikings fans excited and hopefully spread some good luck throughout Minnesota. If you head to VictoryBlocks.com, you won’t find a link to purchase them; you will get some easy instructions for making your own though!

I was fortunate enough to have Traci from Little & Company drop off one of the Victory Blocks “prototypes” today, which you can see in the headline picture. It’s an incredibly clever and simple idea; even someone as non-handy as me could probably make them.

So get out there to your local hardware stores, whip up some Victory Blocks of your own, and knock on wood no matter where you’re watching the game on Sunday! It’s a good project to kill time before kickoff too.

I know I’ll be using mine on Sunday afternoon—hopefully they work!*

(*=And if they do work, maybe we’ll have to figure out a way to mass-produce more of them before the NFC Championship Game!**)

(**=Don’t worry, I used the Victory Blocks right after typing that last sentence.)