Post by Jim H. on Mar 27, 2023 19:25:36 GMT -5
We saw a small purple flower sprout in our front yard for Week 26 and thought it an omen of Old Bucks unity. And unity is a good thing, especially when the club lacks two goalies for its next game. WhatsApp is the go-to place to resolve such issues and Brian Urban brought the matter up. Rich Cerbone was the first to respond, writing that he’d be willing to play with the caveat that “a card board cut out would be better than me…”. Amidst a chorus of “No!” “Don’t think it!” and “That is demonstrably untrue!” Brian wrote that he too could play even though according to CDC guidelines, there are three things that should NOT be attempted when rebounding from COVID: climbing Pike’s Peak, swimming the Hellespont, and playing goalie for Old Bucks. But for two hours it looked as though a Rich/Brian showdown was in the offing. For parity’s sake the club decided that the teams should be based on musical tastes with everyone who likes Pink Floyd playing for Brian and everyone who likes Toad the Wet Sprocket playing for Rich. Then someone named “Craig” who apparently had a fleeting connection to the club back in the early to mid-aughts wrote that he could provide a goalie. Only this goalie was 18 years old and might lack the requisite maturity for Old Bucks-caliber hockey. The matter was settled: Dan Dougherty would face off against “the kid”. And WhatsApp returned to discussing the really important stuff like finding a contractor who does Tesla charging station installs for Rich Devlin.
We actually knew “the kid”. It turned out to be Chetti, whom we are honored to have known since he was a Squirt, and watched him hone his goalie skills all the way through Bantams. Chetti and Dan had an interesting exchange in the locker room that went this way:
Chetti: “I don’t know. I haven’t play goalie in a month.”
Dan: “Well I haven’t played goalie in FIFTEEN YEARS!”
When we got to the rink we were met by Frenchie, the Zamboni driver. He told us that only eight figure skaters had used the ice for the previous hour and if we wanted to we could waive the cut and enjoy an extra 15 minutes of warm-up. That such a weighty decision should devolve upon ourselves—and not someone in authority like Kenny or Brian—was not taken lightly. We looked at the swirls in the ice and thought them symbolic of the questions swirling around the game: Would Marty be able to accurately keep score? Would Joe Herbert and Ben David sync up on Red’s offense? Would Old Bucks become a proving ground for untried talent that had nothing to prove just by showing up? We told Frenchie Old Bucks would play without the cut.
The Flyin’ Hawaiian, Pat Saedal, got things rolling, putting Blue up 1-0. Red got the equalizer but it didn’t stand for long as Scott Shapiro scored while once again betraying signs of a mood disorder that manifests itself with intemperate glee whenever he puts the puck in the net. Chetti, in the Red goal, was tested early and often, and looked sensational with a tendon-stretching split that denied Chris Chairmonte his first attempt at his signature one-armed dangle. But bad breaks came his way as Paul Egan scored just by standing by the crease and having the puck bounce off a part of his anatomy that hasn’t seen that much action in months. Blue took a 6-2 lead as Red struggled to generate offense. The David-Herbert combo just didn’t pan out. Not surprising when when you consider that one spells it Canadian and the other Canadien that such infighting would bleed into their play. Dan, meanwhile, looked very sturdy in the Blue net as he remembered the time he was Chetti’s age and fed off all that grit and determination to come up with some big stops of his own.
Finally with the score 9-4 the Blue barrage lifted and it was All Quiet on the Frankie Front. Red started to inch its way back into contention. Ben David, who talks to his stick like it was a houseplant, didn’t mince any words. “You have to get better command of your shots,” he told the CCM. “I can’t do it all by myself.” It worked and the stick, at Ben’s behest, scorched Dan twice to make it 9-6. Then the fastest 70-year old on the ice, Steve Souza, showed a little pop from the point and made it 9-7. Joe Peugeot made it 9-8 and to cap off Red’s 5-0 run, Josh Hunter stripped Aaron Kibbey of the puck at the blue line, got up a full head of steam in the N-zone, deked Kenny out with the forehand and Dan out with the backhand and tied the game at nines. But it was Pat Saedal, whose skates are older than Chetti, going high blocker with DA DAGGGERRRR that snapped the tie and snuffed out whatever comeback Red was trying to kindle. Joe Tona and Scott Shapiro added insurance goals to cement the 12-9 win.
We shared a booth with Joe Herbert at the after party and made an oblique reference to Ottawa politics which elicited the following, “Politically, I consider myself left of Bernie Sanders.” We appreciated the candor. In fact, if you want to throw down the gauntlet with us that is exactly the right thing to say. The booth was transformed into an episode of Crossfire—that CNN show in the 1980s that, compared to today’s political discourse, now looks as erudite as Platonic dialogues. We played Pat Buchanan and Joe was Michael Kingsley as we hit upon gender politics, reparations, one-percenters, the Citizens United case, all the while keeping it civil—and then Paul Egan jumped in like the guest in the middle whose job it was to pretend that he was smarter than both Pat and Michael—and he usually was if he was Ralph Nader. Anyway we had our little disputation over beers and were still able to say “Good night” at the end—just like they did on Crossfire.
We actually knew “the kid”. It turned out to be Chetti, whom we are honored to have known since he was a Squirt, and watched him hone his goalie skills all the way through Bantams. Chetti and Dan had an interesting exchange in the locker room that went this way:
Chetti: “I don’t know. I haven’t play goalie in a month.”
Dan: “Well I haven’t played goalie in FIFTEEN YEARS!”
When we got to the rink we were met by Frenchie, the Zamboni driver. He told us that only eight figure skaters had used the ice for the previous hour and if we wanted to we could waive the cut and enjoy an extra 15 minutes of warm-up. That such a weighty decision should devolve upon ourselves—and not someone in authority like Kenny or Brian—was not taken lightly. We looked at the swirls in the ice and thought them symbolic of the questions swirling around the game: Would Marty be able to accurately keep score? Would Joe Herbert and Ben David sync up on Red’s offense? Would Old Bucks become a proving ground for untried talent that had nothing to prove just by showing up? We told Frenchie Old Bucks would play without the cut.
The Flyin’ Hawaiian, Pat Saedal, got things rolling, putting Blue up 1-0. Red got the equalizer but it didn’t stand for long as Scott Shapiro scored while once again betraying signs of a mood disorder that manifests itself with intemperate glee whenever he puts the puck in the net. Chetti, in the Red goal, was tested early and often, and looked sensational with a tendon-stretching split that denied Chris Chairmonte his first attempt at his signature one-armed dangle. But bad breaks came his way as Paul Egan scored just by standing by the crease and having the puck bounce off a part of his anatomy that hasn’t seen that much action in months. Blue took a 6-2 lead as Red struggled to generate offense. The David-Herbert combo just didn’t pan out. Not surprising when when you consider that one spells it Canadian and the other Canadien that such infighting would bleed into their play. Dan, meanwhile, looked very sturdy in the Blue net as he remembered the time he was Chetti’s age and fed off all that grit and determination to come up with some big stops of his own.
Finally with the score 9-4 the Blue barrage lifted and it was All Quiet on the Frankie Front. Red started to inch its way back into contention. Ben David, who talks to his stick like it was a houseplant, didn’t mince any words. “You have to get better command of your shots,” he told the CCM. “I can’t do it all by myself.” It worked and the stick, at Ben’s behest, scorched Dan twice to make it 9-6. Then the fastest 70-year old on the ice, Steve Souza, showed a little pop from the point and made it 9-7. Joe Peugeot made it 9-8 and to cap off Red’s 5-0 run, Josh Hunter stripped Aaron Kibbey of the puck at the blue line, got up a full head of steam in the N-zone, deked Kenny out with the forehand and Dan out with the backhand and tied the game at nines. But it was Pat Saedal, whose skates are older than Chetti, going high blocker with DA DAGGGERRRR that snapped the tie and snuffed out whatever comeback Red was trying to kindle. Joe Tona and Scott Shapiro added insurance goals to cement the 12-9 win.
We shared a booth with Joe Herbert at the after party and made an oblique reference to Ottawa politics which elicited the following, “Politically, I consider myself left of Bernie Sanders.” We appreciated the candor. In fact, if you want to throw down the gauntlet with us that is exactly the right thing to say. The booth was transformed into an episode of Crossfire—that CNN show in the 1980s that, compared to today’s political discourse, now looks as erudite as Platonic dialogues. We played Pat Buchanan and Joe was Michael Kingsley as we hit upon gender politics, reparations, one-percenters, the Citizens United case, all the while keeping it civil—and then Paul Egan jumped in like the guest in the middle whose job it was to pretend that he was smarter than both Pat and Michael—and he usually was if he was Ralph Nader. Anyway we had our little disputation over beers and were still able to say “Good night” at the end—just like they did on Crossfire.