Post by Jim H. on Apr 24, 2023 18:11:06 GMT -5
There was a lot of chatter on WhatsApp for Week 29 and it wasn’t about the Lakers-Grizzlies series. Hockey playoffs had commenced and Old Bucks loves to root for its teams—the Bruins, Devils, Rangers and even the Jets because that’s where Paul Egan’s brother-in-law coaches. It’s amazing how civil the discourse is. No one ever gloats—except for Eddie. Any time either the Devils or the Rangers are losing—he’s happy. Surprisingly the Rangers took a 2-0 series lead and Kane was looking like the second coming of Mark Messier. Even the NYPD bought all the surplus gear oil from Philadelphia in anticipation of the Cup coming back to New York. Then NJ won a game—but no gear oil for them. You won’t find those fans trying to shimmy up light poles in Newark. They’re from the suburbs. They just go down to their local park and climb a tree.
We were 20 minutes late to the game. When we arrived the scoreboard had Home beating Visitors 6-0. We walked by the Blue bench and asked Tim White who was winning. He said, “Red’s winning but we have one goal. They just haven’t put it up yet.” For the next ten minutes, while we were dressing, no one scored. At least that’s what we inferred by the lack of celebratory sounds. The silence was broken only once by Ben David’s voice chanting, “Six to one! Six to one! Six to one!” apparently because Red was refusing to register Blue’s one goal on the scoreboard. By the time we reached the ice Red had acquiesced and the scoreboard read 6-1.
Once we were ensconced on the Red bench we asked Brian Urban for a game summary. “I’ve scored all six of Red’s goals,” he replied which, even if it’s not true, has no doubt become embedded in his personal mythology. We scanned the ice. “Where’s Patrick Crome?” we asked. This was a reference to a friend of Chetti’s whom he had invited to the game and whose name we recognized in Blue’s lineup. We had the honor of coaching Patrick when he was a seven year old Mite. There were six kids on the team, each with his own role. Patrick was the enforcer, even if half his hits were the kind of incidental collisions inevitable in first year hockey. Still at the league’s year-end banquet we bestowed on him the Mr. Byng award in honor of Lady Byng’s belligerent husband. Brian pointed him out to us—teal jersey, dangling chin strap, dangling neck laces and dangling moves. It was good to see him again. He had grown considerably in ten years.
The goalless impasse continued for another ten minutes. Then Mike Valenzano, for Blue, got the puck in the slot, put an incredibly slick move on Brian Pike, and wrong-footed Danny with the wrister to make it 6-2. We thought to ourselves that the next time Mike listens to the Grateful Dead song “Truckin’” (on vinyl of course) and he hears the line,
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me
…he’s going to remember that goal.
The Tona brothers hooked up on a sweet cross-ice dish to get Red back up by five, 7-2. Then Kiyoshi upped his game from Old Bucks to Kingston level, went the length of the ice and buried his own rebound to make it 7-3. During this back-and-forth we got the lowdown from Rich Devlin on meeting up with Mike Tennant at the Garden pub before Game 3. Rich said he was busting Mike’s chops for not having a stitch of Devils swag on him, apart from a plain black hat that said “Jersey” and could pacify any Rangers fan simply by saying, “It is the Garden state.” But seriously, Mike said he was going to wear his 86 Hughes jersey but it sustained a nachos spill during a foiled Jack attack in Game 2 and the cheese had adhered to the horned J like an epoxy. He dropped the jersey off at the Lucky 999 Laundromat in the East Village and then proceeded to lose the ticket a half hour later at the Museum of Ice Cream when he accidentally dropped it in one of the interactive churns. Hence “No tickee, no jersey.”
Blue narrowed the lead to 7-4 on Chris Chairmonte’s second goal, but a couple of snipes by Alan Blankstein and then Joe Tona going bar-down on Chetti widened Red’s lead to an insurmountable 10-4. We’re not going down without a fight Blue said, except “fight” was amended to read “really contentious argument”. This occurred when Chris Chairmonte, gunning for the hatter, dared a wrap-around on Dan and succeeded inasmuch as Dan smothered the puck with his glove and then abruptly shifted the glove forward from white ice to blue ice. At least that’s the way Blue saw it. Everyone on Blue saw it that way, even Kiyoshi who was standing back at center ice. Such a hubbub broke out, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2009 when some ringer with a chin beard like Layne Staley threatened to beat up the entire Blue team over offsides calls. Andrew Tona diffused the situation—and fast—by running to the scorer’s box and giving Blue the goal—10-5.
All was forgotten over beers and pizza at TJ’s. Dan even forgot whether the puck was across the goal line or not. The only thing not forgotten was Chris Chairmonte’s hat trick. It was the toast of a grand turnout with everyone on the front porch for the second week in a row. Srpring, indeed, had arrived. Even Lawrenceville students packed TJ’s. They had the day off on Monday for Scheduling Day when they minutely pore over syllabi and finalize their classes for next year. Thus, instead of being confined to their rooms and the library, they were given free range of Lawrenceville and many of them ended up at TJ’s. There was lots of traffic in and out the door but perfect decorum was maintained at all times, nor was there a single instance of someone contributing to the delinquency of an old person. Next week, for the last skate of the year, Andrew Tona will be hosting on his back deck. Note to Andrew: if Frankie shows up turn out the lights.
We were 20 minutes late to the game. When we arrived the scoreboard had Home beating Visitors 6-0. We walked by the Blue bench and asked Tim White who was winning. He said, “Red’s winning but we have one goal. They just haven’t put it up yet.” For the next ten minutes, while we were dressing, no one scored. At least that’s what we inferred by the lack of celebratory sounds. The silence was broken only once by Ben David’s voice chanting, “Six to one! Six to one! Six to one!” apparently because Red was refusing to register Blue’s one goal on the scoreboard. By the time we reached the ice Red had acquiesced and the scoreboard read 6-1.
Once we were ensconced on the Red bench we asked Brian Urban for a game summary. “I’ve scored all six of Red’s goals,” he replied which, even if it’s not true, has no doubt become embedded in his personal mythology. We scanned the ice. “Where’s Patrick Crome?” we asked. This was a reference to a friend of Chetti’s whom he had invited to the game and whose name we recognized in Blue’s lineup. We had the honor of coaching Patrick when he was a seven year old Mite. There were six kids on the team, each with his own role. Patrick was the enforcer, even if half his hits were the kind of incidental collisions inevitable in first year hockey. Still at the league’s year-end banquet we bestowed on him the Mr. Byng award in honor of Lady Byng’s belligerent husband. Brian pointed him out to us—teal jersey, dangling chin strap, dangling neck laces and dangling moves. It was good to see him again. He had grown considerably in ten years.
The goalless impasse continued for another ten minutes. Then Mike Valenzano, for Blue, got the puck in the slot, put an incredibly slick move on Brian Pike, and wrong-footed Danny with the wrister to make it 6-2. We thought to ourselves that the next time Mike listens to the Grateful Dead song “Truckin’” (on vinyl of course) and he hears the line,
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me
…he’s going to remember that goal.
The Tona brothers hooked up on a sweet cross-ice dish to get Red back up by five, 7-2. Then Kiyoshi upped his game from Old Bucks to Kingston level, went the length of the ice and buried his own rebound to make it 7-3. During this back-and-forth we got the lowdown from Rich Devlin on meeting up with Mike Tennant at the Garden pub before Game 3. Rich said he was busting Mike’s chops for not having a stitch of Devils swag on him, apart from a plain black hat that said “Jersey” and could pacify any Rangers fan simply by saying, “It is the Garden state.” But seriously, Mike said he was going to wear his 86 Hughes jersey but it sustained a nachos spill during a foiled Jack attack in Game 2 and the cheese had adhered to the horned J like an epoxy. He dropped the jersey off at the Lucky 999 Laundromat in the East Village and then proceeded to lose the ticket a half hour later at the Museum of Ice Cream when he accidentally dropped it in one of the interactive churns. Hence “No tickee, no jersey.”
Blue narrowed the lead to 7-4 on Chris Chairmonte’s second goal, but a couple of snipes by Alan Blankstein and then Joe Tona going bar-down on Chetti widened Red’s lead to an insurmountable 10-4. We’re not going down without a fight Blue said, except “fight” was amended to read “really contentious argument”. This occurred when Chris Chairmonte, gunning for the hatter, dared a wrap-around on Dan and succeeded inasmuch as Dan smothered the puck with his glove and then abruptly shifted the glove forward from white ice to blue ice. At least that’s the way Blue saw it. Everyone on Blue saw it that way, even Kiyoshi who was standing back at center ice. Such a hubbub broke out, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2009 when some ringer with a chin beard like Layne Staley threatened to beat up the entire Blue team over offsides calls. Andrew Tona diffused the situation—and fast—by running to the scorer’s box and giving Blue the goal—10-5.
All was forgotten over beers and pizza at TJ’s. Dan even forgot whether the puck was across the goal line or not. The only thing not forgotten was Chris Chairmonte’s hat trick. It was the toast of a grand turnout with everyone on the front porch for the second week in a row. Srpring, indeed, had arrived. Even Lawrenceville students packed TJ’s. They had the day off on Monday for Scheduling Day when they minutely pore over syllabi and finalize their classes for next year. Thus, instead of being confined to their rooms and the library, they were given free range of Lawrenceville and many of them ended up at TJ’s. There was lots of traffic in and out the door but perfect decorum was maintained at all times, nor was there a single instance of someone contributing to the delinquency of an old person. Next week, for the last skate of the year, Andrew Tona will be hosting on his back deck. Note to Andrew: if Frankie shows up turn out the lights.