Post by Old Bucks Admin on Dec 18, 2008 8:01:24 GMT -5
Kenny had a tough week. On Thursday he forgot to take out the recycling; on Friday he forgot to TiVo “Wife Swap”; on Saturday he forgot to pick up Ben at the train station; and on Sunday he forgot the formula for ensuring a Red victory. This all contributed to making Week 13 memorable, inasmuch as Red got off to a memorably bad start. We did not see it, but from our vantage in the locker room we could hear it: the frequent cheers erupting from the Blue bench and the loud tapping of sticks against the boards—a kind of Morse code for the inverse of S.O.S. which is “Our Ship Rocks!” By the time we entered the game Blue was leading 3-0 and jockeying for more. What ensued was ugly. Three more goals that were positively garbage; worse than garbage, in fact; toxic waste—the kind of goals the EPA makes you quadruple bag, box, tape, seal, and bury in a Nevada mountain range. We had to pity Kenny, who looked dumbfounded, like a sphinx that had forgotten the answer to its own riddle.
As the game ground on, Red’s offense began to percolate a little and their goalie, Dan Dougherty, who scorned every shot Blue took, even managed to save a few of them. One Red goal that stood out was Art Rosenbaum’s because he brought the puck back to the bench and said he was planning to frame it on his wall next to the Rangers tickets he couldn’t sell. Blue’s pressure was still relentless. They sported a wide open offense noted for Kip Thomas’s fly patterns up the right wing in imitation of his hero, Terrell Owens, and Rich Devlin’s fly patterns to the bathroom to relieve stomach cramps. Even the grizzled veteran, Bill Hamill, was able to strut some stuff with a lesson in the fine art of the breakaway. He carried the puck right up to the Red goal and with the slightest head feint opened Dan’s pads like he was opening the leaves of a gate and slipped the puck through with less effort than it takes to sink a three-foot putt. In contrast, Craig Allen, bearing down upon Marty, got within five feet and unleashed a shot that could have taken out the clearance sign at a drive-thru McDonald’s had one been incongruously suspended above the goal.
Red made a go of it but in the end came up short, losing 9-7. They never lost their sense of purpose, however, which was to burn enough calories to justify the consumption of a few post-game brews. In the locker room Kevin Saunders boasted he had three assists, having forgotten the unwritten rule that you’re supposed to stop counting after two. Bill MacDowell passed out homemade peanut brittle, a delightful precursor to the holidays, which someone compared to “little shards of heaven”. Disappointingly, John Lupisella said he didn’t make any lemoncello this year, having forgotten that it was an established Christmas tradition dating back to last year. So those who were hoping to get pleasantly jingled on it will have to revert back to an even older tradition, that of getting mildly nappy on cheap, store-bought beer.
As the game ground on, Red’s offense began to percolate a little and their goalie, Dan Dougherty, who scorned every shot Blue took, even managed to save a few of them. One Red goal that stood out was Art Rosenbaum’s because he brought the puck back to the bench and said he was planning to frame it on his wall next to the Rangers tickets he couldn’t sell. Blue’s pressure was still relentless. They sported a wide open offense noted for Kip Thomas’s fly patterns up the right wing in imitation of his hero, Terrell Owens, and Rich Devlin’s fly patterns to the bathroom to relieve stomach cramps. Even the grizzled veteran, Bill Hamill, was able to strut some stuff with a lesson in the fine art of the breakaway. He carried the puck right up to the Red goal and with the slightest head feint opened Dan’s pads like he was opening the leaves of a gate and slipped the puck through with less effort than it takes to sink a three-foot putt. In contrast, Craig Allen, bearing down upon Marty, got within five feet and unleashed a shot that could have taken out the clearance sign at a drive-thru McDonald’s had one been incongruously suspended above the goal.
Red made a go of it but in the end came up short, losing 9-7. They never lost their sense of purpose, however, which was to burn enough calories to justify the consumption of a few post-game brews. In the locker room Kevin Saunders boasted he had three assists, having forgotten the unwritten rule that you’re supposed to stop counting after two. Bill MacDowell passed out homemade peanut brittle, a delightful precursor to the holidays, which someone compared to “little shards of heaven”. Disappointingly, John Lupisella said he didn’t make any lemoncello this year, having forgotten that it was an established Christmas tradition dating back to last year. So those who were hoping to get pleasantly jingled on it will have to revert back to an even older tradition, that of getting mildly nappy on cheap, store-bought beer.