Post by Old Bucks Admin on Dec 30, 2009 8:37:49 GMT -5
The best explanation we heard of what happened in Week 13 came from Steve Hendershott, whom we met at the Lawrenceville School’s annual hockey tournament. He said that he had scored the first goal of the game, but because he gets no respect, no one paid attention to it. We believe him. We’ve seen the same thing happen to Kip Thomas many times.
Week 14 can be dispensed with in a trice. Blue kicked butt, plain and simple. We won’t even use our thesaurus for this one (except for “trice”). Blue scored first when Rich Cerbone kicked it out nicely to a streaking Brian Urban who corralled the bouncing puck at the red line and took it all the way in for the score. Then Chris Dougherty, also on Blue, scored twice: once unassisted and once on a sweet setup from Larry the Cable Guy. With a 3-0 lead Blue went into their one-four defensive shell, only to score two more goals, one by Jim Heffern and one by Mike Dougherty, who shot a knuckle puck from the point that completely fooled Eddie.
Down 5-0, Red revamped their approach, giving Bob Freiling carte blanche powers to hog the puck whenever necessary. This soon bore fruit when Bob took the puck from behind his own net and then stickhandled around eight other people, including four of his teammates, before meeting Alex Cerbone one-on-one. Alex pushed him way to the outside, forcing an incredible sharp-angled shot that skittered behind Marty, bounced off the far post, and then into play again. Red ruled it a goal, though Blue cited an obscure technicality in the rule book about the puck having to be completely across the goal line in order for it to count. Red insisted, however, and the score was 5-1.
Ben Blankstein scored twice to make it 5-3 and Red looked on the rebound. For Blue things looked dicey until Rich Devlin, scrapping for rebounds in front of the net, made an amazing third, fourth, and fifth effort with Kenny and Hughie draped all over him to extend the lead to 6-3. “That man is the reincarnation of Phil Esposito,” Mark Herr gushed from the bench.
From then on Blue was indomitable and scored almost at will. With the game in hand they passed the time between shifts arguing over who looked more feckless: Bob Freiling or Steve Nanfava. Red’s low point came when—down 8-5—they allowed Brian Urban to score three goals in one shift. That made the final score 11-5.
Back in the locker room John Lupisella made up for the lack of pretzels by dispensing homemade lemoncello, reviving a Christmas tradition that had lately fallen into abeyance. A funny thing happened when Kenny sheepishly approached Eddie and told him the club was getting its old goalie back (Kenny, not Vinnie) and his services would no longer be needed. “Are you kidding me?” Eddie snapped back at him. “I wouldn’t play for your sorry-ass team again if you frickin’ paid me. Your whole Red team is an embarrassment to the game—and you especially! Go find yourself another sucker.”
And that, it seemed, was that.
On this date (2002): Craig Allen shows up to Old Bucks haggard and bleary-eyed after plowing for 16 straight hours during a snowstorm. He takes the ice for Blue but seems completely out of it, like chloroform on skates. Blue, however, has an unusually strong team and takes a 6-0 lead into the last fifteen minutes of the game. Everyone’s on edge, wondering if Marty will record the first shutout in Old Bucks history, something that, if accomplished, would be on par with Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. However, with ten minutes left, Craig falls asleep, literally, while on the ice, leaving his man, Mike the Czech, wide open at the far post, who promptly puts the puck in the net, ruining Marty’s shutout. Marty retaliates by whacking Craig on the crown of his helmet with goalie stick, not only jarring him awake but knocking him to the ice. The incident is recorded on one of the rink’s security cameras and later broadcast on the FOX new special “When Goalies Attack.”
Week 14 can be dispensed with in a trice. Blue kicked butt, plain and simple. We won’t even use our thesaurus for this one (except for “trice”). Blue scored first when Rich Cerbone kicked it out nicely to a streaking Brian Urban who corralled the bouncing puck at the red line and took it all the way in for the score. Then Chris Dougherty, also on Blue, scored twice: once unassisted and once on a sweet setup from Larry the Cable Guy. With a 3-0 lead Blue went into their one-four defensive shell, only to score two more goals, one by Jim Heffern and one by Mike Dougherty, who shot a knuckle puck from the point that completely fooled Eddie.
Down 5-0, Red revamped their approach, giving Bob Freiling carte blanche powers to hog the puck whenever necessary. This soon bore fruit when Bob took the puck from behind his own net and then stickhandled around eight other people, including four of his teammates, before meeting Alex Cerbone one-on-one. Alex pushed him way to the outside, forcing an incredible sharp-angled shot that skittered behind Marty, bounced off the far post, and then into play again. Red ruled it a goal, though Blue cited an obscure technicality in the rule book about the puck having to be completely across the goal line in order for it to count. Red insisted, however, and the score was 5-1.
Ben Blankstein scored twice to make it 5-3 and Red looked on the rebound. For Blue things looked dicey until Rich Devlin, scrapping for rebounds in front of the net, made an amazing third, fourth, and fifth effort with Kenny and Hughie draped all over him to extend the lead to 6-3. “That man is the reincarnation of Phil Esposito,” Mark Herr gushed from the bench.
From then on Blue was indomitable and scored almost at will. With the game in hand they passed the time between shifts arguing over who looked more feckless: Bob Freiling or Steve Nanfava. Red’s low point came when—down 8-5—they allowed Brian Urban to score three goals in one shift. That made the final score 11-5.
Back in the locker room John Lupisella made up for the lack of pretzels by dispensing homemade lemoncello, reviving a Christmas tradition that had lately fallen into abeyance. A funny thing happened when Kenny sheepishly approached Eddie and told him the club was getting its old goalie back (Kenny, not Vinnie) and his services would no longer be needed. “Are you kidding me?” Eddie snapped back at him. “I wouldn’t play for your sorry-ass team again if you frickin’ paid me. Your whole Red team is an embarrassment to the game—and you especially! Go find yourself another sucker.”
And that, it seemed, was that.
On this date (2002): Craig Allen shows up to Old Bucks haggard and bleary-eyed after plowing for 16 straight hours during a snowstorm. He takes the ice for Blue but seems completely out of it, like chloroform on skates. Blue, however, has an unusually strong team and takes a 6-0 lead into the last fifteen minutes of the game. Everyone’s on edge, wondering if Marty will record the first shutout in Old Bucks history, something that, if accomplished, would be on par with Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. However, with ten minutes left, Craig falls asleep, literally, while on the ice, leaving his man, Mike the Czech, wide open at the far post, who promptly puts the puck in the net, ruining Marty’s shutout. Marty retaliates by whacking Craig on the crown of his helmet with goalie stick, not only jarring him awake but knocking him to the ice. The incident is recorded on one of the rink’s security cameras and later broadcast on the FOX new special “When Goalies Attack.”