Post by Old Bucks Admin on Jan 9, 2023 19:44:37 GMT -5
Three weeks is a long time to go without Old Bucks hockey, but that’s what the club has to endure whenever Christmas and New Year’s falls on a Sunday. We found the wait almost interminable—worse than waiting for Republicans to choose a new speaker. In the interim we found ourselves checking the websites of local rinks for open hockey times. Not that we’d actually leave work on a Wednesday at 11:30 to gear up and do puck play during the lunch hour—but it was comforting enough to know the option existed in case things got desperate.
We were so eager to play we got to the rink a half-hour early and still found the locker room packed. Indeed, it’s the only thing Old Bucks finds objectionable about the new rink—the club only gets one locker room. We took the last seat available—right by the unisex bathrooms. So much foot traffic ensued it was like being seated by the kitchen in a restaurant. The only difference is that in a restaurant you don’t have to worry about your bare feet being cut beneath the blade of a waiter’s skate.
We had no idea what team we were on. Brian emailed the rosters so late we missed them on our computer; and we’re such Luddites when it comes to technology that we don’t have email on our phone—and so we had to ask. Rich Devlin passed his phone with the rosters on it in black and white. We didn’t have our glasses so we digitally made things bigger. We noticed there was an Eli on Blue parenthetically described as “Rich Devlin’s friend”. “Eli’s back! Sure, we know Eli,” we exclaimed to Rich. Turns out we had confused Eli with Rich’s other friend, Ezra, who also occasionally skates with Old Bucks. Lots of confusion can be caused by a single letter. Coincidentally, when we got to the locker room wearing a hoodie with a big red L on it, Joe Herbert said, “Nice sweatshirt. You a Louisville fan?” “No,” we replied. “The L stands for Lawrenceville.” “Of course,” Joe said. “I just saw the L and I immediately thought ‘Louisville’.” As mistakes go, it ranks among the most innocent.
As we geared up Alan Blankstein and Kiyoshi talked about the exclusive nature of venture capitalism. Kiyoshi waxed almost poetic as he squelched the idea of getting your foot in the door. “You don’t call, you don’t interview, you don’t send in your resume,” he said. “You either have the right social connections or you will never be a venture capitalist.” We kind’ve thought VC is like Old Bucks, only without the shabby genteel roots.
As far as the game goes, opening salvoes were dominated by Rich’s friend Eli. He was treated to the complete Old Bucks immersive experience with enough defensive lapses that he had a hat trick within the first 15 minutes of play. Indeed, he scored so early and so often we had to run to get ice for his swelled head. From then on Blue dominated while Red made the usual mistakes and some of its own invention. Kenny, for example, tried pioneering a new way of playing defense. Instead of skating backwards he skated forwards and swiped at the player behind him like he was a yellow jacket after his picnic basket. Vinnie began experiencing higher-than-normal shot volume. Good thing his haunches are bionic because he was knocked back on them many’s the time. To his occasional relief Red would score one goal in a row and everyone felt a gleam of hope. But then that gleam would be snuffed out by two more Blue goals.
Ironically, on the scoreboard where the teams’ names were digitally inscribed, Blue was called Old Bucks and Red was called Hello. We decided that Hello must be a prophetic acronym that stood for:
He ha
Effort
Looks
Laughably
Old
Red did look old while Blue had youth, agility and a Gillian. Blue even had the Jonas brothers, Andrew and Joe, while Red was saddled with Simon, Garfunkel and Boz Scaggs. It became one big teachable moment for Brian Urban who made the teams, only the moment was stretched out to an agonizing hour-and-a-half. Significantly Ed Conrad won universal praise as Blue’s goalie, his many feats of stick, pad and gloves saves encapsulated by the fact that Bobby Jr. was held to a single goal. Some speculated Old Bucks was being pranked by Dominic Hasek who was merely disguised as Ed and removing the goalie mask at the end of the game would reveal all. That kind of good humor carried over into the locker room as Ben David stood up and in broken English announced his cure-all for lopsided blow-outs: “Half-way through goalies switch ends. Teams switch ends too. Teams even switch benches. On the fly. That’s the way we always did it. Works perfectly perfect.”
Turnout for the after party was surprisingly light. Only nine showed which simplifies ordering pizza—just one pepperoni and one sausage and onion. There was no haggling over whether to order a Brooklyn pie for the few players who are mozzarella intolerant. We struck up a conversation with Tim White who was drinking, not beer, but some kind of tequila concoction out of can. We learned—or rather—were reminded of the fact that Tim comes from a family of nine siblings. He was raised in one of those classic Catholic families you’d come across back in the day when Speakers of the House were chosen on the first ballot. All Tim’s brothers went straight from high school into the trades. Tim was the black sheep, enrolling in Villanova to study engineering.
Rich Devlin face-timed Paul Egan in Utah. We caught glimpses of Paul’s swank digs from the kitchenette to the ski in/ski out patio. The mountains were snow-covered and burnished by twilight. Eddie was unimpressed, shouting into the phone, “Paul, are you sure you’re not at Camelback? Looks like Howard Johnsons’ to me.”
We were so eager to play we got to the rink a half-hour early and still found the locker room packed. Indeed, it’s the only thing Old Bucks finds objectionable about the new rink—the club only gets one locker room. We took the last seat available—right by the unisex bathrooms. So much foot traffic ensued it was like being seated by the kitchen in a restaurant. The only difference is that in a restaurant you don’t have to worry about your bare feet being cut beneath the blade of a waiter’s skate.
We had no idea what team we were on. Brian emailed the rosters so late we missed them on our computer; and we’re such Luddites when it comes to technology that we don’t have email on our phone—and so we had to ask. Rich Devlin passed his phone with the rosters on it in black and white. We didn’t have our glasses so we digitally made things bigger. We noticed there was an Eli on Blue parenthetically described as “Rich Devlin’s friend”. “Eli’s back! Sure, we know Eli,” we exclaimed to Rich. Turns out we had confused Eli with Rich’s other friend, Ezra, who also occasionally skates with Old Bucks. Lots of confusion can be caused by a single letter. Coincidentally, when we got to the locker room wearing a hoodie with a big red L on it, Joe Herbert said, “Nice sweatshirt. You a Louisville fan?” “No,” we replied. “The L stands for Lawrenceville.” “Of course,” Joe said. “I just saw the L and I immediately thought ‘Louisville’.” As mistakes go, it ranks among the most innocent.
As we geared up Alan Blankstein and Kiyoshi talked about the exclusive nature of venture capitalism. Kiyoshi waxed almost poetic as he squelched the idea of getting your foot in the door. “You don’t call, you don’t interview, you don’t send in your resume,” he said. “You either have the right social connections or you will never be a venture capitalist.” We kind’ve thought VC is like Old Bucks, only without the shabby genteel roots.
As far as the game goes, opening salvoes were dominated by Rich’s friend Eli. He was treated to the complete Old Bucks immersive experience with enough defensive lapses that he had a hat trick within the first 15 minutes of play. Indeed, he scored so early and so often we had to run to get ice for his swelled head. From then on Blue dominated while Red made the usual mistakes and some of its own invention. Kenny, for example, tried pioneering a new way of playing defense. Instead of skating backwards he skated forwards and swiped at the player behind him like he was a yellow jacket after his picnic basket. Vinnie began experiencing higher-than-normal shot volume. Good thing his haunches are bionic because he was knocked back on them many’s the time. To his occasional relief Red would score one goal in a row and everyone felt a gleam of hope. But then that gleam would be snuffed out by two more Blue goals.
Ironically, on the scoreboard where the teams’ names were digitally inscribed, Blue was called Old Bucks and Red was called Hello. We decided that Hello must be a prophetic acronym that stood for:
He ha
Effort
Looks
Laughably
Old
Red did look old while Blue had youth, agility and a Gillian. Blue even had the Jonas brothers, Andrew and Joe, while Red was saddled with Simon, Garfunkel and Boz Scaggs. It became one big teachable moment for Brian Urban who made the teams, only the moment was stretched out to an agonizing hour-and-a-half. Significantly Ed Conrad won universal praise as Blue’s goalie, his many feats of stick, pad and gloves saves encapsulated by the fact that Bobby Jr. was held to a single goal. Some speculated Old Bucks was being pranked by Dominic Hasek who was merely disguised as Ed and removing the goalie mask at the end of the game would reveal all. That kind of good humor carried over into the locker room as Ben David stood up and in broken English announced his cure-all for lopsided blow-outs: “Half-way through goalies switch ends. Teams switch ends too. Teams even switch benches. On the fly. That’s the way we always did it. Works perfectly perfect.”
Turnout for the after party was surprisingly light. Only nine showed which simplifies ordering pizza—just one pepperoni and one sausage and onion. There was no haggling over whether to order a Brooklyn pie for the few players who are mozzarella intolerant. We struck up a conversation with Tim White who was drinking, not beer, but some kind of tequila concoction out of can. We learned—or rather—were reminded of the fact that Tim comes from a family of nine siblings. He was raised in one of those classic Catholic families you’d come across back in the day when Speakers of the House were chosen on the first ballot. All Tim’s brothers went straight from high school into the trades. Tim was the black sheep, enrolling in Villanova to study engineering.
Rich Devlin face-timed Paul Egan in Utah. We caught glimpses of Paul’s swank digs from the kitchenette to the ski in/ski out patio. The mountains were snow-covered and burnished by twilight. Eddie was unimpressed, shouting into the phone, “Paul, are you sure you’re not at Camelback? Looks like Howard Johnsons’ to me.”