Post by Jim H. on Oct 17, 2021 21:41:51 GMT -5
Week 6 saw the shortest benches ever in Old Bucks history, one sub per team. That the club was able to muster even that was a miracle given that Rich Devlin, the indefatigable Giants fan, was able to go to the Rams game, watch the Giants lose, get stuck exiting the parking lot for over an hour, dodge a jack-knifing tractor trailer on the Turnpike, shoot the Route 1 corridor like he was Brandon Brown at Talladega, and get to Loucks only 15 minutes late. For all his effort he was stuck on Red as Jim Heffern, stuck on Blue, was only slightly less late than he was.
Thus Red and Blue squared off against one another, as they have done countless times in the past, their feud longer running than the one between Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. But it was not a night to debate whether the Stones are just a glorified Blues cover band, or whether the Beatles Red album is better than the Beatles Blue album. The theme of night was taken from Jim Morrison: “No one here gets out alive—unless we take a five minute break every half hour.”
Vinnie played goal for Blue and Mark, subbing for the injured Eddie, played for Red. The first notable goal occurred with Blue winning 6-5. A long Red clear saw the puck rolling on edge all the way through the neutral zone and toward Vinnie. Bob Freiling was the only person on the ice who had the energy to chase the rolling puck. Vinnie sauntered out the net, plenty of time on hand, and proceeded to chop at the rolling puck like he was trying to kill a spotted lantern fly. It got away from him and Bob Freiling scored an empty-netter tying the game at sixes. The teams then took their allotted five-minute break. The Blue bench had a long discussion about where and when Boston was playing over the next two days, only to find out that half of them were talking about the Bruins and the other half about the Red Sox. Before play resumed Steve Souza suggested that Old Bucks finish the game with a 45 minute-long shootout.
Play did resume and five minutes elapsed before Eddie made a long rush up ice and top-shelfed Vinnie to put Red up 7-6. Humorously Eddie and Bob Freiling both went to the bench at the same time, Eddie taking the far door, Bobby the near one. They stared at each other down the length of the bench, trying to shame the other into getting back out onto the ice. No surprise Eddie succumbed first, the Freiling frisson so impregnable when it comes to matters of rest and relaxation. It was Red’s last lead of the game as Brian Urban and Dan Dougherty, the embodiment of Old Bucks duality, the very exemplars of the phrase cousins are two of a kind, changed the tide of battle and lowered the curtain on an overmatched Red squad. Kudos to Brian Urban for playing the whole game without a single rest on the bench. Contrast this with Mark Herr. When the second five minute break lasted longer than the prescribed five minutes, Mark, impatient of action, sat on the bench and shouted “Let’s go!”—the height of irony given that he was the only one sitting and the least inclined to go anywhere.
Only seven skaters attended the after party—a small intimate gathering around a single table, sort of like a hot tub without the tub or the hot water. The two pies took over a half hour to arrive, very unusual by TJ’s standards. But the pizza maker had cut out at 2 p.m. which was news to us because we thought everyone who worked at TJ’s was a certified pizza maker. Time was spent cataloguing the status of every person in the club—who was injured, who was missing, who might be back next week so the benches could return to Week 1 levels of occupancy. The biggest laugh was when a gust of wind blew a napkin off the table and Kenny snatched it with his bare hand. “That was the fastest move you made all night,” Brian Urban quipped.
Thus Red and Blue squared off against one another, as they have done countless times in the past, their feud longer running than the one between Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. But it was not a night to debate whether the Stones are just a glorified Blues cover band, or whether the Beatles Red album is better than the Beatles Blue album. The theme of night was taken from Jim Morrison: “No one here gets out alive—unless we take a five minute break every half hour.”
Vinnie played goal for Blue and Mark, subbing for the injured Eddie, played for Red. The first notable goal occurred with Blue winning 6-5. A long Red clear saw the puck rolling on edge all the way through the neutral zone and toward Vinnie. Bob Freiling was the only person on the ice who had the energy to chase the rolling puck. Vinnie sauntered out the net, plenty of time on hand, and proceeded to chop at the rolling puck like he was trying to kill a spotted lantern fly. It got away from him and Bob Freiling scored an empty-netter tying the game at sixes. The teams then took their allotted five-minute break. The Blue bench had a long discussion about where and when Boston was playing over the next two days, only to find out that half of them were talking about the Bruins and the other half about the Red Sox. Before play resumed Steve Souza suggested that Old Bucks finish the game with a 45 minute-long shootout.
Play did resume and five minutes elapsed before Eddie made a long rush up ice and top-shelfed Vinnie to put Red up 7-6. Humorously Eddie and Bob Freiling both went to the bench at the same time, Eddie taking the far door, Bobby the near one. They stared at each other down the length of the bench, trying to shame the other into getting back out onto the ice. No surprise Eddie succumbed first, the Freiling frisson so impregnable when it comes to matters of rest and relaxation. It was Red’s last lead of the game as Brian Urban and Dan Dougherty, the embodiment of Old Bucks duality, the very exemplars of the phrase cousins are two of a kind, changed the tide of battle and lowered the curtain on an overmatched Red squad. Kudos to Brian Urban for playing the whole game without a single rest on the bench. Contrast this with Mark Herr. When the second five minute break lasted longer than the prescribed five minutes, Mark, impatient of action, sat on the bench and shouted “Let’s go!”—the height of irony given that he was the only one sitting and the least inclined to go anywhere.
Only seven skaters attended the after party—a small intimate gathering around a single table, sort of like a hot tub without the tub or the hot water. The two pies took over a half hour to arrive, very unusual by TJ’s standards. But the pizza maker had cut out at 2 p.m. which was news to us because we thought everyone who worked at TJ’s was a certified pizza maker. Time was spent cataloguing the status of every person in the club—who was injured, who was missing, who might be back next week so the benches could return to Week 1 levels of occupancy. The biggest laugh was when a gust of wind blew a napkin off the table and Kenny snatched it with his bare hand. “That was the fastest move you made all night,” Brian Urban quipped.