Post by Jim H. on Apr 17, 2024 18:08:43 GMT -5
By Brian Urban
With our typical press corp unavailable Iwas forced to had the honor of writing the blog for Week 29. Let the record reflect that Red triumphed over Blue 13-11 in a game that featured several lead changes and was relatively even throughout.
I want to get out in front and admit that this blog will most likely contain a multitude of grammatical and typographical errors. I am college educated but that was 20+ years ago and I studied Finance. Which means two things: first I’ve come to accept that I will never be able to explain my job to someone in a way that they leave that conversation saying, “wow, that guy is important and adds value to society.” Second, it also means that by a slim margin I’m better with numbers than words. Which actually comes in handy when keeping score at an Old Bucks game but doesn’t help when comparing writing against our resident writer Jim “Hemingway” Heffern.
All three of our regular goalies were unavailable this weekend. Which serves as a reminder that we need to revisit the vacation/sick time clause in our standard player contracts before the next offseason. We’ve actually amassed a decent backup goalie bench and we were lucky to have Nick Chetti again. Nick is a great young goalie who is fully trained in the latest style of goaltending. He moves laterally really well and his angles look solid. Nice kid too. I owe him a perpetual apology since our texts got crossed up way back on Super Bowl Sunday and he showed up to an empty rink while the Old Bucks were already elbows deep in wings having played early that day.
But Nick can only stand on one side of the rink so after exhausting the goaliedex I was forced to call my own number. Promptly after that I called my wife’s number to ask her to bring my goalie skates to the rink because I forgot them. She kindly obliged. Needless to say I was late and I didn’t get much of a warm up which is fine because I don’t think scar tissue and bone spurs ever get warm anyway. Communication problems were an issue from the jump. I told Ben and Andrew to give maximum effort. I was referring to the game, however they interpreted my request as the warm up and immediately destroyed any sliver of false confidence I had. Despite that it was a lot of fun playing goalie, and it really makes me miss it the more I do it. My orthopedist disagrees and hence the Sunday skate was followed by the Tuesday cortisone shot but it was still worth it. If you’ve never played goalie you don’t know that you see the game totally differently than from any other position. You see plays develop first, you occasionally see guys giving max effort to get back (Alan a few times), and you get to talk for a few minutes with Paul in the crease as he takes his time exiting the zone. You also get to hit Eddy O with a “Come On!” after Bob Freiling taps in for birdie with Eddie watching in what can only be described as caddie mode. Goaltender is the best position in the best sport and I won’t entertain any objections. (Does anybody else say to himself “Goaltender!” each time a puck is dumped on net a la Angie Carnevale.)
A game did happen although it was a bit difficult to bring a note pad into the crease so this is just from memory. A few things stood out to me. Johnny does not enjoy being hooked and he almost broke Paulie in half, until he realized who did it. At which point he decided to break him into fourths. He also bagged a hatty, one especially nice goal picking up a loose puck in the slot and firing a quick snapshot for a goal. Andrew and Greg Valenski are a lot of fun to watch compete against each other. I did touch a puck behind the net and ask Andrew to go end to end for a goal so I could get an assist but Greg and the Red defense was up to the task. Jamison Pike continues to impress, I don’t think Eddie O will ever stop talking about the goal Jamison scored on me, a no angle short side goal about 30 seconds in. He skates just like his dad, I honestly struggled to tell them apart multiple times. I think Mark Mayer might have had the game winner for Red blasting a shot from the deep slot. Ultimately it was a close game and that’s all that matters.
Weather was perfect so we sat outside at TJs and were treated to a Rich Devlin appearance, looking forward to seeing him back on the ice next Fall. A moderate crowd attended, maybe some people were confused now that we’ve relocated to the other side of the porch. Hughie enjoyed a cigar and the spot welding work that was done to repair the bench inside. (I imagine the only two reasons he didn’t smoke while we played are that it’s difficult to smoke through a cage and the fear that the smoke would discolor his translucent red helmet).
Thanks for reading!
PS - We have two skates left this year. Our final skate on 4/28 starts at 1pm and will follow our Old Bucks Cup format again. So please mark your availability in TeamReach ASAP so I can hand it over to central scouting to prepare the draft rankings. We will pick 4 captains to draft the teams. I’d like to do it next Sunday at TJs but need a good count of participants first.
With our typical press corp unavailable I
I want to get out in front and admit that this blog will most likely contain a multitude of grammatical and typographical errors. I am college educated but that was 20+ years ago and I studied Finance. Which means two things: first I’ve come to accept that I will never be able to explain my job to someone in a way that they leave that conversation saying, “wow, that guy is important and adds value to society.” Second, it also means that by a slim margin I’m better with numbers than words. Which actually comes in handy when keeping score at an Old Bucks game but doesn’t help when comparing writing against our resident writer Jim “Hemingway” Heffern.
All three of our regular goalies were unavailable this weekend. Which serves as a reminder that we need to revisit the vacation/sick time clause in our standard player contracts before the next offseason. We’ve actually amassed a decent backup goalie bench and we were lucky to have Nick Chetti again. Nick is a great young goalie who is fully trained in the latest style of goaltending. He moves laterally really well and his angles look solid. Nice kid too. I owe him a perpetual apology since our texts got crossed up way back on Super Bowl Sunday and he showed up to an empty rink while the Old Bucks were already elbows deep in wings having played early that day.
But Nick can only stand on one side of the rink so after exhausting the goaliedex I was forced to call my own number. Promptly after that I called my wife’s number to ask her to bring my goalie skates to the rink because I forgot them. She kindly obliged. Needless to say I was late and I didn’t get much of a warm up which is fine because I don’t think scar tissue and bone spurs ever get warm anyway. Communication problems were an issue from the jump. I told Ben and Andrew to give maximum effort. I was referring to the game, however they interpreted my request as the warm up and immediately destroyed any sliver of false confidence I had. Despite that it was a lot of fun playing goalie, and it really makes me miss it the more I do it. My orthopedist disagrees and hence the Sunday skate was followed by the Tuesday cortisone shot but it was still worth it. If you’ve never played goalie you don’t know that you see the game totally differently than from any other position. You see plays develop first, you occasionally see guys giving max effort to get back (Alan a few times), and you get to talk for a few minutes with Paul in the crease as he takes his time exiting the zone. You also get to hit Eddy O with a “Come On!” after Bob Freiling taps in for birdie with Eddie watching in what can only be described as caddie mode. Goaltender is the best position in the best sport and I won’t entertain any objections. (Does anybody else say to himself “Goaltender!” each time a puck is dumped on net a la Angie Carnevale.)
A game did happen although it was a bit difficult to bring a note pad into the crease so this is just from memory. A few things stood out to me. Johnny does not enjoy being hooked and he almost broke Paulie in half, until he realized who did it. At which point he decided to break him into fourths. He also bagged a hatty, one especially nice goal picking up a loose puck in the slot and firing a quick snapshot for a goal. Andrew and Greg Valenski are a lot of fun to watch compete against each other. I did touch a puck behind the net and ask Andrew to go end to end for a goal so I could get an assist but Greg and the Red defense was up to the task. Jamison Pike continues to impress, I don’t think Eddie O will ever stop talking about the goal Jamison scored on me, a no angle short side goal about 30 seconds in. He skates just like his dad, I honestly struggled to tell them apart multiple times. I think Mark Mayer might have had the game winner for Red blasting a shot from the deep slot. Ultimately it was a close game and that’s all that matters.
Weather was perfect so we sat outside at TJs and were treated to a Rich Devlin appearance, looking forward to seeing him back on the ice next Fall. A moderate crowd attended, maybe some people were confused now that we’ve relocated to the other side of the porch. Hughie enjoyed a cigar and the spot welding work that was done to repair the bench inside. (I imagine the only two reasons he didn’t smoke while we played are that it’s difficult to smoke through a cage and the fear that the smoke would discolor his translucent red helmet).
Thanks for reading!
PS - We have two skates left this year. Our final skate on 4/28 starts at 1pm and will follow our Old Bucks Cup format again. So please mark your availability in TeamReach ASAP so I can hand it over to central scouting to prepare the draft rankings. We will pick 4 captains to draft the teams. I’d like to do it next Sunday at TJs but need a good count of participants first.