Shithole Honestly

Road games are undeniably an important part of an NHL team’s schedule. Finding ways to win on the road is crucial, and that means considering everything up to and including the mode of transport. Most NHL teams charter VIP-configured large passenger aircraft for travel (with the notable exception of the Detroit Red Wings, who share use of the last remaining McDonnell Douglas MD-81 with the Detroit Tigers); this reduces costs for teams, as they don’t have to be responsible for aircraft maintenance and the planes are free to transport other teams around during homestands. But one particular plane has been having an unfortunate effect on teams this season, leading to speculation that this aircraft might be somehow cursed.

N803TJ is a Boeing 737-400 owned and operated by aviation charter company iAero Airways (previously Swift Air). It is a 29 year old aircraft, first delivered to LOT Polish Airlines in 1993 under the registration number SP-LLB. Aside from a four month lease to AeroSvit Airlines (a now-defunct Ukranian airline) from December 2003 to April 2004, it remained in service with LOT until its withdrawal from the LOT fleet on November 6, 2012. Swift Air purchased the aircraft in 2013, reconfigured the cabin for VIP charter use, and registered it in the United States as N803TJ.

It is unknown at which point the aircraft became cursed—or indead, if it has always been a blighted beast.

Fig. 1. N803TJ during takeoff at Fayetteville Drake Field (FYV) in Arkansas in February 2020. It was transporting the University of Missouri men’s basketball team, who had just lost to the Arkansas Razorbacks. Photo by Andrew Hutnyan.

But how do we know that N803TJ is cursed?

The record for road games across the NHL at this point in the season is 69-75-11, or a points percentage of 0.481. This is slightly lower than the 0.500, indicative of home ice advantage, but teams are still winning a nice amount of road games.

The record for road games when N803TJ is involved in transport, however, is a stunning 1-9-0, or 0.100, well below the league average. Only one team in the league has a worse road percentage at this point (the Ottawa Senators, who have lost all four of their road games so far). The Pittsburgh Penguins, who relied on N803TJ during their western Canada road trip, proceeded to lose four games straight on that trip and have struggled ever since. Additionally, when the Boston Bruins seized the sole road victory for a team transported by N803TJ, their opponent was the Penguins, who were coming off that long road trip on N803TJ, and though the Bruins snatched an overtime victory, they still had two players leave the game due to injury. N803TJ’s curse is not easily thwarted.

Table 1. Travel around the NHL using N803TJ as of the morning of 11/03/2022. The Bruins play an N803TJ-affected game in New York later today.

So what can teams do about this? Well, for one, they can avoid N803TJ. The majority of the league charters flights either from Delta Airlines or from Air Canada, and as such those teams have no reason to worry about an aircraft owned and operated by iAero Airways. However, for those teams that do charter from iAero, there is little to be done to avoid N803TJ, as aircraft are dispatched as needed and refusing to use an aircraft would not be met kindly by iAero due to the negative impact on their flight coordination and resource management. Affected teams would be advised to look into methods of cursebreaking and protection instead, for though N803TJ and its curse might be unavoidable, it is not all-powerful and the effects can certainly be mitigated.