Post by Jim H. on Oct 8, 2015 21:16:05 GMT -5
Benches were packed for Week 4, which every year seems to coincide with the Yankees losing in the playoffs. Doug Rendell and Craig Allen made their first appearances of the season, the latter grateful for a fresh start on a Red bench 11 players deep, not including Tim White who was serving a one-game suspension for violating the club’s pizza abuse policy. Ned McDowell showed up out of the blue—and put on Blue—unaware of the depths to which Blue had sunk in the years since he last skated with Old Bucks, so long ago, in fact, that Saunder’s PGP (or preferred gender pronoun) was still “he”. Bob Freiling was in the house again, always a plus when you consider that Old Bucks without Bob Freiling is like a presidential primary without Donald Trump—boring, drab, and not worthy of anyone’s attention. Bobby brings so much to the game of hockey, but he never makes more of an impact than when he brings his son, Bobby Jr., whom he brought for Week 4. They both skated Red, making the perfect blend of Freilings, barrel-aged and white nouveau, like a wine of two radically different vintages. Blue reposed most of its confidence in the sticks of two Doughertys, a Bassert, and a Brian Urban and actually jumped out to a 4-2 lead, before Bobby Jr., whose motto is “talk softly but carry a big Easton” bagged his first goal and made it 4-3. Then Brian Pike, just below the hash marks, let fly a howitzer of a snapshot and tied the game at fours. Two flagrant hot-doggers, Bob Sr. and Andrew Bassert, trying to outdo each other in the polished art of hotdoggery, scored and knotted the game at fives; and the teams traded goals again with the smack-talking Steve Souza lighting the lamp for Blue and Alan Blankstein sending Kenny G.’s water bottle into orbit for Red. Meantime, on the benches, the oft-uttered imperative “scooch down” betokened the long lines of players waiting to get on the ice. It was like the post office or old DMV, so tedious was the wait (and so short the ensuing shifts). Manly exertion, the essence of Old Bucks, was in short supply though Paul Egan, who didn’t even ride his bike that day, vowed to make up for it by chewing his pizza with extra vigor. The game was tied 6-6; parity between teams seemed to obtain, but it was all an illusion. Brian Pike snapped the tie for Red, and then Bobby Jr., in one decisive shift, scored two goals and put the game out of reach 9-6. Bonus goals were added by Scott McCann and Nick Gaudioso, the latter having gone to a pancake breakfast at the firehouse that morning and then wisely used the rest of the day to sober up. Credit Bobby Jr. with having scored only three goals in the game—well within the bounds of discretion, at least as far as Red was concerned. At the after party Craig Allen broke out a wad of twenties big enough to choke a mule and paid for the entire season in cash. The board went into executive session; that is, Rich and Kenny moved to the other table. If they ever open up a chain of restaurants called “The Cheesecake and Fondue Manufacturing Plant” we’ll know where the seed money came from.