Post by Jim H. on Mar 18, 2024 20:13:38 GMT -5
Old guys who refuse to retire. They stubbornly stay in the game in defiance of wives, doctors and the ridicule of onlookers. Does this sound like Trump vs. Biden or Red vs. Blue? Or both? Every week we see Old Bucks reflected in the national scene. Take Bob Freiling for example. He plays hockey left, golfs right and putts left. He reminds us of Steve Garvey out in California who is running as a Republican but tells everyone he’ll probably vote for Biden. The times are out of joint. We thought it incredible that Blue had started the season winning seven games in row. And now Red has topped that, winning nine games in a row. That’s fluky enough to be not real, like a simulation, like NHL 23 PS5 Gameplay 4K, which is also like Old Bucks: it’s the same game it was 10 years ago but you still buy it because you love hockey!
Red came into Week 26 with some major firepower: Garrett Heffern and Jamison Pike, both playing together for the first time since Squirts ten years ago. It reminds us of an old Mitch Hedberg joke:
Man I wish I could play Little League today. I’d kick ass!
Old Bucks is the closest you can get to playing Little League again without buying Pop Rocks at the concession stand. Incidentally, 29 players showed up for Week 26—that’s one player short of the new congestion pricing rate of $30 a skate. They all mustered on St. Patrick’s Day to play hockey. No one wore green although the Friends of Old Bucks Hockey hosted a corned beef and cabbage luncheon at the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Trenton (those who don’t eat cabbage substituted bacon). But we digress. The game underway, Andrew Tona scored first for Blue—roofed it according to our sources (we were in the locker room at the time). We also missed Dave Boggs tying the game at ones. Finally we got to the Red bench. Jotting down details of the first two goals, we heard loud multiple “Whoo-hoos!” and looked up just in time to see Scott Shapiro skating away from the Red goal with eyes modestly downcast toward the ice. We figured Scott must have scored since if it was Bob Freiling he would have been doing his bird celly like Evgeny Kuznetsov. But Bob still appreciates the effort—it relieves the strain on his back from having to carry the whole team.
The game was tied 5-5 with both goalies, Dan Dougherty and Ed Conrad facing mountains of shots. For the whole game they probably faced about 100 shots on goal and 200 shots in the general direction of the goal. That’s how much action the goalies saw. Ryan Crowell made it 6-5 for Red. Then Jamison Pike made it 7-5 looking like Charlie Coyle in the Bruins-Flyers game Saturday night, fresh off the bench, where no one on the Flyers knew whence he came, where he was going, or what he was going to do. “Oh he roofs it and the Bruins lead!” the announcer screamed. Sort of what Jamison did too. Then Steve Souza, sporting his new prescription half-shield, put the moves on Bob Freiling and set up Wade Boggs—check that, Dave Boggs for the 8-5 lead.
Blue called a timeout. Or rather Dan Dougherty took a swig of water and adjusted the straps on his mask for the duration of a timeout. No one said a word, just like Torts on the Flyers bench during the Bruins game: “I didn’t say a word. I don’t need to say anything to the team during the timeout.” Play resumed and Blue was out for blood: red blood. Jim Heffern had the puck and was flying through the neutral zone (that’s right flying) when Chris Chairmonte lowered the boom on him. It was a seismic event that measured 7.9 on the Mike Richter scale. First Jim staggered to his feet and then the verbal gloves came off. “Are you okay?” Chris said. “Yeah,” Jim replied. It got ugly. Back on the bench Kiyoshi subjected the whole collision to rigorous analysis, right down to the angle of Chris’s shoulder upon impact. He shared his findings with Jim: “I can assure you it was not done with ill intent.”
“Well it was done with ill something,” Jim said.
Blue reeled off three straight to tie the game at eights. Then Dave Boggs astonished the whole club by scoring his third goal of the night to give Red the 9-8 lead. It was short-lived. Mike Valenzano wove his way around three different players to dish a dirty feed to Bob Freiling for the 9-9 tie. And how we love to see Mike and Mark Herr on the ice at the same time. It’s like seeing Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp sharing the stage at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center singing,
Little pink jerseys for you and me…
Alan Blankstein broke the tie with a shot off Dan’s leg from behind the goal line (always a tough read for any tender) but Blue tied it up with an Aaron Kibbey goal. Once more the teams traded goals, 11-11, but then it was lights out for Blue with a Garrett Heffern goal, an incredible tip-in by Dave Boggs (his fourth on the night) and a Kiyoshi rink-long rush to seal the deal 14-11. When the winged Hussar from Poland, Greg Valenski, scored to make it 14-12, Blue prided itself on a moral victory, just like the Flyers hanging with the Bruins for almost 60 minutes Saturday night.
But it wouldn’t be Old Bucks without a comical curtain call. With a minute left Kiyoshi quitted the game and the Red bench. Gingerly he made his way across the ice with the game still in progress, threading his way through the action, intent on reaching the small locker room that accommodates the extra skaters. Leave it to Alan Blankstein to see the open man and launch an outlet pass that bounced right off his leg. Apparently, in Old Bucks, when you’re standing straight up, cradling two sticks in one hand, and a water bottle in the other, you’re still indistinguishable from any player in the thick of the fight. And if that wasn’t funny enough, once Kiyoshi reached the Blue bench, he realized he wasn’t in the the small locker room after all, and had to make his way back across the ice to the big locker room.
No one passed to him that time.
Red came into Week 26 with some major firepower: Garrett Heffern and Jamison Pike, both playing together for the first time since Squirts ten years ago. It reminds us of an old Mitch Hedberg joke:
Man I wish I could play Little League today. I’d kick ass!
Old Bucks is the closest you can get to playing Little League again without buying Pop Rocks at the concession stand. Incidentally, 29 players showed up for Week 26—that’s one player short of the new congestion pricing rate of $30 a skate. They all mustered on St. Patrick’s Day to play hockey. No one wore green although the Friends of Old Bucks Hockey hosted a corned beef and cabbage luncheon at the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Trenton (those who don’t eat cabbage substituted bacon). But we digress. The game underway, Andrew Tona scored first for Blue—roofed it according to our sources (we were in the locker room at the time). We also missed Dave Boggs tying the game at ones. Finally we got to the Red bench. Jotting down details of the first two goals, we heard loud multiple “Whoo-hoos!” and looked up just in time to see Scott Shapiro skating away from the Red goal with eyes modestly downcast toward the ice. We figured Scott must have scored since if it was Bob Freiling he would have been doing his bird celly like Evgeny Kuznetsov. But Bob still appreciates the effort—it relieves the strain on his back from having to carry the whole team.
The game was tied 5-5 with both goalies, Dan Dougherty and Ed Conrad facing mountains of shots. For the whole game they probably faced about 100 shots on goal and 200 shots in the general direction of the goal. That’s how much action the goalies saw. Ryan Crowell made it 6-5 for Red. Then Jamison Pike made it 7-5 looking like Charlie Coyle in the Bruins-Flyers game Saturday night, fresh off the bench, where no one on the Flyers knew whence he came, where he was going, or what he was going to do. “Oh he roofs it and the Bruins lead!” the announcer screamed. Sort of what Jamison did too. Then Steve Souza, sporting his new prescription half-shield, put the moves on Bob Freiling and set up Wade Boggs—check that, Dave Boggs for the 8-5 lead.
Blue called a timeout. Or rather Dan Dougherty took a swig of water and adjusted the straps on his mask for the duration of a timeout. No one said a word, just like Torts on the Flyers bench during the Bruins game: “I didn’t say a word. I don’t need to say anything to the team during the timeout.” Play resumed and Blue was out for blood: red blood. Jim Heffern had the puck and was flying through the neutral zone (that’s right flying) when Chris Chairmonte lowered the boom on him. It was a seismic event that measured 7.9 on the Mike Richter scale. First Jim staggered to his feet and then the verbal gloves came off. “Are you okay?” Chris said. “Yeah,” Jim replied. It got ugly. Back on the bench Kiyoshi subjected the whole collision to rigorous analysis, right down to the angle of Chris’s shoulder upon impact. He shared his findings with Jim: “I can assure you it was not done with ill intent.”
“Well it was done with ill something,” Jim said.
Blue reeled off three straight to tie the game at eights. Then Dave Boggs astonished the whole club by scoring his third goal of the night to give Red the 9-8 lead. It was short-lived. Mike Valenzano wove his way around three different players to dish a dirty feed to Bob Freiling for the 9-9 tie. And how we love to see Mike and Mark Herr on the ice at the same time. It’s like seeing Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp sharing the stage at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center singing,
Little pink jerseys for you and me…
Alan Blankstein broke the tie with a shot off Dan’s leg from behind the goal line (always a tough read for any tender) but Blue tied it up with an Aaron Kibbey goal. Once more the teams traded goals, 11-11, but then it was lights out for Blue with a Garrett Heffern goal, an incredible tip-in by Dave Boggs (his fourth on the night) and a Kiyoshi rink-long rush to seal the deal 14-11. When the winged Hussar from Poland, Greg Valenski, scored to make it 14-12, Blue prided itself on a moral victory, just like the Flyers hanging with the Bruins for almost 60 minutes Saturday night.
But it wouldn’t be Old Bucks without a comical curtain call. With a minute left Kiyoshi quitted the game and the Red bench. Gingerly he made his way across the ice with the game still in progress, threading his way through the action, intent on reaching the small locker room that accommodates the extra skaters. Leave it to Alan Blankstein to see the open man and launch an outlet pass that bounced right off his leg. Apparently, in Old Bucks, when you’re standing straight up, cradling two sticks in one hand, and a water bottle in the other, you’re still indistinguishable from any player in the thick of the fight. And if that wasn’t funny enough, once Kiyoshi reached the Blue bench, he realized he wasn’t in the the small locker room after all, and had to make his way back across the ice to the big locker room.
No one passed to him that time.