Post by Old Bucks Admin on Mar 29, 2012 6:26:02 GMT -5
A whole fortnight elapsed between the end of the hockey season and the Old Bucks Awards, building anticipation to Oscar-like levels. It was a gala event with all the men washed, combed and shaved while their better halves, decked out in their choicest attire, bore no sign they had just spent six months working their fingers to the bone so their husbands could play hockey Sunday nights. It was another banner year for Red who filled the all-purpose room of the Pennington Firehouse like battle-proud warriors drinking the choicest mead after a great victory. Only Eddie didn’t show as he took Nick’s e-mail to “use the back entrance” as a personal slight, much in the vein of Craig Allen’s statement in Week 18 that Eddie “can’t afford to live in Lawrenceville”. The rest of the club brushed it off, most of whom are old hats when it comes to discreetly ducking into the back entrances of places where to be seen at the front entrance might give rise to scandal.
But what a difference a year makes. In 2011 Paul Egan was too embarrassed to bring wine to the Old Bucks Awards; this year he practically flaunted it in everybody’s face. He did cook up a batch of beer-friendly wings, probably as a way to show the club that for all his elite airs, he still has his butler put his pants on one leg at a time. Paul rounded out a fairly large Blue contingent that included Fred Diaz, Steve Souza, Rich Cerbone, Brian Urban, and of course, Saunders, who looked the very image of well-groomed coarseness. We even saw a few instances of Red deigning to mingle with Blue (Tim White, for example, chatting up Rich Devlin) though its condescension, by now, has become so ingrained it’s unconscious. All were united, however, in paying tribute to the small contingent of Old Bucks retirees, namely Bob Melby, Bill McDowell and Angie who as a lineal descendent of Joey Bishop, was tapped to MC the awards presentation. Bill McDowell regretted not being able to make it to the rink this year, but pleaded his pet obsession, that of genetically altering apples so they can be grown with the supermarket stickers already on them. He more than compensated by bringing a hollowed-out cane filled with whiskey which he dispensed to all and sundry, forming at one table a small coterie of amiable tipplers that became the hub of the evening’s events. Bill, by the way, is now an octogenarian, meaning he gets up eight times during the night to go to the bathroom. When he makes it to ten, Willard Scott will announce it on the “Today” show.
Kenny was pretty tight-lipped about awardees; hence when Angie took the stage, mic in hand, a palpable tension filled the air. It was somewhat dispelled by the good-natured raillery that greeted his expansive grin and outsized glasses. There were shouts of “Do you still think the NHL is fixed?” and “What about Old Bucks? Is it fixed?” prompting Paul Egan, the incorrigible punster, in the midst of filling his cup for the fifth time, to chime in, “I thought the term was ‘neutered!’” (Poor Paul: If his skates were only as quick as his repartee he’d be unstoppable). Angie stumbled at first, referring to the wives as “fraus” instead of “frauleines” but acquitted himself well thereafter. He began with the “Mike the Czech” award and a lengthy preamble about who Mike the Czech was. The award went to Mike Robbins who availed himself of the mic in order to thank everyone in his hockey career who has ever had to endure his predilection for hogging the ice, particularly his “buds” at the Bridgewater (MA not NJ) Hockey Club, all of whom seemed to have names culled from the pages of a Zane Grey novel like Trevor, Luke, Bo and Mitt; in fact, Mike spanned virtually his entire life, going as far back as his stint with the Marblehead Minnows (a Squirt team) recalling how he used to feign deafness when the coach would try to call him off the ice, “Mike! Mike! Mike!” A similar impatience started to grip Kenny at this drawn-out acceptance speech and he “gave the nod” that the volume of the in-house CD player be turned up so Mike’s voice was drowned out by Jack Johnson’s “Brushfire Fairytales”. Mike got the message, yielding the mic and returning to his seat looking, we might add, a little flustered.
Nick Swift received the “Limp Stick Award”. The award was brought to him at his table and in lieu of an acceptance speech he fell back on the old adage that, “a waved crutch in the air is worth a thousand words”. Jim Heffern received the signal honor of not only winning the “Hanger” award for the fourth straight time but having the name of the award, in perpetuity, changed to the “Jim Heffern Hanger” award. Unfortunately his oratory was not equal to the occasion as he stammered into the mic “I’m at a complete loss for words”—a lame attempt at irony that fell flat on an audience that expected something much, much better. Outshining him in this respect was the next awardee, Paul Egan, who received the “Hole in the Stick” award. Relying on that lack of political correctness that is peculiar to the native Nova Scotian, Paul said, “Just as you can go into an urban area and find at least one black guy who doesn’t know how to dance, you will always be able to find at least one Canadian who doesn’t know how to play hockey. That’s me.” Finally Larry Johnson, in only his tenth year with the club, was given the Old Bucks Award—a worthy recipient if there ever was one. Larry’s modest, self-effacing manner is so legendary, in fact, that there are players on Red who have sat next to him for ten years and still don’t know his name. This in spite of the fact that “Johnsonesque” has been entered into the club lexicon as a way of describing “a stubborn refusal to fulfill expectations”. Larry took the mic, looking more ill-at-ease than Jim Heffern and said, “Twenty-seven years of marriage and ten years of bliss with Old Bucks”. Thus, we end on a cryptic note: how does he qualify those remaining seventeen years?
But what a difference a year makes. In 2011 Paul Egan was too embarrassed to bring wine to the Old Bucks Awards; this year he practically flaunted it in everybody’s face. He did cook up a batch of beer-friendly wings, probably as a way to show the club that for all his elite airs, he still has his butler put his pants on one leg at a time. Paul rounded out a fairly large Blue contingent that included Fred Diaz, Steve Souza, Rich Cerbone, Brian Urban, and of course, Saunders, who looked the very image of well-groomed coarseness. We even saw a few instances of Red deigning to mingle with Blue (Tim White, for example, chatting up Rich Devlin) though its condescension, by now, has become so ingrained it’s unconscious. All were united, however, in paying tribute to the small contingent of Old Bucks retirees, namely Bob Melby, Bill McDowell and Angie who as a lineal descendent of Joey Bishop, was tapped to MC the awards presentation. Bill McDowell regretted not being able to make it to the rink this year, but pleaded his pet obsession, that of genetically altering apples so they can be grown with the supermarket stickers already on them. He more than compensated by bringing a hollowed-out cane filled with whiskey which he dispensed to all and sundry, forming at one table a small coterie of amiable tipplers that became the hub of the evening’s events. Bill, by the way, is now an octogenarian, meaning he gets up eight times during the night to go to the bathroom. When he makes it to ten, Willard Scott will announce it on the “Today” show.
Kenny was pretty tight-lipped about awardees; hence when Angie took the stage, mic in hand, a palpable tension filled the air. It was somewhat dispelled by the good-natured raillery that greeted his expansive grin and outsized glasses. There were shouts of “Do you still think the NHL is fixed?” and “What about Old Bucks? Is it fixed?” prompting Paul Egan, the incorrigible punster, in the midst of filling his cup for the fifth time, to chime in, “I thought the term was ‘neutered!’” (Poor Paul: If his skates were only as quick as his repartee he’d be unstoppable). Angie stumbled at first, referring to the wives as “fraus” instead of “frauleines” but acquitted himself well thereafter. He began with the “Mike the Czech” award and a lengthy preamble about who Mike the Czech was. The award went to Mike Robbins who availed himself of the mic in order to thank everyone in his hockey career who has ever had to endure his predilection for hogging the ice, particularly his “buds” at the Bridgewater (MA not NJ) Hockey Club, all of whom seemed to have names culled from the pages of a Zane Grey novel like Trevor, Luke, Bo and Mitt; in fact, Mike spanned virtually his entire life, going as far back as his stint with the Marblehead Minnows (a Squirt team) recalling how he used to feign deafness when the coach would try to call him off the ice, “Mike! Mike! Mike!” A similar impatience started to grip Kenny at this drawn-out acceptance speech and he “gave the nod” that the volume of the in-house CD player be turned up so Mike’s voice was drowned out by Jack Johnson’s “Brushfire Fairytales”. Mike got the message, yielding the mic and returning to his seat looking, we might add, a little flustered.
Nick Swift received the “Limp Stick Award”. The award was brought to him at his table and in lieu of an acceptance speech he fell back on the old adage that, “a waved crutch in the air is worth a thousand words”. Jim Heffern received the signal honor of not only winning the “Hanger” award for the fourth straight time but having the name of the award, in perpetuity, changed to the “Jim Heffern Hanger” award. Unfortunately his oratory was not equal to the occasion as he stammered into the mic “I’m at a complete loss for words”—a lame attempt at irony that fell flat on an audience that expected something much, much better. Outshining him in this respect was the next awardee, Paul Egan, who received the “Hole in the Stick” award. Relying on that lack of political correctness that is peculiar to the native Nova Scotian, Paul said, “Just as you can go into an urban area and find at least one black guy who doesn’t know how to dance, you will always be able to find at least one Canadian who doesn’t know how to play hockey. That’s me.” Finally Larry Johnson, in only his tenth year with the club, was given the Old Bucks Award—a worthy recipient if there ever was one. Larry’s modest, self-effacing manner is so legendary, in fact, that there are players on Red who have sat next to him for ten years and still don’t know his name. This in spite of the fact that “Johnsonesque” has been entered into the club lexicon as a way of describing “a stubborn refusal to fulfill expectations”. Larry took the mic, looking more ill-at-ease than Jim Heffern and said, “Twenty-seven years of marriage and ten years of bliss with Old Bucks”. Thus, we end on a cryptic note: how does he qualify those remaining seventeen years?