All 20 sports puns I couldn’t share during my week-long pun ban for #BellLetsTalk

Hello newsletter friends. I mixed up the links. So if you’re looking for our hockey Valentine’s Day puns, head here. Sorry! Consider them my apology gift. My very punny apology gift.

If you’re a regular reader of our NHL coverage, you know two things:

What you might not know is that I really enjoy Bell Let’s Talk Day, a social media and charitable campaign sponsored by Bell Canada to raise awareness and end stigmas for mental health around the world. The idea is simple: for every tweet on Bell Let’s Talk Day with the hashtag #BellLetsTalk, five cents is donated by Bell to national mental health institutes and foundations through grants and donations.

For 2017, Bell claimed the campaign resulted in 131,705,010 interactions and $6,585,250 raised for mental health awareness in Canada.

But just as important is the feeling that people feel empowered to speak publicly about what they struggle with, without stigma and with others who share their experiences. Community is important, and that’s a big reason why I love the campaign so much. I’ve struggled with depression since childhood and getting to engage with others and break down stigma means a lot to me every year.

Anyway, as the day wound down I made a gambit with my followers and readers to add just a tad bit more engagement to the campaign.

It hit 50 RTs in about five minutes. I think my followers wanted to torture me for a good cause.

So, I followed through. I didn’t utter a single pun in public (Twitter or the articles I published) for an entire week. It was awful.

But what nobody knew is that I kept thinking of puns. And I wrote all of them down in a journal and documented my emotions through GIFs and videos.

And I will now unleash all of them on you at once.

My revenge is at hand!

For a good cause!

“How soon before we get a Marian Hossalad?

“My dad did something similar. He used to rent out yarn to people. A twineshare.”

“I hope Doug Wilson knows what he’s doing. The last time I didn’t Heed a good drow’s warning, I got shot by an arrow.”

People begin accusing me of hacking other Twitter accounts to get my pun fix.

It’s been one day.

“More like Darren Grovel.”

I start to realize that my readership has become a pun police state.

“Yes, Crosby is at the All-Star Game. But it’s just not the same without Staal or Nash.”

Without a pun outlet, my jokes turn spiteful.

“Boy, Jones is giving up a lot of soft goals. That’s why he’s called Mart-IN.”

“That name is purrfect.”

“Sergei Bobvroasted gets beat by Connor McDangle.”

“Tyler Seguin wanted to win the All-Star Game for the Dallas Stars because he thought the car was the Honda Blueline.”

I can’t handle it anymore. When Cam Atkinson scores his hat trick, I try to outsource my puns to my coworkers.

“Nobody watches Devils games anyway.”

At this point I’m harassing my coworkers behind the scenes with my attempts to find pun loopholes.

As I log off for the night, I write a note to myself.

“Shouldn’t have signed that sponsorship deal with Colgate.”

“If they did start that company, Stone and Gravel would need to ask Michael Ferland to use.”

As I hide my struggle with this ban from the public, it starts to pour out into the public sphere anyway.

I think of no puns today. My powers are gone. People still think I am hacking into other accounts, unaware that I don’t know how to use words anymore.

I had planned to unleash all of my puns at midnight on Wednesday. I don’t. I lack the energy necessary to interact with humans.

I don’t utter a single pun all day. I start to wonder if I broke myself. I apply to engineering colleges. I must restart my adulthood and find a new path.

And then, finally ...

I AM FREE. And everyone unfollows me again.

When it comes to helping out a good cause (even in a tiny way), I couldn’t think of a better pun-ishment.