Post by Jim H. on Mar 6, 2023 20:32:52 GMT -5
WhatsApp was lit up for Week 23 with so many trades going down in the NHL it gave Brian Urban and his spreadsheet a real run for the money. It all started Monday morning with Kane going to the Rangers. Old Bucks was buzzing with Rich Cerbone regretting Kane wasn’t a Bruin, so great is his admiration for him going back to the Cup MVP honors he won in 2013. Still Boston picked up Bertuzzi, the only NHL player still not vaccinated. If it was up to us Bertuzzi would be packed off in leg irons to the Great Sandy Desert, only the Aussies are stricter in their vax rules than we are. By Friday Mike Tennant had the effrontery to post Devils news in violation of the tacit agreement between parties that WhatsApp is a Devils-free zone. In point of fact Old Bucks cares more about what legal analyst is replacing Jeffrey Toobin at CNN than they do about Timo Meier going to New Jersey. Enflamed by such indifference Mike posted a standings sheet only to be met with more—indifference. By Saturday Paul Egan and Joe Herbert, totally apropos of nothing, shared competing images of flags from their respective Canadian provinces, even though Paul is still overseas and still on the IR (international respite). And later that same night there was some melancholy feelings alluded to by Ranger Nation’s personal envoy to Old Bucks, Richie Devlin, because the blue shirts had lost to Boston.
I’m really happy to join a team that’s accomplished so much. Expectations are pretty high here—I think that’s a good thing. Basically I’m here for the players, the atmosphere, but most of all I’m here to win.
Does that sound like Patrick Kane becoming a Ranger? Wrong. That was Bob Freiling on Sunday commenting on his trade from Blue to Red. He brought with him his biblical “mark of Kane”. That’s his battered reputation which is the equivalent of a three-time cup winner who can still show signs of greatness, but only in short spurts, with any kind of consistency eluding him. That’s usually when hockey players are banished east of Eden. Except that Kane went east of Chicago and Bobby east of Blue.
The club branched out into multiple locker rooms given that it was March which is the official cut-off date for the one-locker-room-per-team rule. We suited up in a neutral referee’s jersey because we were going to GoPro the entire game instead of playing. The idea was suggested to us by a Joe on WhatsApp—which Joe we’re not sure given that there are eight of them in the club and he didn’t leave a surname. Banter in the locker room was lively and was capped off by the following exchange:
“Where’s Tim White? He has the whiskey.”
“Has the whiskey? You mean had the whiskey.”
We left a clipboard and pen on the Red bench with instructions to jot down who scored and when—a duty they took very seriously and ended up discharging in an exemplary manner, with extra credit for good penmanship—or, should we say, good penpersonship. Nor will we blame them for, in the heat of battle, spelling “Connor” with one n instead of two. Because of their diligence we can reliably report that Andrew Tona scored first for Red and “J.C.” or Joe Caltiere tied it up for Blue. The next goal, however, we had to watch in slow motion on iMovie to figure out what happened. Joe Herbert, in the corner, kicked the puck out front. It ricocheted off J.C.’s skate blade and then ricocheted off Rich Cerbone’s skate blade. Then Rich tried to corral the still-bouncing puck and wound up sneaking it past his goalie, Eli, who was sent sprawling by all the ricochets. Humorously, when we played the footage again normal speed we could just make out Marty instinctively yelling “Come on!” from the scorer’s box.
When Dan Dougherty, in goal for Blue, poke checked the puck away from Bob Freiling, the new guy, Scott Shapiro, one-timed the rebound into the back of the net, tying the game at two apiece. We’re still trying to get a read on this new guy. All we know about him is that he lives in Hoboken and he’s a Senior Fellow at the Crosby Institute for Unstoppable Forwards. Give him space and he will paint his corners for sure, and as for that Senior Fellow stuff we’ll drop our aitches like the Brits and say ee’s a fine fellow indeed!
As the game wore on goal succeeded goal and with both teams icing full rosters there was plenty of spunk to go around. According to the bench notes, Joe Tona made it 3-2 Red and
Brian Urban 3-3
Greg D 4-3
Conor (sic) 4-4
Joe Mac 5-4
JH (Joe Herbert?) 5-5
…at which point the game reached the official status of Battle Royale. The only player not in the mix was Ben David who was just back from a three-week COVID-induced layoff. He pretty much took it easy, treating the action like it was a warm-up for the morning skate around and, as an index of just how off was his timing, got called for offsides twice. Both times he reacted with a Gallic shrug whereas, normally, he would have simmered and stewed until provoking a post-game tunnel fight later on.
In European futbol there’s the twelfth man, who’s not on the pitch, but in the stands—the crowd, collectively willing its team to win. Blue had a twelfth man too—Marty, in the scorer’s box. With the game knotted at eights he willed Brian to score, and then Josh Hunter followed suit, and Tim White finally iced it for good, showing the same skills that got him recruited to Old Bucks in 2014 as part of its Summer Outreach program. Showered, dressed and combed (for those who still have hair), the club repaired to TJ’s where a whopping five pies were ordered: two pepperoni, one sausage, one plain and one Brooklyn. By the time Rich Devlin collected all the money he had a wad big enough to choke a mule. Speaking of wads that big Rich was lamenting the high cost of going to Rangers playoff games this year. He can still swing the price of the ticket, but if they keeping upping the cost of his double Jameson-and-ginger ales he might find himself watching the Stanley Cup playoffs from his living room.
I’m really happy to join a team that’s accomplished so much. Expectations are pretty high here—I think that’s a good thing. Basically I’m here for the players, the atmosphere, but most of all I’m here to win.
Does that sound like Patrick Kane becoming a Ranger? Wrong. That was Bob Freiling on Sunday commenting on his trade from Blue to Red. He brought with him his biblical “mark of Kane”. That’s his battered reputation which is the equivalent of a three-time cup winner who can still show signs of greatness, but only in short spurts, with any kind of consistency eluding him. That’s usually when hockey players are banished east of Eden. Except that Kane went east of Chicago and Bobby east of Blue.
The club branched out into multiple locker rooms given that it was March which is the official cut-off date for the one-locker-room-per-team rule. We suited up in a neutral referee’s jersey because we were going to GoPro the entire game instead of playing. The idea was suggested to us by a Joe on WhatsApp—which Joe we’re not sure given that there are eight of them in the club and he didn’t leave a surname. Banter in the locker room was lively and was capped off by the following exchange:
“Where’s Tim White? He has the whiskey.”
“Has the whiskey? You mean had the whiskey.”
We left a clipboard and pen on the Red bench with instructions to jot down who scored and when—a duty they took very seriously and ended up discharging in an exemplary manner, with extra credit for good penmanship—or, should we say, good penpersonship. Nor will we blame them for, in the heat of battle, spelling “Connor” with one n instead of two. Because of their diligence we can reliably report that Andrew Tona scored first for Red and “J.C.” or Joe Caltiere tied it up for Blue. The next goal, however, we had to watch in slow motion on iMovie to figure out what happened. Joe Herbert, in the corner, kicked the puck out front. It ricocheted off J.C.’s skate blade and then ricocheted off Rich Cerbone’s skate blade. Then Rich tried to corral the still-bouncing puck and wound up sneaking it past his goalie, Eli, who was sent sprawling by all the ricochets. Humorously, when we played the footage again normal speed we could just make out Marty instinctively yelling “Come on!” from the scorer’s box.
When Dan Dougherty, in goal for Blue, poke checked the puck away from Bob Freiling, the new guy, Scott Shapiro, one-timed the rebound into the back of the net, tying the game at two apiece. We’re still trying to get a read on this new guy. All we know about him is that he lives in Hoboken and he’s a Senior Fellow at the Crosby Institute for Unstoppable Forwards. Give him space and he will paint his corners for sure, and as for that Senior Fellow stuff we’ll drop our aitches like the Brits and say ee’s a fine fellow indeed!
As the game wore on goal succeeded goal and with both teams icing full rosters there was plenty of spunk to go around. According to the bench notes, Joe Tona made it 3-2 Red and
Brian Urban 3-3
Greg D 4-3
Conor (sic) 4-4
Joe Mac 5-4
JH (Joe Herbert?) 5-5
…at which point the game reached the official status of Battle Royale. The only player not in the mix was Ben David who was just back from a three-week COVID-induced layoff. He pretty much took it easy, treating the action like it was a warm-up for the morning skate around and, as an index of just how off was his timing, got called for offsides twice. Both times he reacted with a Gallic shrug whereas, normally, he would have simmered and stewed until provoking a post-game tunnel fight later on.
In European futbol there’s the twelfth man, who’s not on the pitch, but in the stands—the crowd, collectively willing its team to win. Blue had a twelfth man too—Marty, in the scorer’s box. With the game knotted at eights he willed Brian to score, and then Josh Hunter followed suit, and Tim White finally iced it for good, showing the same skills that got him recruited to Old Bucks in 2014 as part of its Summer Outreach program. Showered, dressed and combed (for those who still have hair), the club repaired to TJ’s where a whopping five pies were ordered: two pepperoni, one sausage, one plain and one Brooklyn. By the time Rich Devlin collected all the money he had a wad big enough to choke a mule. Speaking of wads that big Rich was lamenting the high cost of going to Rangers playoff games this year. He can still swing the price of the ticket, but if they keeping upping the cost of his double Jameson-and-ginger ales he might find himself watching the Stanley Cup playoffs from his living room.