Post by Jim H. on Dec 19, 2021 23:35:29 GMT -5
We were in a festive mood for Week 15. There were tidings of a great turnout on the TeamReach app and the pending Christmas holiday tweaked our mood like a shot of John Lupisella’s limoncello. No dark thoughts beclouded our drive to the rink, not the fact that Blue had lost seven games in a row, nor the idea that NOIR.com (noir being the French word for black) is an anagram for “omicron”. Instead we happily recalled past skates right before the holiday, having consulted the blog beforehand, and summoned to our mind’s eye 2008 when Bill McDowell passed out peanut brittle after the game. Then there was 2009 when Kenny himself wrote the blog in our absence, dispensing with grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation in posting a brief, almost Joycean account of a 7-6 Blue victory. And who can forget 2010 when Paul Egan, not in our absence but with our approval, wrote the blog and by following the Polonian precept of “To thine own self be true” offered this gem of a description of himself scoring the first goal:
Paul Egan, playing for Red, got things started by one-timing a sloppy rebound with aplomb that belies his natural affinity to quickly “hot potato” the puck to whichever player is closest, heedless of jersey color. Go ahead Egan, take that hit from the crack pipe, the first rock is free. You’ll be back…yeah, right. Welcome to America, hoser.
But it was December 22, 2011 that hit the nostalgic jackpot. For a little perspective, that Fall the club had first adopted the habit of going to TJ’s after the game. And they assumed that alcohol was not permitted inside. So they sat on the porch every night regardless of weather. December 22 it was 27 degrees outside. Undeterred, a multitude of hardy souls still repaired to TJs to celebrate the holiday. The benches were so coated with ice that Jim Heffern had to get drop cloths out of his truck to insulate posteriors from the frigid surfaces. But warming veins was another matter. There were three types of whiskeys, two types of wines and something called a Kraft beer, which is actually a craft beer with a cheese whiz chaser. Hughie summed it up best by saying, “This is like duck hunting without the guns.”
But back to tonight. We got to the rink early wanting to milk the atmosphere as much as possible. And what a vibe Louck’s had!—fresh from hosting the 73rd annual Lawrenceville Hockey Tournament. We actually saw Mark Smith there on Saturday night and thanked him on behalf of Red for recruiting John Lupisella to the cause 20 years ago. Mark said he’s skating at Kingston with Kiyoshi now. We also saw a distinguished-looking gentleman with spectacles and a blue face mask who bore an uncanny resemblance to Doug Rendell. A big Blue salute to Doug if that was him! But we digress—that was then; this is now. We met Kenny coming out of locker room 3. “I think you’re on Blue,” he said. We continued to locker room 1 and geared up while watching Kenny through the propped-open door surveying the ice like he was window shopping on 5th avenue. He popped his head in the door. “Skate Red,” he told us, his change of heart strictly numerical in nature rather than a calculated ploy to benefit Red. Then he joked with Rich Devlin. “I got a new mantra for playing defense,” he said, pointedly looking at us and adding, “But I’m not going to tell you what it is.” We tried to imagine what it might be and came up with something generic along the lines of, “I am an important part of my hockey team.” Later we found out what it was. We missed the mark by only a tiny bit.
The line had Blue +4; we were betting Blue and taking the points. Boy, did we win big! Blue jumped out to an immediate 5-0 lead, scoring with the kind of vigor that comes from the sudden release of repressed energy—and repressed rage at Kenny. Red didn’t score until the 43:00 mark and then it was their own M&M, Marky-Mark, the Mr. Mayer (no relation to Oscar) who finally put them on the board and robbed Ed Conrad of the first shutout in Old Bucks history. The teams broke for a breather since there were only four subs on each bench. Both goalies met up on the Blue side and Vinnie, lamentably defending the Red net, twitted his rival on how embarrassingly weak Red shots were.
Vinnie (to Ed): Have you saved any shots at all that weren’t directly into your (expletive) chest?
Paul Egan (to Vinnie) He’s standing on his head and you know it!
Ed (humbly) I’m falling on my head!
After the break Red changed tactics, putting Brian Pike on offense and coping with only three defensemen instead of four. It seemed to work—to an extent. Brian was instrumental in narrowing the deficit to 5-3 but then the Red wheels fell off, probably because Bob Freiling wasn’t there, and Bob is pretty handy with a NASCAR thunder gun when he needs to be. Blue jumped out to a 7-3 lead on two goals by some ringer who was described to us as either as Rich’s friend’s son or Rich’s son’s friend—it doesn’t matter—the kid was quickest skater on the ice. Then Brian Urban who when he’s not stepping on the puck with the blade of his skate and flying butt-over-teakettle can pretty dangerous—added two more goals and Blue had a commanding 9-3 lead. Not much effort was expended from that point on, and we, personally, focused on how festive the after party promised to be, thinking it was at TJ’s but finding out it was not.
Andrew Tona hosted the after party. Apparently he did so last year at Christmas but we weren’t skating then and so we were caught unawares. We can say without the slightest risk of hyperbolic overstatement that Andrew Tona knows how to host a Christmas party. The spread was incredible. There were three kinds of pizzas, a cheese board, stuffed mushrooms, mincemeat pies (Tim White’s personal favorite) Italian rice balls which Rich Cerbone took the time to explain to us are called, in Italian, arancini di roso from the Sicilian plural diminutive of aranciu which means "orange". We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our personal favorite—the Gharibaldi peppermint squares which we washed down with sips of Paul Egan’s much-ballyhooed Green Whiskey. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention that Hughie was there and joked that he had just had Joe Biden’s surf and turf for dinner—scrapple and sardines. Laughter was on tap as much as beer. Andrew has a dachshund and if you like weiner jokes go to an Old Bucks party where a dachshund is present. You will hear weiner jokes aplenty.
Finally we pinned Kenny down on what his new mantra is. “I have to play more aggressive on defense,” he said. Though it lacks the lofty haiku-sounding wisdom you’d think up while sitting in the lotus position on your living room rug staring into a lava lamp and listening to calming sitar music—we’ll give him credit for one thing: It’s accurate.
Paul Egan, playing for Red, got things started by one-timing a sloppy rebound with aplomb that belies his natural affinity to quickly “hot potato” the puck to whichever player is closest, heedless of jersey color. Go ahead Egan, take that hit from the crack pipe, the first rock is free. You’ll be back…yeah, right. Welcome to America, hoser.
But it was December 22, 2011 that hit the nostalgic jackpot. For a little perspective, that Fall the club had first adopted the habit of going to TJ’s after the game. And they assumed that alcohol was not permitted inside. So they sat on the porch every night regardless of weather. December 22 it was 27 degrees outside. Undeterred, a multitude of hardy souls still repaired to TJs to celebrate the holiday. The benches were so coated with ice that Jim Heffern had to get drop cloths out of his truck to insulate posteriors from the frigid surfaces. But warming veins was another matter. There were three types of whiskeys, two types of wines and something called a Kraft beer, which is actually a craft beer with a cheese whiz chaser. Hughie summed it up best by saying, “This is like duck hunting without the guns.”
But back to tonight. We got to the rink early wanting to milk the atmosphere as much as possible. And what a vibe Louck’s had!—fresh from hosting the 73rd annual Lawrenceville Hockey Tournament. We actually saw Mark Smith there on Saturday night and thanked him on behalf of Red for recruiting John Lupisella to the cause 20 years ago. Mark said he’s skating at Kingston with Kiyoshi now. We also saw a distinguished-looking gentleman with spectacles and a blue face mask who bore an uncanny resemblance to Doug Rendell. A big Blue salute to Doug if that was him! But we digress—that was then; this is now. We met Kenny coming out of locker room 3. “I think you’re on Blue,” he said. We continued to locker room 1 and geared up while watching Kenny through the propped-open door surveying the ice like he was window shopping on 5th avenue. He popped his head in the door. “Skate Red,” he told us, his change of heart strictly numerical in nature rather than a calculated ploy to benefit Red. Then he joked with Rich Devlin. “I got a new mantra for playing defense,” he said, pointedly looking at us and adding, “But I’m not going to tell you what it is.” We tried to imagine what it might be and came up with something generic along the lines of, “I am an important part of my hockey team.” Later we found out what it was. We missed the mark by only a tiny bit.
The line had Blue +4; we were betting Blue and taking the points. Boy, did we win big! Blue jumped out to an immediate 5-0 lead, scoring with the kind of vigor that comes from the sudden release of repressed energy—and repressed rage at Kenny. Red didn’t score until the 43:00 mark and then it was their own M&M, Marky-Mark, the Mr. Mayer (no relation to Oscar) who finally put them on the board and robbed Ed Conrad of the first shutout in Old Bucks history. The teams broke for a breather since there were only four subs on each bench. Both goalies met up on the Blue side and Vinnie, lamentably defending the Red net, twitted his rival on how embarrassingly weak Red shots were.
Vinnie (to Ed): Have you saved any shots at all that weren’t directly into your (expletive) chest?
Paul Egan (to Vinnie) He’s standing on his head and you know it!
Ed (humbly) I’m falling on my head!
After the break Red changed tactics, putting Brian Pike on offense and coping with only three defensemen instead of four. It seemed to work—to an extent. Brian was instrumental in narrowing the deficit to 5-3 but then the Red wheels fell off, probably because Bob Freiling wasn’t there, and Bob is pretty handy with a NASCAR thunder gun when he needs to be. Blue jumped out to a 7-3 lead on two goals by some ringer who was described to us as either as Rich’s friend’s son or Rich’s son’s friend—it doesn’t matter—the kid was quickest skater on the ice. Then Brian Urban who when he’s not stepping on the puck with the blade of his skate and flying butt-over-teakettle can pretty dangerous—added two more goals and Blue had a commanding 9-3 lead. Not much effort was expended from that point on, and we, personally, focused on how festive the after party promised to be, thinking it was at TJ’s but finding out it was not.
Andrew Tona hosted the after party. Apparently he did so last year at Christmas but we weren’t skating then and so we were caught unawares. We can say without the slightest risk of hyperbolic overstatement that Andrew Tona knows how to host a Christmas party. The spread was incredible. There were three kinds of pizzas, a cheese board, stuffed mushrooms, mincemeat pies (Tim White’s personal favorite) Italian rice balls which Rich Cerbone took the time to explain to us are called, in Italian, arancini di roso from the Sicilian plural diminutive of aranciu which means "orange". We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our personal favorite—the Gharibaldi peppermint squares which we washed down with sips of Paul Egan’s much-ballyhooed Green Whiskey. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention that Hughie was there and joked that he had just had Joe Biden’s surf and turf for dinner—scrapple and sardines. Laughter was on tap as much as beer. Andrew has a dachshund and if you like weiner jokes go to an Old Bucks party where a dachshund is present. You will hear weiner jokes aplenty.
Finally we pinned Kenny down on what his new mantra is. “I have to play more aggressive on defense,” he said. Though it lacks the lofty haiku-sounding wisdom you’d think up while sitting in the lotus position on your living room rug staring into a lava lamp and listening to calming sitar music—we’ll give him credit for one thing: It’s accurate.