Yu-Gi-Oh Makes Surprise Appearance at Recent NHL Game

As Yu-Gi-Oh approaches 1000 overall episodes and prepares for the next generation of its anime series next year, the franchise has had a huge impact among fans. Beginning with a humble manga series running in the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, Kazuki Takahashi’s Yu-Gi-Oh! has since spawned numerous sequels, spin-offs, video games, and an ultra popular trading card game still being played today. In fact, the trading card game is so popular it’s managed to break into the world of hockey! One of the cards took NHL fans by surprise when it made a cameo during a recent San Jose Sharks game.

In the game between the San Jose Sharks and the New York Islanders over the weekend, Reddit user azakus spotted a hilarious cameo from Yu-Gi-Oh’s Time Wizard crafted in honor of San Jose Sharks player Timo Meier.

Timo Meier is a pretty big hit with San Jose Sharks fans, and every time he scores a goal the catchphrase is “It’s Timo Time!” The fan in the audience plays into this hilariously by sporting a Time Wizard card and putting Meier’s face smack dab in the middle. This makes it the “Timo Wizard,” and is a fun play on both fan-favorites that shows both sports and anime cross over in pretty unexpected ways.

Fans might recognize the Time Wizard from the first era of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series as it was one of the monsters Joey Wheeler often relied on before the rules of the in-universe card game were cemented in place. Using it as a trump card of sorts, Joey would often be lucky enough to use Time Wizard’s ability to send the monsters on the field into the future and aging them in all sorts of ways that fans would never be able to replicate in the real trading card game.

Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally created by Kazuki Takahashi for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and ran from September 1996 to March 2004. The series follows Yugi Mutou, a young boy who solves an ancient puzzle and is possessed by the spirit of the Egyptian pharoah. Being skilled at deadly games, the Pharoah goes on to create and solve problems for Yugi based on deadly games of chance. Two anime adaptations were created for the series, but the one most fans will recognize is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.

Duel Monsters was the first arc in the story to focus on the “Duel Monsters” card game and was the first season licensed for an English language release by 4Kids Entertainment. The first season of the series, which fans often dub as “Season 0,” has such deadly games of chance with horrible consequences that fans could not believe it was a part of this series at first.