Post by Jim H. on Sept 19, 2015 6:47:37 GMT -5
Week 1 was different; Kenny was there, but only to collect money, having yielded to the tender eloquence of his wife not to play hockey on opening night but instead attend a family dinner engagement in honor of the holiday. Kenny left during that fifteen minute warm-up known as “Old Bucks training camp” but not before he had given Red a prescription-strength defense in the persons of Brian Pike and Chris Chairmonte and an offense led by Bob Freiling who apparently got his groove back over the summer if you can believe what you read on Twitter. We opted out of training camp and instead got caught up with George Bassert and Mark Herr in locker room 1, George breaking the news that the Bassert inmates will no longer be running the Blue asylum as one son has moved to White Plains to work and the other chooses to remain in Upper Black Eddy, a confirmed rustic, enjoying the solitude of a region so remote and forbidding it is hardly visited by any other human being apart from Paul Egan on his Cannondale. Paul, by the way, was one of several familiar faces back on Blue, Rich Devlin being another, Mark Timmons a third, and Dave “I’ll-park-ten-abandoned-cars-in-front-of-my-house-no-matter-what-the-neighbors-say” Hunt a fourth. Goalies were Vinnie for Red and Kenny G. for Blue with Marty throwing out the first puck and watching the game from the safety of the sidelines. Scott McCann, for Red, got the season’s first goal, which we couldn’t see from the locker room but were told was set up by a nifty dish from Jonathan Millen. When we got to the Red bench five minutes into the game, we found ourselves sitting next to a complete stranger. Declare yourself, we said. He did. It was an acquaintance of Kenny’s from Flemington hockey, and went by the name of Mike Valenzano. A heavy accent betrayed his New York roots; in fact, we felt like we were talking to the original Slip from the Bowery Boys. Indeed, Mike confessed to having grown up only a couple blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge and had some pretty harrowing tales to tell of tenement life during the Great Depression. We mentioned to him McSorley’s, the extent of our acquaintance with the Lower East Side. He dissembled not, chuckling dismissively, “There’s a lot of bars in Manhattan. I’ve been there a few times.” Well, even if he doesn’t revere McSorley’s as the greatest bar on Earth, he’s still entitled to a one-game risk-free trial on Red, to the extent that putting a new player out on the ice with the likes of Mark Herr and Jim Heffern constitutes an absence of risk.
Red took a very workmanlike, by-the-numbers approach to beating Blue, as if they had been doing this for the past decade, which they have. The motif just repeats itself in deathless variation. Blue did not take it lying down, only in a state of semi-repose, like yoga with a little cardio thrown in. The pseudo-Basserts, Dan and Greg Dougherty, were able to hook up and tie the game at ones, but the big winger Tim White made the game 2-1 with a rocket of a wrist shot into the upper corner of the Blue net. Initially excited, Blue was already dragging its skates when Scott McCann scored again. Scott, by the way, had a new RibCor stick, a new CCM helmet and new Bauer skates. He even had a new Blue jersey with his name on the back which is why he didn’t appreciate getting traded to Red during warm-up in order to balance the teams. His aesthetic well-being aside, he had no trouble making instant chump meat out of the Blue defense and netting two early goals. Then Mike Valentano who much to our surprise was not completely destitute of skill despite his close association with Kenny, put back a rebound to make it 4-1 Red. Red slackened their pace a bit and Blue had one bright and short-lived moment of drawing within two, 7-5, but then it was every-Freiling-for-himself as Bobby got a goal and an assist and put the finishing touches on a 9-6 victory. The game over, both teams abandoned themselves to the dictates of appetite. The after party was hilarity on a grand scale right from the outset with Marty catching sight of Bill Yeoman and waving him off with feigned terror, “Don’t come near me!” It was a seasonably warm night so everyone sat outside on the porch. We had to sit at the kids’ table due to the overflow crowd, that is, we sat with Chris Chairmonte and the two Doughertys but we could tell things were pretty raucous across the way as there is nothing like beer and pizza to bring out the puerilities of old men. Incidentally, three pizzas were consumed and Chris Chairmonte had one “hogie”.
Red took a very workmanlike, by-the-numbers approach to beating Blue, as if they had been doing this for the past decade, which they have. The motif just repeats itself in deathless variation. Blue did not take it lying down, only in a state of semi-repose, like yoga with a little cardio thrown in. The pseudo-Basserts, Dan and Greg Dougherty, were able to hook up and tie the game at ones, but the big winger Tim White made the game 2-1 with a rocket of a wrist shot into the upper corner of the Blue net. Initially excited, Blue was already dragging its skates when Scott McCann scored again. Scott, by the way, had a new RibCor stick, a new CCM helmet and new Bauer skates. He even had a new Blue jersey with his name on the back which is why he didn’t appreciate getting traded to Red during warm-up in order to balance the teams. His aesthetic well-being aside, he had no trouble making instant chump meat out of the Blue defense and netting two early goals. Then Mike Valentano who much to our surprise was not completely destitute of skill despite his close association with Kenny, put back a rebound to make it 4-1 Red. Red slackened their pace a bit and Blue had one bright and short-lived moment of drawing within two, 7-5, but then it was every-Freiling-for-himself as Bobby got a goal and an assist and put the finishing touches on a 9-6 victory. The game over, both teams abandoned themselves to the dictates of appetite. The after party was hilarity on a grand scale right from the outset with Marty catching sight of Bill Yeoman and waving him off with feigned terror, “Don’t come near me!” It was a seasonably warm night so everyone sat outside on the porch. We had to sit at the kids’ table due to the overflow crowd, that is, we sat with Chris Chairmonte and the two Doughertys but we could tell things were pretty raucous across the way as there is nothing like beer and pizza to bring out the puerilities of old men. Incidentally, three pizzas were consumed and Chris Chairmonte had one “hogie”.