San Jose Sharks Gameday: Mississippi Hot Pocket

Dipping tobacco, also known as "chew," "dip," "snuff," "mouth tobakee," and "fucking gross," is a form of smokeless tobacco that is used by putting a bunch of it inside your lower lip and absorbing the nicotine through the blood vessels in the mouth. It is similar to chewing tobacco, but comes pre-shredded and moistened, so users don't have to chew it up themselves and can just pop a pinch of it into their horrible horrible mouths.

Boy I'm sorry about this folks.

I shouldn't have to spell this out for anyone, but "dipping," as the practice of using dipping tobacco is called, is disgusting. It involves stuffing your lips with as much of the tobacco (which often looks very similar to feces) as you can and letting it sit there. Then, as Wikipedia explains:

dip often causes the user to produce excess saliva during the act of dipping. This is typically spat onto the ground or in a container, because swallowing can cause irritation to the esophagus and induce nausea and vomiting. However, long-time users can swallow the tobacco-saliva with no ill effects. This is also called "gutting" the snuff.

Obviously dipping ruins your mouth. It cuts up your gums and destroys your teeth and causes cancer all over your stupid face. It's also bad for your body in a bunch of other ways and is highly addictive. But even if it DIDN'T have health consequences it would still be a ghastly habit because of all the god damn spitting, and those who do it should be ridiculed and shunned.

Dip users may be the only population dumber on average than both Puck Daddy commenters and people who use Yahoo Answers.

Dip users (commonly called "dippers" or "dipshits") have their own sub-culture of which I was, until recently, blissfully ignorant. In fact, prior to last week, I had basically completely forgotten that chewing tobacco was a thing that still existed. It seemed like a relic from the old west, or something that only happens in movies when they want to portray a character as low-class and disgusting. Maybe I'm sheltered because I grew up in the Bay Area and then moved to Southern California, the two best places in the entire world. I've been fortunate, and have never really had to deal with people who like to partake in traditional redneck activities, like dipping. I had no idea how popular it still is, and how many people apparently do it.

Dip culture came to my attention recently after I couldn't resist reading through the tweets of one the genetic all-stars featured by the Yes, You're Racist Twitter account (shockingly, there seems to be a significant overlap between racists and dip users). The racist in question had re-tweeted several things from a Twitter account devoted entirely to talking about dipping tobacco use and the fratboy homophobic asshole racist redneck culture surrounding it - an account with nearly 60,000 followers. 60,000 people are re-tweeting things like this and this and this. I couldn't believe it!

And then Rudy had to go and make it worse by telling me that a lot of hockey players are dip users.

Needless to say, I was horrified.

(Also Rudy used "dip" as a verb and so did PPP and I am not comfortable with this at all. They were both apparently familiar with the dip lingo and I am now very suspicious of both of these guys. Watch them carefully and do not let them babysit your children.)

I felt terrible. How could this be? Could there really be a connection between the only sport I care about and one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard of? I had to know more. I had to find out how deep the spittoon went.

My first step to finding out the truth was calling upon all my insider hockey sources: I asked my good friend Judson if his brother Logan Couture uses dip. Judson didn't reply. So that was my single hockey source, exhausted without any payoff. The rest of this I just found by Googling.

Could this be the face of a dipper? Sources close to Logan would neither confirm nor deny it.

I wanted to find out which players we know for sure partake in this horrible habit. To my dismay I found that Alex Ovechkin is a confirmed user. Todd Bertuzzi is too, but that I didn't care about nearly as much because screw that guy. I also found a lot of speculation about other players, but nothing definite. Several sites mention the practice of hockey players putting dip between their toes during games, to absorb the nicotine into their body while playing. There are also plenty of articles like this one about college sports which include vague assertions that dipping is a really common habit but with no definite statistics or anything.

Though hard facts about this subject are rare online, you can find plenty of opinion pieces and enlightened discussion regarding dip and hockey. The Ultimate Hockey Player's Guide to Chew/Dip (Simplified) is a good place to start. It's full of useful tips like:

If there is a P next to the description, DO NOT GET IT. THIS MEANS YOU ARE A PUSSY FOR CHEWING IT.

and

Griz is respected in the lockerroom. Thats all there is to it. Don't give me shit for not liking griz, its cheap as shit. G (GAY)

If you're like me, you already feel like you know more than you ever wanted to about dip and the kind of people who care about dip.

Next we have this article from Gongshow Hockey. The article itself simply asks readers which they prefer between the brands Copenhagen and Skoal, and is one of the least offensive pieces I found in my research. The comments, on the other hand...

all you sayin you like this apple or peach shit, are pansy fucks. and you people who will pick grizzly or kodiak over copenhagen or even skoal are idiots or amateurs.

to who ever said this bs like, who cares, dip is dip, you prolly don't dip at all, some dip is pussy dip, don't cut the lip good, shit like grizzly, its shitty dip, and ppl who use it should get reamed out. but i do agree when it comes to skoal or cope it doesn't matter, i chew both equally here in the good ole U.S. of A. It's just a matter of what is available and what store...for example, mobile gas stations (exxon i think in canada) only carries skoal, whereas stewerts shops carry both. My biggest problem is getting my hands on some cope black, they don't even carry that awesome shit in tabacco stores in NY, FUCKIN BLOWS

Hahaha, plugs out east can't handle cope. Son, I will chew more cope this month than you will in your entire life time...and wait...I'm from out west. I've been in this game for a long time, and I'me stayed true to my cope. And if you think cope is the tougher flavour...therefore you westerners are tougher than us boys from the east...I'll give you the first 5 shots...we'll see whos still standing after round one.

So yeah.

And finally we have this YouTube video:

Chewing Tobacco (via and1productions)

To be honest I'm not sure if this video is sarcastic or not. I don't know if it's actually anti-dipping or if it's making fun of people who are anti-dipping. Who cares. Let's look at the comments!

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Today's book is Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a book with a title that fits perfectly with the foul subject matter of this post. It's an amazing collection of short stories by one of the finest writers of the modern age, but I'm not going to talk about it any more here because I don't want it associated with dipping in my brain.

The Blackhawks lost last night, so San Jose is currently the only unbeaten team. They have a chance to extend their winning streak tonight against a team they've already beaten once, the Edmonton Oilers. It's very exciting, in principle, but since both teams are probably made up of a bunch of dippers I don't know if I can stomach watching it.

Prediction: I'm too horrified at the thought of Brent Burns dipping to care who wins the game, but the Sharks win 5-2. I can't see who scores the goals because I am crying.

Before we go, here's one last tip: if you are squeamish or value your sanity, do NOT do a Google image search for anything involving any sort of chewing tobacco.

Jesus god, the things I have seen.