Post by Jim H. on Jan 29, 2024 18:55:15 GMT -5
Week 19 coincided with NFL Championship Sunday which is arguably as big as the Super Bowl because what it lacks in hype it makes up for in duration with two big games packed into one exciting evening. As a sidebar, it’s amazing how well the NFL has rebounded from COVID and the anthem controversy. Indeed, we always knew some outrageous spectacle would come along and knocks those big Kardashian busts right off their Instagram plinths. We just didn’t expect it to be a shirtless Jason Kelce. He sure got everyone’s attention. It must be that real skin texture that catches the eye—not like TikTok where the images are all filtered up and digitized.
Just think: with fodder like that keeping us entertained, imagine how lucrative the Old Bucks locker room could be. Granted our physiques are not like Jason’s but they’re at least topical. Indeed, the archetypical Old Bucks physique is like the current economy under Joe Biden: it slows down even as it gets bigger. But there are rare exceptions, Ken Blankstein for one. Rested, tanned and ready, he was back from Naples where, we understand, he played a lot of golf, both the real kind and the kind you can play on TV. Reminds us of that Ernest Hemingway novel, also set in Florida, The Old Man and the Wii.
Benches for both teams were absolutely packed, either at or near capacity, especially on Blue which topped out at 10 players “riding the pine” once Mark Herr showed up. “Skate hard and get off the ice,” was a common exhortation to the Blue rank and file except for Jim Heffern who was merely urged to “get off the ice.” Pretty harsh when considering that Jim was the only normal person there even as he opened a big bottle of seltzer water and sprayed everyone with its contents (he calls the spray “loogie diluter”). Red jumped out to a 6-0 lead on the strength of four goals by Ben David who with that kind of exploit had no where to go but up. We half-expected him to take the world in a love embrace, fire all of his guns at once and explode into the space. On the sixth goal Brian Urban, also on Red, happened to be next to the Blue bench where Andrew Tona chirped at him: “So are you proud of yourself?” Hard to believe Brian once skated exclusively for Blue and never for Red—an era which will soon be featured on an upcoming episode of PBS’s “Finding Your Roots.”
Slowly Blue crawled back into contention with goals by Andrew Tona, Josh Hunter and Bobby Jr. But Bob Freiling was the one guy Blue knew it had to get going in order to win and he simply wasn’t knocking down the mid-rangers (but we’ve seen him golf so no surprises there). Finally he had a two-goal shift, the “finally” echoed by his son who wondered, “Now you decide to score?” Blue ended up tying the game 8-8 with a run of four successive goals. Meantime, its bench fixated on Frankie, the Red defender, who persisted in launching head-high hammers from downtown—slap shots with full wind ups—in reckless defiance of whatever gentlemanly polish Old Bucks pretends to have. “Take something off that, whydontcha!” its bench admonished Frankie on more than one occasion. Ironically, it was Dan Dougherty, in the Red net, who took a couple rips right off the dome. Even the Hanson brothers said the shots crossed the line. But it was good to see him back in the net, and his cousin Connor too, out for his first skate of the season.
There’s a famous book How the Irish Saved Civilization. Well the Irish were going to save Red in Week 19 with some help of one Pole, Greg Valenski, who did a little tuck and draw and went high and in on Ed Conrad to snap the tie. At 9-8 we were reminded that Paul Egan can never be the last man back on any play. Joe Tona stick checked him in the neutral zone and instantly got a 2 on 0 with John Lupisella. Ed Conrad stoned the first shot but then Joe and John got second, third and fourth chances, literally bringing Ed to his knees, while Paul sauntered back about as fast as he moves in the gondola line at Vail. Finally Joe tapped the puck in and moments later Paul arrived to dig it out of the net while giving Ed tips on how to improve his goaltending by leaving the top eyelets of his skates open to give him more ankle deflection on his butterflies.
“How come you didn’t get back?” Ed asked him.
“Oh, I forgot I was playing defense,” Paul blithely responded.
Leave it to the Artful Codger, Mike Valenzano, to seal the 11-8 win by blocking a pass from Andrew Cordssen-David with his skate, and then batting a bouncing puck out of mid-air with his stick—and into the goal. It was the talk of the locker room. That is, if you discount the shower-amplified voice of Paul Egan explaining why Voldemort hated Dumbledore.
We entered the pizza portal and came out at TJ’s thronged with Lawrenceville students because they had the day off on Monday. Old Bucks made a lively complement to their crowd. We sat next to Rich Cerbone and heard all about his two-week Viking cruise—a veritable Norse saga of 30-foot seas, 21-hour nights, subzero temperatures and wildly pitching foredecks coated with treacherous sheens of invisible ice—everything short of a Kraken attack on the shuffleboard court. Coincidentally Rich met a fellow geologist his first night on board over a cod dinner with both the wives who were, coincidentally, also geologists.
He was gone two days later. With a broken arm.
Just think: with fodder like that keeping us entertained, imagine how lucrative the Old Bucks locker room could be. Granted our physiques are not like Jason’s but they’re at least topical. Indeed, the archetypical Old Bucks physique is like the current economy under Joe Biden: it slows down even as it gets bigger. But there are rare exceptions, Ken Blankstein for one. Rested, tanned and ready, he was back from Naples where, we understand, he played a lot of golf, both the real kind and the kind you can play on TV. Reminds us of that Ernest Hemingway novel, also set in Florida, The Old Man and the Wii.
Benches for both teams were absolutely packed, either at or near capacity, especially on Blue which topped out at 10 players “riding the pine” once Mark Herr showed up. “Skate hard and get off the ice,” was a common exhortation to the Blue rank and file except for Jim Heffern who was merely urged to “get off the ice.” Pretty harsh when considering that Jim was the only normal person there even as he opened a big bottle of seltzer water and sprayed everyone with its contents (he calls the spray “loogie diluter”). Red jumped out to a 6-0 lead on the strength of four goals by Ben David who with that kind of exploit had no where to go but up. We half-expected him to take the world in a love embrace, fire all of his guns at once and explode into the space. On the sixth goal Brian Urban, also on Red, happened to be next to the Blue bench where Andrew Tona chirped at him: “So are you proud of yourself?” Hard to believe Brian once skated exclusively for Blue and never for Red—an era which will soon be featured on an upcoming episode of PBS’s “Finding Your Roots.”
Slowly Blue crawled back into contention with goals by Andrew Tona, Josh Hunter and Bobby Jr. But Bob Freiling was the one guy Blue knew it had to get going in order to win and he simply wasn’t knocking down the mid-rangers (but we’ve seen him golf so no surprises there). Finally he had a two-goal shift, the “finally” echoed by his son who wondered, “Now you decide to score?” Blue ended up tying the game 8-8 with a run of four successive goals. Meantime, its bench fixated on Frankie, the Red defender, who persisted in launching head-high hammers from downtown—slap shots with full wind ups—in reckless defiance of whatever gentlemanly polish Old Bucks pretends to have. “Take something off that, whydontcha!” its bench admonished Frankie on more than one occasion. Ironically, it was Dan Dougherty, in the Red net, who took a couple rips right off the dome. Even the Hanson brothers said the shots crossed the line. But it was good to see him back in the net, and his cousin Connor too, out for his first skate of the season.
There’s a famous book How the Irish Saved Civilization. Well the Irish were going to save Red in Week 19 with some help of one Pole, Greg Valenski, who did a little tuck and draw and went high and in on Ed Conrad to snap the tie. At 9-8 we were reminded that Paul Egan can never be the last man back on any play. Joe Tona stick checked him in the neutral zone and instantly got a 2 on 0 with John Lupisella. Ed Conrad stoned the first shot but then Joe and John got second, third and fourth chances, literally bringing Ed to his knees, while Paul sauntered back about as fast as he moves in the gondola line at Vail. Finally Joe tapped the puck in and moments later Paul arrived to dig it out of the net while giving Ed tips on how to improve his goaltending by leaving the top eyelets of his skates open to give him more ankle deflection on his butterflies.
“How come you didn’t get back?” Ed asked him.
“Oh, I forgot I was playing defense,” Paul blithely responded.
Leave it to the Artful Codger, Mike Valenzano, to seal the 11-8 win by blocking a pass from Andrew Cordssen-David with his skate, and then batting a bouncing puck out of mid-air with his stick—and into the goal. It was the talk of the locker room. That is, if you discount the shower-amplified voice of Paul Egan explaining why Voldemort hated Dumbledore.
We entered the pizza portal and came out at TJ’s thronged with Lawrenceville students because they had the day off on Monday. Old Bucks made a lively complement to their crowd. We sat next to Rich Cerbone and heard all about his two-week Viking cruise—a veritable Norse saga of 30-foot seas, 21-hour nights, subzero temperatures and wildly pitching foredecks coated with treacherous sheens of invisible ice—everything short of a Kraken attack on the shuffleboard court. Coincidentally Rich met a fellow geologist his first night on board over a cod dinner with both the wives who were, coincidentally, also geologists.
He was gone two days later. With a broken arm.