Post by Week 22: Red 14 - Blue 12 on Feb 19, 2024 7:27:55 GMT -5
Chris Chairmonte had a timely share on WhatsApp for Week 22: an article celebrating Bobby Jr.’s stellar year playing for the Holy Ghost Firebirds in 2016 (24 goals and 24 assists for 48 points total). It’s nice to be reminded of the Old Bucks tradition of bequeathing talent to its sons and daughters and watching them shine at the high school level where so many memories are made. This tradition continued Friday night when Robbinsville High School won its first county championship in its 15-year history with a 3-1 victory over Notre Dame and the first goal of the game was scored by none other than Jamison Pike, Brian’s son—a senior at Robbinsville. To put the magnitude of the win in perspective, the Robbinsville coach told the press after the game: “Now I can die happy.”
Week 22 also coincided with NHL Stadium Series 2024 where the Flyers faced the Devils on Saturday and the Rangers faced the Islanders on Sunday to the cheers of 80,000 hockey fans. The event siphoned off so many Old Bucks players (Mike Tennant, Andrew and Joe Tona, Tim White) that Sunday’s Old Bucks game lost some of its buzz, just like the Genesis Invitational golf tournament in which Tiger Woods withdrew, Jordan Speith was disqualified—and Phil Collins didn’t even show up. Even so, Old Bucks had a good turnout including all three Dougherty siblings, and Dad Mike (watching from the Blue bench) who chuckled at the thought of Angie ribbing all the Flyers fans for losing to the Devils on Saturday. Certainly the Flyers were the hot team for a while but when your coach is all bundled up with heated gloves and a hoodie it’s sometimes a reflection of the players cooling off.
In a nutshell, Red’s strength for Week 22 was twofold and they were both named Freiling. Dad and son scored 9 of Red’s 14 goals. This in spite of the fact that they both got their skates sharpened before the game and Brian Urban had secretly put the goalie stone on hoping it would double the radii of their turns. They overcame this by keeping turns to a minimum and just going straight for the net. Indeed, we sometimes forget what a beast of a player Bob Sr. was in his prime, but when he scores four goals it all comes back to us. Combine that with Junior being the baddest Junior since Junior Gotti and it makes for a very amped up offense. He had poor Eddie Odoski in his heavy blue jersey sweating so much he looked positively bedraggled.
All three goalies experienced higher-than-normal shot volume. That’s right, three. Eli Reid played for Blue and Ed Conrad and Vinnie split time tending the Red net. Ed and Vinnie had a system: play for 15 minutes and then change right in the middle of Blue mounting an odd-man rush. Never failed to break it up. But even so Blue wasn’t about to go gently into that good night of TJ’s afterparty. It kept pace with Red, matching the Freilings—those nattering nabobs of Nittany—goal for goal. All of its big guns got involved from the three Doughertys to Brian Urban to Ben Shapiro. The game went down to the wire tied 12-12 with 12 minutes to go. Blue even had a golden opportunity to snap the tie with the decisive go-head goal. Who bungled the play—badly—we can’t say as we’ve taken to anonymizing players who make embarrassing mistakes so they don’t face further ridicule on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. All we can say is this person was right on Ed Conrad’s doorstep, had him flailing around on the ice, and instead of tucking the puck in with a bedtime story Goodnight Red he tucked it right underneath Ed’s prone body. His son caught the whole thing on his GoPro—but probably wish he hadn’t.
A dramatic sequence of events led to Red scoring the game-winning goal. Ben David came motoring up the middle, and was just about to tee one up between the hashes when Scott Shapiro picked his pocket clean and sprinted the other way. He gunned a pass to Brian Urban who now had only Frankie between him and the goal.
In a clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade…
Brian tried to dangle around him but Frankie read his move like a book, his 11 years of standing toe-to-toe with pugilists trying to knock his teeth out giving him a decided advantage. Arresting the puck with his skate, he initiated the counter-attack through the N zone which ended with Junior bagging his fifth goal of the night, a game-winning laser from the exact same spot Ben David had his pocket picked 20 seconds earlier. Josh Hunter added the insurance goal and this one went in the books a Red 14-12 win. It was a great day to be a Rangers fan, but not a bad one for Old Bucks either.
Week 22 also coincided with NHL Stadium Series 2024 where the Flyers faced the Devils on Saturday and the Rangers faced the Islanders on Sunday to the cheers of 80,000 hockey fans. The event siphoned off so many Old Bucks players (Mike Tennant, Andrew and Joe Tona, Tim White) that Sunday’s Old Bucks game lost some of its buzz, just like the Genesis Invitational golf tournament in which Tiger Woods withdrew, Jordan Speith was disqualified—and Phil Collins didn’t even show up. Even so, Old Bucks had a good turnout including all three Dougherty siblings, and Dad Mike (watching from the Blue bench) who chuckled at the thought of Angie ribbing all the Flyers fans for losing to the Devils on Saturday. Certainly the Flyers were the hot team for a while but when your coach is all bundled up with heated gloves and a hoodie it’s sometimes a reflection of the players cooling off.
In a nutshell, Red’s strength for Week 22 was twofold and they were both named Freiling. Dad and son scored 9 of Red’s 14 goals. This in spite of the fact that they both got their skates sharpened before the game and Brian Urban had secretly put the goalie stone on hoping it would double the radii of their turns. They overcame this by keeping turns to a minimum and just going straight for the net. Indeed, we sometimes forget what a beast of a player Bob Sr. was in his prime, but when he scores four goals it all comes back to us. Combine that with Junior being the baddest Junior since Junior Gotti and it makes for a very amped up offense. He had poor Eddie Odoski in his heavy blue jersey sweating so much he looked positively bedraggled.
All three goalies experienced higher-than-normal shot volume. That’s right, three. Eli Reid played for Blue and Ed Conrad and Vinnie split time tending the Red net. Ed and Vinnie had a system: play for 15 minutes and then change right in the middle of Blue mounting an odd-man rush. Never failed to break it up. But even so Blue wasn’t about to go gently into that good night of TJ’s afterparty. It kept pace with Red, matching the Freilings—those nattering nabobs of Nittany—goal for goal. All of its big guns got involved from the three Doughertys to Brian Urban to Ben Shapiro. The game went down to the wire tied 12-12 with 12 minutes to go. Blue even had a golden opportunity to snap the tie with the decisive go-head goal. Who bungled the play—badly—we can’t say as we’ve taken to anonymizing players who make embarrassing mistakes so they don’t face further ridicule on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. All we can say is this person was right on Ed Conrad’s doorstep, had him flailing around on the ice, and instead of tucking the puck in with a bedtime story Goodnight Red he tucked it right underneath Ed’s prone body. His son caught the whole thing on his GoPro—but probably wish he hadn’t.
A dramatic sequence of events led to Red scoring the game-winning goal. Ben David came motoring up the middle, and was just about to tee one up between the hashes when Scott Shapiro picked his pocket clean and sprinted the other way. He gunned a pass to Brian Urban who now had only Frankie between him and the goal.
In a clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade…
Brian tried to dangle around him but Frankie read his move like a book, his 11 years of standing toe-to-toe with pugilists trying to knock his teeth out giving him a decided advantage. Arresting the puck with his skate, he initiated the counter-attack through the N zone which ended with Junior bagging his fifth goal of the night, a game-winning laser from the exact same spot Ben David had his pocket picked 20 seconds earlier. Josh Hunter added the insurance goal and this one went in the books a Red 14-12 win. It was a great day to be a Rangers fan, but not a bad one for Old Bucks either.