Mike Emrick used an anecdote from his childhood to explain the Boston Bruins' performance Wednesday night

Mike "Doc" Emrick, lead play-by-play man for NBC's NHL coverage, is renowned as a man who can come up with lots of different words to replace the often simple language of hockey. Wednesday night, however, he came up with one that had many on Twitter and social media confused.

The Boston Bruins took on the New Jersey Devils in Newark, and Emrick was on the call with Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire. The Bruins took a 4-0 lead by the midway point of the second period. The Devils, however, came back to make it 4-3 by the early stages of the third period. The Bruins got one more on a Tyler Seguin goal, but New Jersey got back within one with 37 seconds to play and really dominated the third period.

The Bruins prevailed by the score of 5-4, however, but were lucky to get out of there without having to play overtime. "Sometimes you eat peas from a knife, and you still get nourishment," said Emrick.

Wait, what?

I'd never heard anyone say something like that before, certainly not during a hockey game. Internet search engines proved fruitless, so I went straight to the source and asked Doc where that came from. The answer, presented here in full, is somewhat interesting.

Chesterton, Indiana ... a miniature golf course when I was 8 ... the proprietor saw my brother clear a water hazard with a putter instead of the nine-iron provided (an elaborate miniature golf course).

He said, 'you ate peas with a knife.' In other words, you got there but it wasn't pretty. Seemed like it finally fit. Only took about 55 years.

There you have it. Sometimes, these references don't turn out to be anything more than something simple, but that right there is a pretty cool story. Thanks to Doc for the answer.