THUG ZAPPER (no.3)

Well, as usual nothing goes as planned.

I originally wanted the Red Wings to win the Cup this year even though I picked the Bruins to take it all. Instead the Bruins fall by the wayside and I end up liking the way the Penguins play and hope that they take it all – which they did. Dem boys is walkin with wood! Ehh?

Do I sound a little wishy-washy? Sure. Probably. But heck I’m a Kings fan and they weren’t anywhere near a playoff spot; so I figure that I’m entitled to cheer for anyone I want. Mainly though, I really, really enjoyed watching Pittsburgh play. For the most part, it’s like watching a whole team of Alex Ovechkins.

His post season awards should help to appease the Caps fans. Tim Thomas’ Vezina and Chara’s Norris should appease the Bruins fans. And hopefully, but probably not, Datsyuk’s double wins will mollify the Red Wings devotees.

But getting back to things “not as planned”, me and the boys didn’t get together on the following Saturday to discuss the zapping dog collar doodads. Too many interfering activities came up and it finally came down to all of us getting together at my cabin again for beer and pizza on Friday night, game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Bronzy brought fresh pizza from town this time so it was considerably better than the frozen cardboard pies that we had at the last meeting. It’s absolutely amazing what these small little differences make when you’re in your ninth month of unemployment and kinda living on the edge.

Wayno Studholm, D-Pity, didn’t make it to our little gathering. He, the suck-buttin rich fool that he is, had gotten tickets to the game and was down in Detroit. We looked for him while watching the game but never saw anybody even closely resembling his sorry ass. Said he took his architect to the game and wrote it off as a business expense. I think the dude is finally saddled, but we’ll see.

As last I explained, Jingles was going to stop by Stinky’s to pick up some salvage components and Bronzy was going to snag some returned garage door openers from his work. The major tasking since our last meeting was on Jingles to fiddle about with this stuff on his bench down in his basement.

So when Jingles shows up, besides having a couple of sixers of his home-brew, he’s got a Dairyland milk crate full of zapping apparatuses. Seems as Bronzy had dropped off the garage door clickers sometime along the way and Jingles had kluged up a test sample with some documentation to back up his test results.

We’re watching the game, munching the pizza and chugging the home-brew. That’s some good shit he brews up. I really like it. Jingles is trying to relax and enjoy the game but I can tell that he’s all amped up over the gear that he brought over. At the end of the first period he starts pulling stuff out of the milk crate, spreading it out on the floor and pulling paperwork out of folders.

“Ok”, Jingles starts in explaining. “Of the stuff that Stinking gave me, only one collar was repairable and now functions. It will give a fairly good zap and runs on a nine volt battery. It will recharge for a secondary zap at around 70% initial strength in 5 seconds and about 50% for the third jolt in another 5 seconds. The testing that I did indicates that a full charge requires about 2 minutes connected to the battery. The zap is created by discharging a capacitor from a collapsing LC circuit.”

Whatever the fuck that meant????

He pulled out charts and calculations and I could tell he wanted to do an in-depth explanation. I had to nip that shit in the bud – right here and right now.

“Good, good,” I said. “I knew you’d make some headway. How about the remote control?”

“Right, Jasper. All of the remotes that Bronzy got me were repairable and I was able to get them all to work with a little dickering and a couple of component replacements. I went to the manufacturer’s website and got the transmit frequencies from the codes that were marked on them. They weren’t so revealing in how they tagged the frequency or applied the protocol for transmitting the commands to the receiver. I had to put the puppies on a digital scope, lock in the phase and then capture the signal when I pressed the buttons. I won’t get into the details,” he was definitely trying to keep from wetting his britches cuz he was getting so excited explaining this shit to us, “but anyway I got one system to work just fine. I had to spend a little money making a receiver/decoder that could trip the zapper. But it wasn’t bad.”

“Hang on to your receipts so that you can get reimbursed,” I said. “How about your time? Did you keep track of that? Hey everybody, keep track of your time and your expenses that you spend on this. I want it all on the up and up. If this pans out then we’ll consider all of this as accrued business expense being reimbursable when we get funding. Plus it can help provide the data for developing a budget, schedules, etc. If Rup thinks that there’s a lot of money to be made at this then I want us to do it right.”

That’s me, all business minded as opposed to Jingles being all tech’d out.

Jingles starts telling us how he ran a little test at home using the zapper. He said that he had wrapped it around his calf, over the top of his jeans, and had his son Dilbert control the remote. He said he just walked around in the basement and told Dilbert to zap him unannounced.

“This little sucker spasmed my calf and shot a jolt up into my hip area, I guess. I stumbled, while Dilbert started cracking up, and bounced off of the washing machine but didn’t completely fall. It worked pretty damn good, if I say so myself, even through my jeans.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t you try it around your neck like it’s designed to be used, you stupid dumb-ass?” Bronzy piped in.

Stinky added, “Yeah Jingles, what’s up with that? All your bench testing and shit and then you do a dry run on your calf? Sounds to me like some sort of wimp-ass test if you asked me.” Then he belched a wretchedly righteous burp. “Damn, you do brew some good beer though!”

“Look you guys. I was just trying to be a little precautionary. I didn’t know what the final effect would be. You didn’t want me to fry my brain or something. Shit, you guys wouldn’t be able to continue development without me. Besides, I bet none of you would even have volunteered to test it on yourselves, calf, hah, not to speak of even on your own fool-ass scrawny necks!”

“And Dilbert loved it. He laughed so hard he had to sit down on the floor to catch his breath. Then that little tike, that must have 100% plus of my DNA, said that I had to try it on him. Well I did, a couple of times, but I told him that he couldn’t ever tell his mom.”

The second period started up and Bronzy told us to shut up and watch the game. Seems as though he had a bit of money riding on the outcome.

A few minutes later while I’m beginning a long draw on my brew, Stinky yells, “Shit, Crosby’s gonna get a penalty for that!”

I look over my bottle and see Crosby all over his opponent but instead of a whistle he gets spun at the same time and is just torqued into the boards something ugly. Due to the nocuous effect it had I commented that it looked like one of Jingles’ late hits from back ten years ago or so.

Jingles of course defended himself saying those weren’t late hits, he was just applying what Biff taught him in Juniors. “Finish your check, take your man out!”

“Right Jingles. You’re always trying to put somebody in the hospital,” Bronzy piped in.

“I don’t care what you say, Jingles has always helped the team, playing the way he plays,” as Stinky defends Jingles. “You Wheats brothers each have your own special hockey skills that have added to our successes. Now I wonder what the fuck happened to Sid, play didn’t even stop. Those yack rappers said he was slow getting back to the bench. Shit there he is and looks like he’s in some kinda hurt.”

“Big deal”, Bronzy snipped. “My money’s riding on the Wings.”

I added, “Well I think he’s a great player. A hero for today and the great game of hockey. So I hope it’s nothing too serious.”

The game continued through the period and we didn’t see Crosby on the ice again until the third. And even then he came off in pain.

Jingles’ home brews ran out and we had now switched to the cheap commercial stuff that I buy at the market down in town. No-name, three-two. It tastes like beer and during the summer it sweats like beer. Didn’t really matter cuz Jingles’ home brew is probably on the upside of eight percent alcohol and three bottles each just about had us all knocked on our asses. Well, at least I was. You get used to three-two and I guess you just become a friggin light-weight. Ehh?

The second period ended and for the life of me I can’t remember what the score was. I mean, I know the Pens won 2 to 1. But for the life of me, I can’t tell you much else about the game from somewhere in the middle of the second period on. Just seemed like they shook hands afterwards really quickly. “Yeah, let’s get to the Cup!”

But I do remember that we talked about the zappers again and Jingles told us how it went when he zapped Dilbert.

Dilbert’s big into Legos and told his dad to zap him the first time while he was laying on the floor setting up some sort of battlefield. Zapped him and he spasmed and the Legos went flying everywhere. He got up to the couch and laughed hard telling Jingles to do it again. Told him to zap him while he was looking at a magazine on the couch but to try it around his waist this time instead of his calf.

Jingles said that Dilbert tried to act like he didn’t know it was coming but was giggling the whole time. When he hit the button on the remote, Dilbert arched his back and lifted off the couch about six or eight inches. Ripped the magazine in half and pissed his pants. Again he stated laughing and said to his dad to do it again.

Jingles was a little concerned, especially because of the uncontrolled urination, and decided that it was enough and reiterated to Dilbert to not tell his mom a thing.

We discussed a game plan and decided that we had lost a couple of weeks of schedule time and that we should try the zapper in a game environment at pickup the next night, Saturday. It was actually the continuation of the Nightmares’ off season practice schedule but was pretty much open Ice and a lot of those kids and the Outlaws come out to skate. Jingles decided that he’d wear the collar, as intended, around his neck and I’d sit in the stands with the remote and Stinky would videotape with the microphone on me doing narration of what’s happening on the ice.

To try to get Jingles really riled, after the teams were picked up for the evening skate, I talked to the guys on the opposing team. I explained to them that we were testing something that Jingles’ psychiatrist had prescribed and we really needed them to push him around, talk in his face, etc. and really rile him up. Since Jingles was gonna being playing defense I said the best bet was to park in the slot and then talk some shit. “Tell him he skates like a jackass and that he should stay off the ice – he’s just wasting some good ice time.”

That ought to get him all jacked up. He’s never been one that was slow to drop the gloves and talk the shit real good himself. This should work out real good if the zapper does as promised.

The skate was pretty good. The kids from the Nightmares looked really hot. The season had been good for them and they were playing with intensity. Jingles was getting beat pretty good in neutral ice during the start but later started backing up sooner and was giving them more ice but able to take the guys out pretty good in the slot. One long legged forward, Joshy, had taken my advice to heart and was regularly parked just outside the crease whenever they came into the zone. Jingles was working him pretty good – cross checking and putting his stick between his legs and shit like that.

I could see that Joshy was talking trash at him most of the time too.

It must have been about twenty minutes in or so when Jingles turned away from Joshy to watch a guy coming out of the corner when Joshy gave Jingles a shove from behind while hooking his left leg. Jingles went down and was up in flash back into Joshy’s face. Joshy shoved him away again and Jingles gloves went flying. Joshy’s fell to the ice like feathers in the wind but grabbed Jingles’ jersey before they hit the ice and was already letting go with a roundhouse. Jingles ducked back his head while swinging to Joshy’s gut with one hand and knocking his helmet off with the other.

Joshy is torpedoing on Jingles’ face with his rights. And Jingles is now getting in close applying his old wrestling moves now to stifle the punches. He drops a little bit and grabs Joshy with a bear hug – picking hip up off the ice.

Joshy is now two handing the back of Jingles’s helmet and neck but can’t dislodge the bucket.

I’m watching all this and talking into the microphone as Stinky is videotaping.

“Zoom in Paul! I’m going to zap him in just a sec!”

Everybody is letting them go – nobody is trying to break it up. I’ve got some open ice between us and them so I push the button on the remote.

Jingles lets out a retching sound like the combination of a cat’s growl and the howl of a yeti. A couple of Joshy’s teammates move in closer now and Jingles hasn’t dropped yet. I count out loud, “One, two, three, four, five,” and press the remote again. In the meantime Jingles’ helmet had been knocked off and one more guy had managed to grab his jersey and Jingles had spun around into the crease. I don’t know where the goalie had moved off to but the zap hit Jingles again. That same freakish scream echoed in the rink.

Jingles flinched by picking up Joshy all the way over his head and pitched him over the net like he was just a ten pound bag of potatoes. He growled some more and got in the other guys face and you could hear him scream, “You want some too?”

I can hear Stinky quietly saying “Oh fuck, oh muther fuck. Jingles is unglued. Oh fuck.”

I said to Stinky, “Did you get all that?”

“Yeah, yeah. You know Jasper, I don’t think this worked. Not one fucking bit. I think it just juiced Jingles up even more. I hope that kid is ok.”

In the mean time everybody backed away from Jingles and about then Bronzy jumped over the boards and was skating up to the mess telling Jingles to calm down.

It took a few moments and everything got back to normal. Joshy was ok and Jingles skated over to the gate and climbed up into the seats and sat down next to me. You could hear some of the guys on the ice saying that whatever the shrink had given Jingles it wasn’t strong enough.

“Jasper, I don’t think this works,” Jingles whispered to me in a raspy voice. “I felt two zaps pretty good. Did you try a third? All they did was make me madder and amped me up pretty good. I think we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board. Ehh?”

“No I didn’t try the third time. Things were pretty much over by then. Everybody backed away when you tossed him. How’d it feel? How are you feeling now?” I asked.

He whispered again, “It’s a pretty good jolt. Both times. But it just seemed to instantaneously pump me up with adrenaline. I went Hulk on that dude, Jasper. I mean hair-brained Hulk on him! I hope he’s ok. Yeah, and I feel pretty exhausted right now – kinda winded, but it’s coming back ok. Paul, I’ve got to see the video.”

Paul played it back on the camera’s little screen and Jingles just kept saying “Oh shit! Shit! What a mess.”

We let the guys finish their skate. Jingles didn’t think it would a good idea to go back out with them, though he was feeling ok, so he went to shower and changed.

After the skate we went over to the bar where Bronzy joined us.

“Shit!” Bronzy exclaimed as we sat down at a table. “Jingles you went absolutely berserk out there! Reminds me of the time when I was kid around Christmas time and Jasper picked me up and threw me into the junipers over at Mom and Dad’s. The zapper didn’t seem to stifle you at all. Did you feel it?”

“Oh yeah, I felt it alright. It just got me more pumped rather than debilitating. I think we’re going to have to rethink this thing. In an idle mode it probably does what we want but when you’re already juiced up and getting ready to dance it just seems to invigorate you even more.”

We pounded some more beers and closed the place. But before we left I said that I wanted everybody to think about this and come up with some more ideas. We’d meet again next Saturday afternoon. Jingles said he’d throw a barbeque so bring the families.

Well, as you can see – this is to be continued. It doesn’t seem to be ironed out yet. I hope that we can figure something out that works. Something that we can show to Rup within the month. It’d be nice to have something in “production” in time for next season.

Hope that all of you are walking with wood – I sure figure that Jingles is. But damn he’s always been a little crazier then the rest of us and I’ve got to give him credit for being the testie.

Later dudes and dudettes. Skate hard!

To be continued ….

THUG ZAPPER (No. 2)

I’ve been back from my job search trip to the west coast now for almost a month. A lot has been happening aside from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

I’m being kinda apologetic here – but I didn’t do so well on my picks for the winners in the first round. I only got right five outta the eight teams advancing. Damn shame about those Sharks, ehh. They just fell apart again. Tough luck, boys. Ha, ha!

I really don’t want to re-pick teams again to come out of the second round but I will anyway. So here ya go:

Penguins over the Capitals
Bruins over the Hurricanes
Blackhawks over the Canucks
Redwings over the Ducks

I’ve got to tell you that I have really enjoyed watching the superstars play in the Pens/Caps series. Oh to be young again.

So I’m here home again in the back woods and have spent just a lot of time dwelling on what I saw in Oakland and the business that Rup said about there being a lot of money in the control of fights. But, I’ll tell you guys, I don’t think to highly of zapping players – but money is money – and my slow poke mush for brain has been working overtime. Shit for dooty if during the flight home I didn’t even look at one of the airline magazines. I was making notes and drawing sketches instaed. Just trying to think about the whole big picture. And damn, could I make some money off of this latest control exercise that the NHL wants to institute? Yepper, my oatmeal was steaming.

I got back to the cabin and spent some time explaining the situation and possible ideas about it to my honey. I know she listens to me out of the goodness of her heart even though her heart usually isn’t into the things I do.

She gives me hug and I give her a squeeze and a passionate kiss – cuz I truly had missed her and she does bring me back to earth on the rare occasion that I drift way over the boards.

“Jasper, every time you go away you come back home with another hair-brained idea. I’m beginning to think that you’re more likely related to Stinky than you are to Jingles and Bronzy. You ought to bounce these ideas of yours off of some experts before you burn up anymore of your time. And you know that’s my time too.” She smiled up at me and I kissed her again.

(Author’s note: Moving on past that two hour interruption and getting back at my writing here I need to input an update. Chicago eliminated Vancouver and is the first team to move on to the third round. So … that makes one of four picks right so far. I’m feeling good!)

Taking the honey’s advice I placed some phone calls to Jingles, D-Pity, Stinky and Bronzy to set up an evening meeting. I didn’t tell them much, just said that we could watch a game, have some pizza, drink some beers and talk about an idea that I have.

Everybody showed with a six pack and the honey put a couple of frozen pizzas in the oven for us then she left for her sister’s. She set a timer and I told the guys that we’re living on a budget so the frozen pies would have to do. Nobody complained, but Bronzy said he could of picked up something fresh in town if he’d known that I was serving non-apetit.

I laughed at that, showed him my gut, and said “Here’s non-apetit for ya!”

“Oh gee Jasp, put that thing away before we all gag a rag,” he laughed back as Jingles’ beer went out his nose.

Stinky stood up and stretched his arms back and pushing his substantial girth forward and boasted “You Wheats boys don’t have shit. Ya ain’t even ready for the wars.”

“Well frozen or not, it’s gonna beat the cooking I’ve been doing lately,” stated D-Pity. “Seems as though all I’ve had for the past month has been cold cereal and microwaved garbage. I hardly have time to sit down – so busy getting my place in shape and getting that rink planned and stuff.”

Jingles cleared his throat after coughing and such and asked “Yeah, how’s that going Wayno?”

“Ah shit, it’s just a lot of work. Working with engineers, architects and all that crap. But the worst is the county. My property is zoned for agricultural use only. They want me to jump through just too damn many hoops. There’s times that I think maybe I should give up on it there and find another piece of commercial property to buy. Ya know though, I just want it in my backyard. Kinda like going out to the pond. Ah shit we’ll see. “

The game got going and the buzzer went off so I pulled out the pizzas and sliced them with a kitchen scissors and brought ‘em out for our munch-a-bunch. I rightly can’t remember which game we were watching. Seems as though it was Vancouver versus St. Louis because none of us were too excited about who ended up winning or losing.

Jingles, between bites, led off with “So Jasper what’s this idea that ya want to go over? Is it about the Nightmares or Crossed Stick Society or what? We all saw your sweetie leave so I’ve got to figure it’s hair-brained because she’s learned over the years to avoid listening to your whimsical plans. Shit she doesn’t believe in you until you’ve gotten something finally done. Ha, ha!”

“Give me a break, damn she went to her sister’s for Pete’s sake.”

“Nah, she always leaves now when we get together to build something Wheats. You know that,” laughed Stinky. “I sometimes think that maybe she doesn’t like me, but Jingles has got a point.”

“Yeah, so what’s up?” Bronzy asks through a mouthful of pizza.

So I told them about my last trip to the west coast. And how I had stopped at the Oakland rink; seeing the trials for the taser fight stopping apparatus that the NHL had thrown together. I expressed my opinion and told them how I had chucked my cookies when the referee had accidently tasered himself. Then I pulled out Rup’s business card and said “He said there’s a lot of money in this and if I came up with something that works better, to go ahead and get a hold of him.”

“Do you guys see an opportunity here? I walked in on something that most of the sports world isn’t privy to. I don’t like seeing guys getting zapped but maybe we could make a bundle if we came up with something that worked and was fool proof. Jingles, you’re kind of an electronic genius. Bronzy bro, you work at Graingers and could get a discount on hardware. Paul, you know how to kluge things together better than anyone I know, plus you have access to all kinds of strange but useful shit out at the salvage yard. And Wayno, you’ve got connections in the business world and possibly some funding if ya buy into this.”

“Wait a minute Jasper. Did you guys see that?” Wayno – D-Pity quizzed. “I really like the fact that Versus is covering hockey, but sheesh, when they display these banners, the only thing I can figure out is the cameraman can’t see the banner because SO damned often, like just now, the banner is covering up where the puck is being played. It drives me absolutely nuts.”

Jingles responded, “Well shitaroo, but cable over in my neck of the woods doesn’t even carry Versus so this is a sweet treat for me. Reminds me of the old days when you used to come over to watch the games on scrambled networks at my old place down in the cities about twenty years ago. Ehh, Jasper?”

“Jingles you ought to come up with some kinda filter that could be added to the cable box to zing out ads and shit,” piped in Bronzy.

I added my own comment, “Yeah, I find the banners irritating too. And I think you’re right, the cameraman must not be seeing it. Ha-ha Jingles. I remember those days. Good times when we both lived down in the cities. Remember that time I was over and Ry-Ry was digging up carpet raisins and eating them?”

Jingles blew beer through his snout again. “Yeah and that carpet was, like, the color of raisins too. I don’t know how he could find them. French fries were easy, remember?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, “good times. And to think you’ve got that kid in law school now. Shit, that’s something, ehh!”

“So, you guys, back to my idea.”

(Author’s note: This thing is taking me days to write and the second round of the playoffs is now over. Pittsburgh’s going to play Carolina for the Eastern Championship and Chicago is going to play Detroit for the Western Championship. So I didn’t expect the Canes to move on and I guess I was wrong about this being the Bruins year. Oh well, there’s always next year. That’s what I keep saying about the Kings.)

“Here’s kinda what I’m thinking. We use something like a dog training collar. Everybody on the ice wears one and each is programmed to a different frequency. The zapping is controlled from a panel run by somebody in the scorekeepers box. It’s gotta be better than using a taser type device. Dang that was nasty seeing that ref zap himself. What do you guys think? We could test it in a scrimmage up here. Get it perfected before we contact the NHL, you know.”

“So I’m thinking on the financial side of a trial or test or whatever ya want to call it,” D-Pity started us off. “You’re talking about thirty to forty collars depending on how big a bench you’re running for each side. Then you’ve got the control system. How much money you think we’re talking about to start with?”

“Well, I haven’t really figured that out on that big of a scale first off,” I responded. “I need you guys to brainstorm for some ideas on the cheap. Ok?”

Stinky hollered, “Well cripes Jasper, yank some more beers out the fridge. Hey! I’ll be able to think a lot better after I have a couple a more.”

I got up and went to the fridge and grabbed another cold one for each of us. There was still a bit of pizza left but grabbed another bag of chips from the cupboard too,

Stinky took his beer, popped the top and downed it in about three gulps without losing a drop. “Jasper, I think I’ve got a couple of torn up remote dog training collars hanging off a nail in one of my sheds. I don’t know if they work or nothing. And I don’t have the trainer’s controls for them.”

“Good, Paul. That’s a start of what I’m thinking for our first trial” as I tried to act like the facilitator. “Keep it on a shoestring. Jingles, you think of any way that these could be used without their original controls? I mean, if they even work.”

“Well, we’d have to get fresh batteries and power them up to see if they work. They probably have a local control switch for testing,” Jingles was analyzing the idea – I could tell. “I could put a digital scope on them and check them out. It might be difficult to determine what their receiving frequency is though. I’d need that to make the control transmitters. You know each has gotta have a separate operating frequency or this whole idea’s no good.”

Bronzy interjects, “They might be like garage door openers and the frequency is coded inside the receiver or dog zapper housing. If so then all you have to do is go back to the manufacturer’s website and you can probably find the frequency.”

“You know, you’re probably right, Bronzy,” Wayno piped in. “I think I’ve seen those codes myself on garage door openers and keyless car lock systems. This is a sweet idea. I like it.”

“Yeah Wayno, talking about sweet. Who was that lady you were with at the bar after the last time you played with us? Ehh?” Bronzy quipped.

Jingles added his two bits, “Yeah D-Pity old buddy old pal. Speaking of dogs, who was she?”

Defending himself, Wayno the D-Pity whines back,“Come on guys, she wasn’t that bad. Was she? She’s one of the architects I’ve been working with. She was up here doing a site walk and then talking to the county for me.”

I had to ask, “What did she look like you guys? Was that all there was to it?”

“They were swapping spit back in the corner booth after a while,” Stinky started filling in the blanks. “Didn’t think old Wayno was that desperate.”

“No, no, no. She’s hot, Jasper. I’m telling you. We hooked up down in Florida last February and it wasn’t half bad,” Wayno explained.

Jingles gave me the real shit about it though. “Ha, ha, ha! Jasper, remember Bif’s description of Tone’s girl friend? Yup! This ‘lady’ that D-Pity was with was just about as handsome as a can of smashed assholes.”

“No way! Don’t tell me. You guys are gonna make me waste some good beer here,” I laughed. “Wayno, you old dog, you’ve got absolutely no tastes when it comes to the honeys. Shit let’s get back to the collars, ehh.”

“Jasper,” Jingles starts in and burps a righteous good belch, “you know, we could probably use garage door opener remotes to control the dog collars. I could modify their outputs to be on the same frequency as the collars’ electronics. I think it would work.”

Bronzy stated that he was pretty sure there were some returned remotes back at the store that he could dispose of. Of course Jingles would have to fix them first. And Stinky said that he knew that he had some that worked but they were about the size of a deck of cards. They weren’t new small ones.

I told everybody that for a test of the idea, the size of the equipment isn’t going to matter too much.

“You know, you guys, we’ve got to test this thing out and then refine it. Can all of you gather up what you need and we’ll meet again next Saturday. Jingles will have the hard part but maybe he’ll be able to show us how to help. The priority is that If the collars don’t work or can’t be fixed then we’ll have to buy a couple of new ones. There’s no point in working on the other shit if the collars don’t zap or can’t be controlled remotely.” I closed the major discussion with, “You guys are all in on this then, right? If it works, then like Rup indicated, we could be in the money. Shit we’ll be walking with wood boys. Right up there with Nike/Bauer, Cooper and the other big boys in hockey gear.”

Jingles said that he’d stop by Stinky’s yard on the way home and find some spare time during the week to start troubleshooting the collars and fixing them if he could.

We let our minds wander a bit while we watched the rest of the game. Most of us, I think, were chewing on the Canucks asses through the whole thing.

So next Saturday, we move on.

To be continued in the Thug Zapper (no.3)

Jasper here, Catch you then.

MAKING THE JUNIORS - REVISED

This is going to be a little different than most of my other blogs. It’s still hockey but it’s not a humorous short story. Rather it’s informative because lately I’ve been requested by my friends at myspace to provide some input on tryouts for Junior A teams.

First of all, I need to clarify that I’m not affiliated with any “real” junior hockey team. The Norris Nightmares are a fictitious junior team that I sometimes write about. The Outlaws are a real team that plays in a men’s/senior beer league but I often horse up what I write about them. In the day, they played two seasons in semi-pro leagues where I coached them to winning seasons but never, unfortunately, champions (Runners up – but who remembers that shit, ehh?) as we had been for several seasons when I still played with them.

So for those of you that have asked about junior hockey teams I have composed a list that I extracted from the USA Hockey website. To reiterate, I also, at this time have no affiliation with USA Hockey. I have been a registered player and coach, but again that was in the day. Those of you that are willing to do more with your computer than dangle on myspace can google this information yourself. I have googled the heck out of the list since the first time I published this on myspace and have now included website addresses and the team’s resident city. As a matter of fact I don’t include any details about teams and tryouts and highly recommend that you do further investigations on your own and do them soon because signups are going on and tryouts will be this summer. Each team has it’s own website but I can’t vouch for any of these teams continuing operation into the 2009-2010 season. You’ll have to determine that. Additionally, I want to emphasize that USA Hockey’s junior leagues are developmental leagues. In many cases you can’t advance from Junior C to Junior B (or B to A, or Tier-II A to Tier-I A, etc) without invitation and even then, exceptional success in tryouts.

Ok, so you love hockey, but you don’t play and you don’t have easy access to see a live NHL games other than on TV. Well these Junior teams may be playing a lot closer to home, and I’ve got to tell you – its some damn good hockey. Look-them up. They may be in playoffs right now and as much as you’d enjoy the game, these teams could use your support.

The listing is only for USA Hockey Junior Teams. Canada and other nations have their own junior leagues and you should also investigate those. Many of you have been playing Midgets and now are looking for a place to continue your quest at a higher and older aged competitive level. You might even want to start thinking about this if you’re still playing Bantams. I don’t want to, in anyway, discount the great high school programs that many states have nor the terrific teams that the NCAA ices at the college levels. In the day, Tier-I Junior A was the only way into the NHL. That is not the case so much today. I’m not sure what the rules are these days but in my day if you played scholastic sports you were not allowed to be on club teams additionally nor were you even allowed to be coached out of season. “Oh my, how things have changed!” to quote my honey, Mrs. Wheats. Ehh?

You’ll notice that some clubs ice teams at various levels and in various leagues.

So here we go starting with three leagues and their teams in Tier-III, Junior C:

Southeast Junior Hockey League: www.sejhl.net
Atlanta Knights – www.atlantajuniorknights.com – Atlanta, GA
Charleston Wolverines – www.wolverinesjunior.org – Charleston, SC
East Coast Eagle Major – www.eaglesjrhockey.com – Cary, NC
East Coast Eagle Minor – www.eaglesjrhockey.com – Cary, NC
Hampton Roads Whalers Major – www.jrwhalers.com – Chesapeake, VA
Hampton Roads Whalers Minor – www.jrwhalers.com – Chesapeake, VA
Space Coast Hurricanes – www.juniorhurricanes.com – Rockledge, FL
Tampa Bay Bolts – www.tampabayjrbolts.com – Tampa, FL

Great Lakes Junior Hockey League: www.gljhl.com

Motor City Chiefs – www.chiefsjrhockeyclub.com – Farmington Hills, MI
Michigan Ice Dogs – www.michicedogs.com – Plymouth, MI
Michigan Mountain Cats – www.michiganmountaincatsjuniorhockey.com – Grand Blanc, MI
Tri-City Ice Hawks – www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u=tchawks&s=hockey&t=c – Midland, MI
Illinois Frontenacs – www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u=illinoisfrontenacs=hockey&t=c – Fairview Heights, IL
Danville Inferno – www.danvilleinferno.com – Danville, IL
Jr. Huskies – www.huskieshockeyclub.com – Romeoville, IL

Continental Hockey Association – Selects: www.jrhockey.net

Buffalo Stars – www.buffalostars.com – Cheektowaga, NY
Jersey Wildcats – www.jerseywildcats.com – Wharton, NJ
Jr. Predators – www.juniorpreditors.org – Long Island, NY (area)
Metro Fighting Moose – www.metromoose.com – Brooklyn, NY
Philadelphia Jr. Blazers – www.juniorpatriots.com – Bethlehem, PA
Pittsburgh Jr. Penguins – www.juniorpenguinns.com – Pittsburgh, PA
Tri State Selects – www.tristateselects.com – Oaks, PA
Virginia Express – www.virginiaexpress.org – Woodbridge, VA

And here are the leagues and teams from Tier-III, Junior B:

Metropolitan Junior Hockey League: www.metleague.org

Atlanta Knights - www.atlantajuniorknights.com – Atlanta, GA
Binghamton Jr. Senators – www.binghamptonjrsenators.com – Chenango Bridge, NY
Central Penn Panthers – www.pennpanthers.org – Lancaster, PA
Charleston Wolverines - www.wolverinesjunior.org – Charleston, SC
East Coast Eagles - www.eaglesjrhockey.com – Cary, NC
Florida Eels – www.floridaeels.org – Fort Myers, FL
Hampton Roads Jr. Whalers - www.jrwhalers.com – Chesapeake, VA
Hartford Jr. Wolfpack – www.jrwolfpack.com – Cromwell, CT
Jacksonville Ice Dogs – www.jaxicedogs.com – Jacksonville, FL
Junior Titans – www.jrtitans.com – Farmingdale, NJ
Long Island Royals – www.liroyalsjrs.com – Syosset, NY
New Jersey Rockets – www.njrockets.goalline.ca – Newark, NJ
New York Saints – see www.atlantichockey.org – Monsey, NY
NJ Renegades – www.njrenegades.net – Flemington, NJ
North Jersey Avalanche – www.njavalanche.com – Hackensack, NJ
Northern Cyclones – www.northerncyclones.com – Hudson, NJ
Philadelphia Little Flyers – www.littleflyers.org – Aston, PA
Philadelphia Jr. Flyers – www.iceline.info/Flyers/default.htm - West Chester, PA
Portland Jr. Pirates – www.jrpirates.pucksystems2.com – Saco, ME
Space Coast Jr. Hurricanes - www.juniorhurricanes.com – Rockledge, FL
Suffolk PAL – www.palicehockey.com – Hauppauge, NY
Tampa Bay Bolts - www.tampabayjrbolts.com – Tampa, FL
Team Carolina – www.usahockey.com/team_carolina - Indian Trail, NC
Troy Eagles – www.troyeagles.com – Troy, NY
Valley Forge Minutemen – www.oakscenterice.com/vfmmjuniors/index.htm - Oaks, PA
Walpole Express – www.walpoleexpress.com – Walpole, MA

Empire Junior Hockey League: - www.empirehockey.com

Apple Core Minor Jr. B – www.applecorejunior.com – Long Beach, NY
Bay State Breakers – www.baystatebreakers.com – Rockland, MA
Boston Jr. Bruins – www.bostonjuniorbruins.com – Framingham, MA
Brewster Bulldogs – www.brewsterjuniorbulldogs.com – Brewster, NY
Bridgewater Bandits – www.bridgewaterbandits.com – Bridgewater, MA
Buffalo Stars - www.buffalostars.com – Cheektowaga, NY
Capital District Selects Minor Jr. B – www.cdselects.com Troy, NY
Elmira Jr. Jackals – www.jrjackals.com – Elmira, NY
Fitchburg NE Huskies – www.jrhuskies.com – Tyngsboro, MA
Green Mountain Glades – www.vtglades.com – Essex Junction, VT
Jersey Wildcats - www.jerseywildcats.com – Wharton, NJ
Maksymum Jr. Hockey – www.maksymumjuniorhockey.com – Rochester, NY
New England Jr. Falcons – www.juniorfalcons.com – Enfield, CT
New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs – www.nhjrmonarchs.com – Hooksett, NH
NY Jr. Coyotes – www.nyjrcoyotes.org – Massena, NY
Pittsburgh Junior B Penguins - www.juniorpenguinns.com – Pittsburgh, PA
Salem Ice Dogs – www.salemicedogs.net – Saugus, MA
South Shore Kings – www.southshorekings.com – Foxboro, MA
Syracuse Stars – www.syracusestars.net – Dewitt, NY
Tri-State Selects - www.tristateselects.com – Oaks, PA
Valley Jr. Warriors – www.jrwarriors.com – Lawrence, MA

Continental Hockey Association – Premier – www.jrhockey.net

New York Apple Core - www.applecorejunior.com – Long Beach, NY
Frederick Freeze – www.frederickfreeze.com – Frederick, MD
Jersey Wildcats - www.jerseywildcats.com – Wharton, NJ
Mass Maple Leafs – www.massmapleleafs.com – Raynham, MA
Metro Fighting Moose – www.metromoose.com – Brooklyn, NY
New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs - www.nhjrmonarchs.com – Hooksett, NH
Pittsburgh Jr. Penguins - www.juniorpenguinns.com – Pittsburgh, PA
Philadelphia Jr. Blazers - www.juniorpatriots.com – Bethlehem, PA
Springfield Jr. Pics – www.springfieldjrpics.com – Springfield, MA
Virginia Express - www.virginiaexpress.org – Woodbridge, VA

Here are the leagues and teams in Tier-III Junior A:

Western States Hockey League: - www.wshl.org

Bay City Bombers – www.jrbombers.org – Lakewood, CA
Capital Thunder – www.capitalthunderjrhockey.com – Roseville, CA
Colorado Outlaws – www.outlawsjrhockey.com – Windsor, CO
Dallas Hawks – www.dallashawkshockey.com – Addison, TX
El Paso Rhinos – www.elpasorhinos.com – El Paso, TX
Phoenix Polar Bears – www.phoenixpolarbears.com – Phoenix, AZ
San Antonio Diablos – www.diabloshockey.net – San Antonio, TX
San Diego Gulls – www.sandiegogullshockeyclub.com – Escondido, CA
Texas Renegades – www.texasrenegades.net – North Richland Hills, TX
Tulsa Rampage – www.tulsarampage.com – Tulsa, OK
Valencia Flyers – www.valenciaflyers.net – Valencia, CA

Northern Pacific Hockey League: - www.thenphl.com

Billings Bulls – www.billingsbulls.com – Billings, MT
Bozeman Ice Dogs – www.bozemanicedogs.com – Bozeman, MT
Butte Roughriders – www.butteroughriders.net – (problem with this site) Butte, MT
Coeur d’Alene Lakers – www.cdalakers.com – Coeur d’Alene, ID
Eugene Generals – www.eugenegenerals.com – Eugene, OR
Helena Bighorns – www.helenabighorns.com – Helena, MT
Missoula Maulers – www.missoulamaulers.com – Missoula, MT
Puget Sound Tomahawks – www.tomahawkshockeyclub.com – Tacoma, WA
River City Jaguars – www.hometeamsonline.com/RIVERCITYJAGUARS - Beaverton, OR
Rogue Valley Wranglers – www.roguevalleywranglers.com – Medford, OR
Tri-City Titans – www.tctitans.com – Pasco, WA
Yellowstone Quake – www.yellowstonquake.com – Cody, WY
Seattle Totems – www.seattletotems.pucksystems2.com – Shoreline, WA

Minnesota Junior Hockey League: - www.mnjhl.com

Granite City Lumberjacks – www.lumberjackshockey.com – St. Cloud, MN
Hudson Crusaders – www.hudson.pucksystems2.com/page/show/62933-hudson-crusaders - Hudson, WI
Minnesota Flying Aces – www.mnflyingaces.com – Little Falls, MN
Minnesota Ice Hawks – www.mnicehawks.com – Rochester, MN
Minnesota Owls – www.minnesotaowls.com – Isanti, MN
Minnesota Wildcats – www.widcatsjrhockey.com – Maple Grove, MN
St. Paul Lakers – www.lakershockey.com – Edina, MN
Twin Cities Northern Lights – www.northernlightshockey.com – Bloomington, MN
Wisconsin Mustangs – www.mustanghockey.net – Spooner, WI

Central States Hockey League: - www.cshlhockey.com

Chicago Force – www.chicagorforcehockey.com – Rolling Meadows, IL
Cincinnati Queen City Steam – www.queencitysteam.com – Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland Jr. Lumberjacks – www.jrjacks.com – Strongsville, OH
Dubuque Thunderbirds – www.dubuquethunderbirds.com – Dubuque, IA
Flint Junior Generals – www.juniorgenerals.com – Flint, MI
Grand Rapids Junior Owls – www.gr-jrb-owls.com (problem with site) - Byron Center, MI
Metro Jets – www.metrojetshockey.com – Waterford, MI
Motor City Chiefs – www.chiefsjrhockeyclub.com – Dearborn Heights, MI
Peoria Mustangs – www.peoriamustangs.com – Peoria, IL
Quad City Express (now Flames) – www.qcjrflames.org – Davenport, IA
St. Louis Junior Blues – www.stljrblues.org – St. Louis, MO
Toledo Cherokee – www.cherokeehockey.com – Toledo, OH

Eastern Junior Hockey League: - www.easternjunior.com

Apple Core - www.applecorejunior.com – Long Beach, NY
Bay State Breakers - www.baystatebreakers.com – Rockland, MA
Boston Jr. Shamrocks (now Philadelphia Revolution Jr. Hockey Club) – www.Bostonshamrocks.com – Warminster, PA
Bridgewater Bandits - www.bridgewaterbandits.com – Bridgewater, MA
Capital District Selects – www.cdselects.com Troy, NY
Green Mountain Glades - www.vtglades.com – Essex Junction, VT
Jersey Hitmen – www.jerseyhitmen.net – Wayne, NJ
Jr. Warriors – www.jrwarriors.com – Haverhill, MA
Junior Bruins - www.bostonjuniorbruins.com – Framingham, MA
New England Jr. Falcons - www.juniorfalcons.com – Enfield, CT
New England Jr. Huskies - www.jrhuskies.com – Tyngsboro, MA
New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs - www.nhjrmonarchs.com – Hooksett, NH
South Shore Kings - www.southshorekings.com – Foxboro, MA
Syracuse Stars - www.syracusestars.net – Dewitt, NY

Atlantic Junior Hockey League: - www.atlantichockey.org

Binghamton Jr. Senators - www.binghamptonjrsenators.com – Chenango Bridge, NY
Boston Jr. Bulldogs – www.bostonjuniorbulldogs.com – Salem, NH
Hartford Jr. Wolfpack - www.jrwolfpack.com – Cromwell, CT
Laconia Leafs – www.laconialeafs.com – Laconia, NH
New Jersey Rockets - www.njrockets.goalline.ca – Newark, NJ
New York Junior Bobcats – www.nybobcats.com – Syosset, NY
North Mass Cyclones – www.northermasscyclones.com – Hudson, NH
Portland Jr. Pirates - www.jrpirates.pucksystems2.com – Saco, ME
Philadelphia Little Flyers - www.littleflyers.org – Aston, PA
Philadelphia Jr. Flyers - www.iceline.info/Flyers/default.htm - West Chester, PA
Walpole Express - www.walpoleexpress.com – Walpole, MA
Washington Jr. Nationals – www.jrnationals.org – Arlington, VA

Here’s the Tier-II league and teams:

North American Hockey League – www.nahl.com

Alaska Avalanche – www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u=akavalanche&s=hockey&t=c – Wasilla, AK
Albert Lea Thunder – www.albertleathunder.com – Albert Lea, MN
Alexandria Blizzard – www.alexandriablizzard.com – Alexandria, MN
Alpena Ice Diggers – www.icediggers.com – Alpena, MI
Bismarck Bobcats – www.bismarckbobcats.com – Bismarck, ND
Fairbanks Ice Dogs - www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/?u=FAIRBANKSICEDOGSCOM&s=hockey&t=c – Fairbanks, AK
Kenai River Brown Bears – www.kenairiverbrownbears.com – Soldotna, AK
Mahoing Valley Phantoms – www.mvpphantoms.com – Boardman, OH
Marquette Rangers – www.marquetterangers.com – Marquette, MI
Motor City Machine – www.machinehockey.com – Wyandotte, MI
North Iowa Outlaws – www.northiowaoutlaws.com – Mason City, IA
Owatonna Express – www.expressjrhockey.org – Owatonna, MN
Springfield Jr. Blues – www.jrblues.com – Springfield, IL
St. Louis Bandits – www.stlbandits.com – Chesterfield, MO
Topeka Roadrunners – www.topekaroadrunners.com – Topeka, KS
Traverse City North Stars – www.traversecitynorthstars.com – Traverse City, MI
USNTDP – USA Hockey’s US National Team Development Program – U17 and U18 – see www.usahockey.com
Wenatchee Wild – www.wenatcheewild.com – Wenatchee, WA
Wichita Falls Wildcats – www.wfwildcatshockey.com – Wichita Falls, TX

And last here is the Tier-I league and teams:

United States Hockey League - www.ushl.com

Cedar Rapid Roughriders – www.roughridershockey.com – Cedar Rapids, IA
Chicago Steel – www.chicagosteelhockeyteam.com – Bensenville, IL
Des Moines Buccaneers – www.bucshockey.com – Urbandale, IA
Fargo Force – www.fargoforce.com – Fargo, ND
Green Bay Gamblers – www.gamblershockey.com – Green Bay, WI
Indiana Ice – www.indianaice.com – Indianapolis, IN
Lincoln Stars – www.lincolnstars.com – Lincoln, NE
Omaha Lancers – www.lancers.com – Council Bluffs, NE
Sioux City Musketeers – www.musketeershockey.com – Sioux City, IA
Sioux Falls Stampede – www.sfstampede.com – Sioux Falls, SD
Tri-City Storm – www.stormhockey.com – Kearney, NE
Waterloo Blackhawks – www.waterlooblackhawks.com – Waterloo, IA

So that’s about it my friends. I hope that you find this information helpful and I expect everybody trying out for any of these teams to be skating hard and walking with wood.

THUG ZAPPER (no.1)

Yesterday was Easter and the last games of the 2008 - 2009 season have now been played and the lineup for the Stanley Cup playoffs have been set.

Now this won’t make everybody happy including me but ….

… here are my predictions for the best hockey has to offer in the playoffs:

First Round:

Capitals win vs the Rangers
Penguins win vs Flyers
Devils win vs Hurricanes
Bruins win vs Canadians

Blues win vs Canucks
Sharks win vs Ducks
Redwings win vs Blue Jackets
Blackhawks win vs Flames

Second Round:

Devils win vs Capitals
Bruins win vs Penguins

Sharks win vs Blues
Redwings win vs Blackhawks

Semi-finals:

Bruins win vs Devils

Redwings win vs Sharks

Stanley Cup Finals:

Bruins win vs Redwings

Yup – I just feel that it’s the Bruins’ year!

I’ve got to tell you that I really got to see more televised hockey this season than any ever before in the past. I’ve seen just tons of NHL games, college games, high school games, AHL and even ECHL games. It’s been a real blast but I of course attribute this good fortune to the fact that I’ve been unemployed since October of 2008. Damn, nearly the entire season, ehh. I missed a little bit recouping from my fool-ass brain injury but otherwise I just got to see a shit load of hockey this year.

I’m of course hoping to land a new job real soon. Ahh yup. And you know if that happens then I’m gonna miss a bunch of the Stanley Cup Playoff games. Well, I’d certainly rather have a job though. But hockey rules, and you know that as well as the fact that I live it.

Those of you that keep track of me know that I travel to California on occasion, right? Back in late March I lined up several interviews for companies that have their headquarters in the San Francisco Bay area. All of them possibly good opportunities that would mostly keep me close to home here in the back woods but with some amount of travel as may be required because of the job responsibilities. So I’m hoping for some good luck out of this. Shit, I’m hoping for good luck for anybody that is looking for a job right now. The whole world has kinda soured if ya know what I mean but I’m sure we’ll pull out of it soon.

You followers also know that when I travel that I like to stop in to local rinks and see what kinda shinny they got going on or how their youth teams are faring. It’s always fun to meet new pucksters and their friends and families. This trip was no different as I was able to set aside a bit of time to visit the rink in Oakland.

It’s a fairly modern facility located on 18th Street in Oakland. Goes by the name of the Oakland Ice Center and seems to have some hockey affiliation with the San Jose Sharks and two other rinks; one in San Jose and one in Freemont. All three of these cities are on what they refer to as the eastern side of the Bay Area. I checked out what all they have going on here and was really quite impressed for a California rink. They’ve got an in-house league (Sharks Ice), a traveling club team – the Outlaw Bears, a high school league and an adult league with teams of the usual various names but I thought that these were a bit interesting: Puck Pigs, Skateful Dead, Cross-Czechs, and Gang Green.

They’ve got two ice surfaces here – one NHL size and one Olympic size. Dressing rooms, pro-shop, snack bar; you know, the usual fare. But I’ve got say again – I was impressed.

I stopped by mid-morning on a Tuesday and was expecting to find only figure skaters on the ice. Exactly! That’s all that was going on when I arrived, but by the time I checked out the facility, sipped on a coffee and reviewed some of the league and team stats things had begun to change.

Private figure skating sessions had ended on the NHL rink and pucksters loaded down with their gear started showing up. I figured that it was maybe a session of lunch-time pickup getting ready to get underway so I thought I’d stick around to watch and chat up some of the players. I went back to the snack bar and got a slice of pizza. Whoa dogs – that’s some tough stuff to eat – I think it was leftover from the night before and was just put under the warming lights. Oh well it was chow and job interviewing had taken a bit outta me and I needed to re-energize a bit.
Now this was really strange, because I’ve never seen it with pick-up before, but two refs and two lineman came out on the ice first. They skated around a bit and then went over to the penalty box where a crowd was gathering off of the ice. I hadn’t noticed but there were a bunch of suits over their and a video crew with, what I could see, at least two cameras. Curious I moved over closer from the end boards to the sin bin and noticed that several of the dudes in suits were displaying embroidered NHL emblems on their jacket pockets.

Interesting, ehh.

On a previous visit to California I ran into Apple bigwigs testing the I-Puck along side Zamboni testing the Zamboomba. What a hilarious mess that was. I was wondering though “Could I be onto something as controversial again”?

Curious and as forward as I am I walked up to one of the suits and introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Jasper Wheats, world famous hockey blogger. What’s going on here?”

The dude shook my hand and said, “Howdy mate, I’m Rup Iverson, NHL rep – Enforcement Technology.”

By this time players were coming out on to the ice and all of them were stopping by the penalty box and were signing in or something.

Rup hands me a business card and says “This was all hush-hush until the GM’s meeting and since you’re here I figure the cat’s outta the bag. Ehh?”

Not wanting to act like a stupid shit I said, “Ahh yup,” in as a commanding voice as I could.

I dawdled a bit and lazily started to say, “Soooo …” expecting him to cut me off, which he did – the prideful bastard.

“Wheats, I know your shit. Its good stuff. Ya don’t mind me calling ya ‘Wheats’ do ya? Well you know the big discussion coming outta the GM meeting was fighting. That’s my bag. I led the Norse league two years in row for penalty minutes and fighting majors. Unusual for European hockey but I just love to mix it up. After I quit playing I migrated to Canada end got myself a degree in human psychology. Coached a bit at junior level then moved into a back office position with the NHL. They said they could use somebody with my education and background.”

This guy is on a high horse so I let him continue talking.

“Ya see Wheats, Bettman more than anybody wants to abolish fighting in the league. Between me and you he’s a wimp and would probably drop from just a feigned punch. But anyway the GMs just want fighting controlled a little better. They realize that it adds to the package when a fan pays to watch a game and also that a good donnybrook can ramp-up a team’s play during the course of a game. But what the GMs are afraid of is that with the salary cap and all, well some of there top notch high priced players can’t afford to be injured in a little fisticuff. If ya catch my drift.”

I returned, “Yeah I getcha. The big buck owners don’t want their stars being sidelined because they’re the main draw. Right? But that’s why teams carry enforcers, ehh.”

“Right, right! That used to be the case. I mean did ya ever see Gretzky without McSorely? Right. Used to be the case I’m telling you. But now days the stars are just as willing to mix it up as anybody else. And this scares the owners and it trickles down to the GMs. They’ve got to somewhat obey their masters ehh. Don’t want to be kiss asses but money talks and bullshit walks, Wheats. You know that.”

I’m getting this but what I’m not getting is how this mid-day skate is going to remedy this managerial situation. So I say “Cool!” to keep him on the hook and nudge some more. “So how’s this work, Rupster?”

“Whoa, Wheats! I go by Rup. That Rupster shit makes me sound like some sort a punk kid. Lets keep this clean, ehh!”

The dude is full of himself. “Sorry. So go on Rup.”

“Some of the big horses have come up with some ideas and we’re trying one out today. Ya notice that all the players are signing releases over there? Well these guys are local pickup/beer league players noted for rough stuff and they’re each getting paid a couple hundred bucks to play today with instructions to play as crazy as possible. Elbows, boarding, high sticking, hooking you name it. We expect that the gloves will get dropped with regularity throughout the skate. We’ve got actual NHL on-ice officials that will blow whistles to stop play upon an infraction but no actual penalties will be called. We want the play intense but somewhat controlled. All of these guys jumped at the opportunity to play in this game this afternoon because they’re all pretty frustrated from sitting in the box so much during their regular league games. Wheats, you’re gonna see some old time hockey this afternoon.”

“Ok, ok,” I say, “so the test is letting these boys play but lots of whistles? Doesn’t seem to be much of an idea.”

“Nah Wheats. Here’s the drill. And all these guys know it and that’s why they sign the releases. Once a fight breaks out the linesmen will come into break it up as usual. But the refs are packing dude.”

“What ya mean Rup?” Now I’m lost. Are these refs carrying guns or something?

“OK, let me explain. See that belt the ref is putting on? It’s got a power pack for a taser that is strapped to his wrist and index finger kinda Spiderman style. When he extends his arm micro switches are turned on that activates the system and when he blows his whistle the taser fires in the direction of the pointed arm/index finger. The taser system has an audio pickup tuned to the officials’ whistles that activates and fires the propulsion subsystem within milliseconds. We zap the fighters and the fight ends. Simple as shit ehh. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this sooner.”

“I think that the idea is crazier than radioactive moose dung, Rup. But what’s my opinion count for anyway? I just happened upon your little exercise and probably shouldn’t be here anyway. I think I’ll go sit in the stands and watch your ‘controlled’ game. Thanks for the info.”

“Just don’t get in the way Wheats. I’ve got a lot respect for you and what you’ve done for the world of hockey. So I sure as shit don’t want you to get mixed up in the nastiness on the ice. I’m sure you could hold your own with these boys; but just the same I don’t want you to get hurt. Ha-ha! Sit back and enjoy the show.”

I climbed up into the stands and by than the game got underway. Rup hadn’t been kidding about the expected rough play. This was some good shit my friends. Rough and tumble hockey the way it was meant to be played. But in my mind its just a dabgone shame that if a fight breaks out that someone’s going to get zapped.

It wasn’t long before we had some action. One guy got hooked on an open ice breakaway (ok almost a breakaway) and at the following faceoff after the whistle the two decided to tangle. The linesman let them go for few seconds and then jumped into as normal to break it up. The ref lined up pointed his arm and finger, rather than raising it, and blew his whistle. He either missed his mark or was too far away because the fighters kept going at it. The second ref then came in close and zapped one of the guys. Since by then the guys were almost bear hugging the charge from the taser went though both of them and they dropped like stiff legged GI Joes and commenced to shake mildly about on the ice but then got up quickly and started at it again.

At that point the cardboard pizza I had eaten decided to come back up. This was ugly in a way and didn’t seem to really work the way Rup said it was intended. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. Finally they broke it off with the help of the linesmen.

After a few seconds some EMTs, that I hadn’t noticed previously, came out on the ice to check the fighters’ vitals, I guess.

Both refs went over to the penalty box and were each refitted with replacement wrist apparatus. Apparently the system was modular for a quick changeover of the wrist remote. Somebody must have thought ahead about this. Any duration to changeover would be a detriment to the game – kinda like a TV timeout.

Play got underway again and it continued at its rough pace. I’m still thinking that this isn’t such a good idea when Rup comes jogging up into the stands with a clipboard in his hand.

He sits down beside me and boasts “What ya think of that Wheats?!?! Wasn’t that something?”

“Ahh Rup! That had me tasting my lunch twice. I’m not so sure that this is such a good idea,” I responded feeling sick again.

“Oh don’t tell me you can’t stomach this action. I’m sure that there’s more to come.”

A little bit later a fracas broke out in the crease and slot area. Normal pushing and shoving like you’d expect. Four, five maybe even six guys going at it some.

Both refs move up close and both of them have their arm extended and whistle to their mouths. Or so I thought. Finally a whistle blows and the bundled up bunch of guys don’t pay any attention and keep at it. But the craziest shit in the world is that one of the ref’s went down and he’s vibrating like Linda Blair in the Exorcist just to the left side of the net.

I tossed my cookies in a split second and Rup was up and on the run. Next thing I see is he’s flat footing it across the ice and sliding into the group of players and drops to his knees like a trainer over the downed ref. The EMTs follow but at a much slower cautionary pace to aid this zebra down on the ice.

The vibrating stops. They give the ref oxygen, put him on a flatboard and take him off the ice.

Rup gets back off the ice and goes to talk with the suits. A bullhorn gets pulled out and whoever’s behind it announces that “That’s it for today boys.”

I get up to leave cuz I’m not feeling real good now and Rup catches up to me at the bottom of the stairwell.

He says “Wheats, I’m sure you’re going to write something on this so I want you to get it straight what just happened. The ref that went down for some reason had the remote for his taser attached to his whistle hand and brought it up to his mouth. When the other ref blew his whistle it fired right into his cheek. Zapped the holy fuck out him and also cut up his face. He should be ok because these things are de-tuned a bit from standard issue units that the cops use. But I don’t know for sure, we maybe don’t have these puppies set strong enough to be the deterrent that we want on the ice. It sure zapped the fuck outta the ref but didn’t do as much as we wanted to the players. Oh, and I forgot to mention this earlier but each of these players had to have been zapped before to qualify for this skate. As crazy as it sounds, none of them had to volunteer to be zapped. They all said that they had been zapped a time or two previously by the Oakland PD. Some of them said that they had been tasered right out in the parking lot here while chugging beers after a skate. Maybe they’re sort of immune to the charge. I don’t know.”

I started heading for the door and told Rup that I hope he gets it right but that I still didn’t feel like it’s the best thing to do to the game of hockey.
Rup grabbed my arm and spun me around. “Wheats, I know what your thinking. But there’s a lot of money in this. You’ve got my card. If you think of anything that might work that the GMs, owners and even possibly Bettmen would be interested in then give me a call or shoot me an email. I know that you’ve got lots of connections and are well regarded in hockey circles worldwide. Your input would be great.”

With that he shook my hand and bid me goodbye with one of my own lines “Wheats, your walking with wood, man, your walking with wood.”

IS IT HOOKING OR IS IT FISHING?

Have you ever been fishing? Nah, I’m not talking about out in the ocean. I’m a freakin land lubber so my idea of fishing is from shore on a mountain lake or impoundment or the streams that flow into or out of these bodies of water. I’m mainly talking about trout fishing. It’s a favorable pastime when hockey season is over and it sure beats the shit outta playing golf.

Speaking of golf, have ya ever seen the kinda money those guys make in tournaments? Where the hell does that money come from? Its not like golf is a physical game like hockey that can draw from an enormous fan-base as a legitimate spectator sport. Shit howdy! I mean who watches that shit and even better yet who in the world would PAY to watch it? For the life of me, I just can’t figure it out.

So I’ll get back to fishing in a little bit.

What in the world is going on with ice hockey these days? Playoffs are around the corner and will start in about four weeks and the general managers all got together again and raised some shit about fighting and instigators and all this other shit. It blows my mind how far away from true hockey we are getting these days. Look at all the protections that are being provided goalies and superstars. Fuck’em! As far as I’m concerned if ya lace’m up and step on the ice you’re fair game. So you’re a goalie and ya lay down in the crease (Gee have you seen how big the crease is these days?) trying to make a save? That’s your job, right? You’ve got more protective gear on then anyone else on the ice, is that correct? So you’re down or maybe your not and you get clobbered by an opponent; maybe on purpose or maybe he got clobbered into you by one of your teammates, so he gets a penalty and you get to be a whoosss. Is that right?

No fuckin way! Of course its not. Be a man instead of a weenie.

And the hooking calls that have been being made all season long; what a bunch of shit they are. Take a look at a hockey stick. See how at the end of the shaft the blade joins it angularly. Now to restrict or impede someone by hooking by use of this angled blade is a bloody hook. Not the crap that the league now calls. A player gets tapped in his mid-section or on his gloves by his opponent and we get a hooking call. Bull crap! Come up with a new term for this – call it panty-waisting or tapping. But hooking, come on? No way. I’m sick of it.

What does the league think? Getting tapped might hurt your little fingies? Well wear some dad-gone hockey gloves for Pete’s sake. Have you seen the mitts that some of the hot shot forwards are wearing these days? My honey wears heavier gloves when she does gardening. If ya get a chance take a look at the skimpy little gloves that Joe Thornton uses.

One thing that is fairly physical that I’ve never been too fond of though is cross-checking in the back. This can cause permanent spinal damage. It seems as though this has been on the rise and very seldom is called. Probably the most prevalent cross-checker in the league is Rob Blake.

When I coached, I always taught my kids to drop one hand off the stick so that they wouldn’t get called for cross checking. There isn’t a penalty for shoving.

There, I got up on my soapbox for a little bit. I mean, like, gee-wilikers I’m Jasper Wheats, walking with wood, and I’m entitled to speak my mind about all things hockey, ehh.

How about you? What’s your take on all the changes going on with hockey? Drop me a line and let me know how you feel. Are we losing that old time hockey flavor that we so love?

Yup, I got a little off task here you guys. I hope that you didn’t mind too dang much. Let’s get back to fishing, ehh.

I used to do a whole shit load of fishing on the lakes in Minnesota when I lived down in the Twin Cities area. Mainly catching bluegills, crappies and fool bullheads. It was a good time that’s for sure. I remember one little fishing trip we took up to a lake north of Saint Paul, Twin Rivers Lake. We were probably three families all together if I remember right and this time we went out in two powerboats to the far side of the lake from where we had set up camp. It’s so long ago now that I can’t remember if we were using shiners or worms but we were working a crappie hole between where the two rivers dumped into the lake. It was like fishing in a barrel. You drop your line, you pull up a crappie. Seemed as though somebody in the other boat caught a small pike and I don’t think it was big enough to be legal so all we really had was a big old mess of panfish.

On this particular fishing expedition I was the oldest male kid and as such was designated to fillet all these puppies. I think it was like 173 fish that I cleaned that afternoon. I was up to my elbows in fish guts, skin and scales and flat slabs of pan-fish fillets. It was actually quite a bitch but the fish fry we had that night was awfully damn good.

But this is my take on that: Having the boats to get over to that fishing hole was just too much of an unfair advantage to the fish. I guess that’s why I don’t like boat fishing. Oh yeah, plus I always get a little seasick later from the rocking of v-hull boats. Now a canoe, that’s a different story. You’re low to the water and you have to paddle – there’s some exertion involved on the fisherman’s part and that sort of karma-wise evens out the advantage over the fish.

After moving away from the Land of 10,000 Lakes I didn’t fish for many years. I had a new life and new adventures that a young man in his late teens and early twenties might find himself involved. But nope, fishing wasn’t one of those activities.

At some point in my late twenties, one of my hockey buds, Mooney (he’s since passed away due to cancer but is walking with wood on the other side I’m absolutely sure), talked me and a bunch of other members of the team to go on a trout fishing trip up to the mountains. This, my friends, was a great reintroduction to a favorite pastime of all folks that live in the backwoods.

On this first trip it was Moonie, Mick, Guyster, myself, and I think Doodoo. Mick played defense with me on occasion and Guyster, our goalie, from Montreal, actually had a college degree in fish husbandry – so he was sort of an expert on all things “fish”. DooDoo was a blond haired horndog slicker from Boston that’d poke anything that had a hole; hence his nickname. And Moonie, well he’d skated winger most of the time and had been coming to this area since he was a little kid.

There were four main areas that we fished on this trip. The first was in the high country lakes. All were at 10,000 feet elevation or higher. A couple of small ones that we didn’t pursue too heavily were the Toad Lakes that were higher up in the mountain range but part of the drainage. Then there were the two Virgin Lakes (Upper and Lower or Big and Little take your pick) and Turbull Lake that were all within about a quarter a mile of each other that we fished quite heavily. The second area that we fished was the Walking Wood River that was down the mountain in another drainage but easy walking from the main road. The third was a big impoundment, Spanhaven Reservoir, where we fished from the dam and the trout were fat. The fourth and last spot we fished was at the lowest elevation at around 4,000 feet and again an impoundment named Lindy Pond.

Camping was available at or near all areas except Spanhaven where a small town is similarly named that has motels, a sporting goods/fishing supplies store, gas stations, restaurants and bars. On this particular trip, and any I took with Moonie, we always stayed at the Walking Wood Lodge in town and ate breakfast at a coffee shop across the street and had dinner and brews at the Rhino Bar down the street.

Moonie had scads of injuries, broken bones and shit, so I think he found sleeping on a hotel bed to be of less discomfort then tent camping. We didn’t complain. A warm shower after fishing all day in rain sometimes or even sleet wasn’t such a damn bad inconvenience to put up with, ehh.

I am damn glad that old Moonie turned me on to this part of the world and re-inspired my fishing spirit. He may have sucked on the ice but he sure knew how to continue our camaraderie after the season was over. The trout opener is always the first weekend in May so the timing was excellent.

Do any of you hockey dudes or dudettes have a friend like Moonie that turned you on to something way cool? Again, if you have, well than just drop me a line and tell me about it. It coulda been an uncle, an aunt, a grandparent, or a neighbor. Shit, it could be your folks or a sibling that spiffed up a part of your life and maybe they haven’t ditched it yet for a better life like Moonie did. But tell me about it, I’d like to hear your stories.

After having done this with Moonie and the boys for a few years I made plans for a fishing trip with my brother Jingles, his son Ry-Ry and three of our nephews Ricky, Josey and his little bro Amos. Ricky and Josey are the oldest and the same age at around 12 or 13 during this trip. I think Amos is next youngest and then Ry-Ry was the punkest kid along.

This trip was for camping and fishing – no hotel or restaurant fare. The boys were going to enjoy the virtues of camping. We packed all the gear under the shell of my little pickup truck and Amos road with me. Jingles was driving at the time either a Yugo or a Le Car, econo-boxes, with the other three nephews.

So off we headed about 340 miles each way to the campground at Turnbull Lake. We weren’t too concerned about making good time, just sort of pittered about with pit stops and time to jostle a bit to break up the tedium of the drive. Nothing like uncles destroying all the good manners that these boys’ moms had ever taught them. Yeah, you’re damn right you can fart in the car! Ha-ha, and the louder and the stinkier the better.

We brought along the usual provisions for eating and drinking – eggs, bacon, potatoes for frying, hot dogs, chips, cookies, pops and beers (for me and Jingles only – of course) and maybe some fruit – not sure about that. I packed three of my tents – an umbrella tent that myself and Amos slept in and two each two man pup tents, one for Jingles and Ry-Ry and one for Josie and Ricky. Everybody also brought sleeping bags for themselves. It gets down below freezing even on summer nights when your camping above 10,000 feet so we needed to be prepared.

The first day was dedicated to driving and setting up camp. We didn’t do any fishing, had a little time to hike around and show the boys the three lakes that were close by. The campground has mountains that rise up another three to four thousand feet on three sides so the views up there were pretty damn spectacular. I’m pretty sure that everybody thought this place was just tits.

I fixed dinner and got a fire going. We sat around the fire, roasted marshmallows and acted like just a bunch of fools telling scary stories and talking about bears and crap. I think the coolest thing for my nephews was being able to add wood to the fire and being able to stir it up making sparks fly. It was crazy but very cool to hang out with my family in such a rugged place. As we let the fire burn down it came time to take trips to the campground’s outhouse for the before bed pisseroos. With couple of flashlights in hand we all trucked on down to individually enter the throne of stinkdom. Whew, it was bad in there after a hot summer day – even in the cool of the night that shitter was pretty ripe.

So after that ordeal we all got back to the camp and I made sure that each tent had a flashlight and we all settled into our tents and sleeping bags. Everybody was making a lot of noise and such with laughing coming from every tent before we finally crashed out. But I’m not so sure that anybody got a good night’s sleep. It was colder than poop. Amos mutters in his sleep and I know that I had to bury my head in my sleeping bag to keep warm and block that out. Damn near suffocated and get claustrophobic when I cover my head. Oh well, that wasn’t the worst of it.

In the morning I come to find out that Jingle’s and Ry-Ry’s sleeping bags were of the GI Joe variety. They might keep you warm on the living room floor but they sure don’t work for fuck up in the mountains. They froze their fool asses off.

After fixing breakfast for all I got us organized to do some fishing. I already had two complete ultra-light spinning rod and reels plus one medium weight rod and reel set up. So for this trip I had bought four el-cheapo closed face spinning rod and reel rigs. I hate those things but thought that they would be easier for kids to learn on. Deciding that the two Virgin Lakes had too much vegetation growing on the shore line and to avoid snags in this shit we walked over to the far shore of Turbull Lake where there were some rock ledges and boulder sized scree that we could easily fish from.

Now Jingles is a hell of a hockey player but I had to show him how to setup the gear and how to cast to catch trout just like I did my nephews. The nephews all grew up to be pretty athletic with Ricky and Josie playing some puck, Ry-Ry winning an AAAU 14 year old world series, and Amos playing every play in some football games his senior year of high school. So once I got them going they all did pretty good.

The only real problem was while Amos was not paying attention and setting his rig down a seagull swam into his line and being startled flew away pulling his gear into about fifteen feet of water. What a crack up. Good thing I had an extra rig.

The boys started getting hungry so we broke off to go back to camp for lunch. While there Mick showed up in his Bronco and he went off fishing one of the Virgin or Toad Lakes only to join us again in the evening.

So back to the shelves and rocks we went fishing. And boy oh boy did it get good in the afternoon. We were catching twelve-inch rainbows right and left. We discovered that about 30 to 40 feet out was a drop off and the fish were hanging just over that edge. I was hopping about taking fish off the line and getting them on stringers and doing this and doing that to keep the screaming down. I got so caught up after a while helping Amos and walking back and forth from his spot to where Jingles and Ry-Ry were fishing that I hadn’t noticed that Josey and Ricky had disappeared. When I did finally notice I realized that those little shitters had taken off and had climbed several hundred feet up the scree and were perched on a massive outcropping with about a hundred foot free fall immediately below them. I screamed at them to get back down explaining that their moms’, my sisters, would kill me if they got seriously hurt while up here. LOL

That evening I cleaned some of the trout and we had them for dinner. Needless to say the boys preferred hot dogs so we had those too.

Again we sat around the fire and had a good time that evening. It was good to have Mick show up because he added stories that we hadn’t heard before. Plus his inclusion into the adult attendance we drank a lot more beer that night and I know for one that I paid for that with several frigid scurries away from the tent in the night in order to empty my bladder. Ry-Ry discovered that if he stuffed green pine needles into the beer cans and threw them into the fire that they made loud popping noises and so had invented “sap bombs” that we put up with during that night’s and the remaining evening fires.

I really think these boys had a blast. I know that I did and I’m sure that I’ll remember this fishing trip forever. I hope that they do too.

Another thing the boys discovered was that pops and beers make for tremendous burps when you’re at altitude. Each tried to out do the others. It was intense and oft times sounded quite painful.

Because of those wimp-ass sleeping bags that Jingles and Ry-Ry had to use they placed some good sized loose stones next to the fire pit to warm up and later put them in the bottom of their sleeping bags to keep warm through the night. Well – half the night and as crazy as it was this worked better than doing nothing else like they had the first night.

Mick hadn’t brought a tent and asked if he could sleep under the shell in the bed of my pickup. No problem, but he only had blankets and no sleeping bag. In the morning he said that that was bullshit. So much wind blew in around the bed of my truck that he froze his fuckin ass off. He was gonna sleep in the back seat of his Bronco the next night.

The next day we hiked about and fished some more. All in all I think we caught about eighty rainbows. Like that fishing trip back in Minnesota, again I cleaned every fish. Now trout don’t get filleted but you do gut them by slitting from their bowel opening to their gills and pulling their innards out by grabbing the gills and pulling down and out. Gills are pretty sharp and both of my thumbs were sliced almost to the bone from doing this – ahhhhh - yes the pains of fishing.

I think that my old defensive buddy, Mick, had a pretty good time hanging out with the old Wheats clan for fishing and freezing on this adventure. We had to leave on the third day early and left him while he did some more fishing.

We packed everything up and got ready to hit the road. I looked at Amos who was again going to ride with me. He had the same and only sweatshirt he had with him still on – filthier than my fishing rag. It was an old mustard yellow colored thing so I had him turn it inside out so it didn’t look so bad. Kinda held the odor in also. He got a bloody nose on the way home and bled all over it anyway, so no biggie – I should have left it right side out, ehh.

Sometime later after this trip I found out that Josie and Ricky couldn’t stand the stench of the outhouse at the campground and had avoided having to sit in the office by not taking a crap the whole trip. LMFAO! I don’t know how they managed that because that greasy-ass bacon that I fixed every morning for breakfast had my bowels moving in about three minute flat. I guess you could call what I fix for the morning meal as “Jasper’s Instant Breakfast”, ehh.

I love hockey. I love camping. And I love fishing. So many more tales to tell.

Come back again and read some more.

Jasper here, just telling ya to skate hard and walk with wood.

CROSSED STICKS AGAIN

Today’s a great day. Plain and simple. Yup!

I woke up again, still breathing and hungry for hash-browns, bacon and eggs.

That kind shit tells ya that I’m still alive and well. Ehh? What do you expect? No matter no how the back woods and winds coming down from the great north ain’t gonna knock my socks off today. No sirree!

You folks up for that? Ya gonna be kickin it again with me today? Hope so cuz I ain’t loopin in no slackers. Hear me? Me and my pals, we’re walking with wood big-time!

“Why?” you guys ask.

Who gives a rats ass why. It just don’t matter none. Not at all.

Nobody’s gonna knock the wind outta my sails and nobody’s gonna glue a chip on my shoulder.

Uhh uhh. Not today.

So Saturday was Valentine’s Day and it followed a Friday the thirteenth this year. No biggie. I spent both days with my honey, treating her just fine. She loved it. Uhh huh! Did ya do the same? Shoulda if ya didn’t and shame on you too.

Oh, what else?

Well Bronzy and some of the Outlaws went over to Wisconsin to the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Tournament. I tried to get a hold of him Friday evening to see how they were doing but no luck so I left a voice mail on his cell phone.

I worried about those boys and that night I had a fool dream that they lost their first game like 34 to 1. Crazy dream. I know those boys know how to lose but not that bad ehh.

So Saturday evening Bronzy finally calls me back. They had had two games earlier in the day. Lost both and he says that they lost on Friday too. All tolled they were out scored by seven goals in their three games. Sucks but I’ll be damned if they hadn’t just partaken in the very grass roots of our fine sport. Pond hockey! Ya can’t beat it for nothing!

He says to me, “Jasper, we’re in a bar, it’s kinda loud. Let me move to a quieter spot.”

I asked him who all skated and he told me that Woody, Blummer, Terry, Gordie and Warren were there with him. I said, “So you boys going to drink that bar dry?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. Wisconsin folks can drink really well I think and they were prepared for our partying. Besides that, Woody’s gone on the wagon and he’s just drinking O’Douls.”

“Well there goes half the consumption that you’d normally have then, ehh”, I responded. “Say did ya bring along any of those ‘Polka Til Ya Puke’ t-shirts and try to sell them?”

He laughed and said “Oh fuck no Jasper, I’d a probably been run outta town if I’d tried to hawk them puppies. Thought that they were a crazy idea once but not so sure now. These cheeseheads really don’t take highly to folks ragging on their favorite form of dance. Ha-ha.”

He continued with some more comments about the tournament. “You and Jingles shoulda been here. Brings back old memories of when we were kids skating on the pond in the neighborhood back there in Wayzata. Way too much skating going on here, though, and the ice was really pretty rough. Couldn’t make decent passes and woulda been hell on your hip Jasper.”

“Yup,” I said. “I told ya that it would be rough and sharp skates weren’t gonna be any advantage. And right now, it ain’t my hip I’d a been worried about. It’s like my whole body is just like one over stretched rubber-band right now since I’ve had my brain injury. Nothing seems to be loose. I’d a probably snapped every ding-dang tendon in my body. Damn, though! I really miss it and wish I coulda joined you guys.”

After that he put Woody on. He’d moved outta state and I hadn’t talked to him in a while so that was a real treat.

We made the old times chit-chat and then he says “Hold on Jasper” as he steps outside the bar. “I’ve gotta ask you something kind of private. Inside, behind the bar on the wall is a wooden plaque that’s heart shaped and it’s got a golden cross on it and a couple silvery crossed hockey sticks below. No words, nothing else. I asked a couple of the barmaids what it meant but they didn’t know, said that they had only come in to help out for the extra tournament crowd. I’ll tell ya, it’s kinda eerie. Do you know what it means? Could you look into it Jasper?”

I told him that I’d research it a bit cuz I wasn’t real sure what the plaque meant. I told him that it might be the symbol for another chapter of the super secret Crossed Stick Society.

Enough said we signed off.

Yeah, it got me wondering though. You guys remember my tale from June of 2007 where I wrote about ‘Hockey’s Secret Society’ after having read some revealing news articles about Yales’ Skull and Bones secret society? Remember that I told you guys that we had some very exclusive hockey relics including (You can’t tell anybody this shit!) Hobey Baker’s kneecap?

You remember that shit, ehh?

Well, I started investigating. I started looking at the symbolism first.

First of all I looked into the heart shape of the plaque. We know that the heart is a vital organ of the body. It pumps the life blood that sustains us. Symbolically it stands for character – compassion, love, intellect, courage, affection and ardor. Something of deep concern. In association with friendship and camaraderie it can symbolize blood brothers or brothers-in-arms.

Companions, huh? Could it mean team-mates? Team-mates to the end? Maybe.

Now the cross immediately brings to mind the association with Christianity. Christ on the cross at Golgatha (the 'skull') or Calvary. This symbol was made more popular as the standard for the knights that went off to fight in the crusades. It carries not so much the image of Christ’s death on the cross but more so his resurrection and salvation for those that believe in him. Here than we could say the cross indicates to remember the old but be inspired and renewed by that remembered wisdom.

And those crossed hockey sticks. They too are symbolic of the cross. But are tied to a specific cause. Here being hockey.

But as I said above, the knights in the crusades carried on their flag or standard a symbolic cross. And no more famous are those knights than those of the Knights Templar and their association with the order of the freemasons. The freemasons may have been the first to have used other objects crossed (or overlapping) as one of their symbols. They have used the crossed Masonic square (like a carpenter’s square) and compass to create one of their symbols.

The skull and cross-bones symbol that we so readily associate with pirates (and Yale’s secret society) also is of Christian origin. A skull (or several) with a pair of crossed bones were placed at the entrance to cemeteries. It is a symbol therefore of death. On a pirates flag the crossed bones are positioned below the skull. As a symbol for poison the skull is over the top of the crossed bones – meaning the skull is in the foreground and the bones in the background. As with motorcycle gangs and tattoos the skull and crossbones is now an indication of being a bad-ass.

Another common symbol found in cemeteries is marked upon the grave markers or tombstones of soldiers killed in combat. Here the symbol is that of crossed swords or sabers. To “cross swords” is metaphorical to fighting. And to fight can be as equal to - to compete or to be in competition. That being so than our symbol or logo of crossed hockey sticks indicates that we are in the business of hockey competition.

Some other examples of crossed objects used as logos, emblems and badges that I discovered in my research include the following:

Crossed Hammers – symbol for miners, also a hate symbol used by the Hammerskin Nation – a racist skinhead organization
Crossed Keyes – keys to heaven or St. Peter’s keys
Crossed Oar and Saw – the oar symbolizes travel and the saw symbolizes martyrdom – for Saint Simon Zealotes
Crossed Arrows – Native American symbol for friendship, also included in the badge of the bombers of the RAF
Crossed Rifles – military infantry, etc.
Crossed Pistols – used on cowboy belt buckles, etc, also included in the badge of military police
Crossed Drum Sticks – drummer or drum corp
Crossed Baseball Bats – oh yeah you guys know that sport
Crossed Hatchets – the pioneer insignia for the Union Army during the civil war, also used quite often in ancient coat-of-arms, used by the Chicago Blackhawks, and may be found in combination with a skull as a biker symbol
Crossed Hammer and Sickle – symbol for Communism
Crossed Hammer, Hoe and Brush – Korean Worker’s Party
Crossed Pickaxe and Hammer or Mallet – also a miner’s symbol
Crossed Knife and Fork – symbol for a feast (I love this one, ehh – just put it with a beer mug and ….)
Crossed Knives – symbol for impending death
Crossed Tennis Rackets – ahh-yup another summer sport
Crossed Golf Clubs – oh that’s gay, sorry excuse for a sport – but sometimes combined with a skull that has golf balls for eyes (I guess that means that you’re a killer golfer – whatever ….)
Crossed Clubs - a symbol of the exploits of Heracles/Hercules
Crossed Flags – an emblem for the color guard
Crossed Checkered Flags – a racing symbol – the race winner being shown the checkered flag
Crossed Checkered and Chevy Flag – a Chevy Corvette logo
Crossed Lacrosse Sticks – a lacrosse logo – interesting: the sticks are also known as crosses
Crossed Skis – a skier’s logo (don't do that when you're skiing because it'll really mess ay up)
Crossed Mallet and Shepherd’s Staff Behind a Cross – the symbol of a White Shrine high priestess
Crossed Lipstick, Ciggie and Flickknife – symbol for a female prep school delinquent – found on a “bitch blazer”

So, how many other “crossed” symbols, logos or badges can you think of? How many hockey team logo’s can you think of that include crossed hockey sticks? Bunches, ehh?

Are we all tied to the same brotherhood? It seems as though there is that implication with ‘all’ of these crossed symbols.

But how does that heart shaped plaque, the golden cross and the silvery hockey sticks all tie together? Is it a talisman of a remote Wisconsin chapter of the super secret Crossed Stick Society? Or is it something else? Who made it? When was it made? These are all questions that I’m going to have to investigate further. I can only surmise its importance. It is definitely a mystery to be resolved and I’ll have to get back to you guys when I know more.

Jasper here until next time. Skate hard, walk with wood, and take that friggin shot, ehh!

THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY

A week or so ago we had the NHL All Star weekend. I was home the whole weekend so I put my eyes on the tube and watched all the activities. The skills competition used to fascinate me. This year, not so much.

My disappointment started with the fastest skater competition. The electronic timing system didn’t even work. Sheeeet! What’s up with that? And still nobody gets close to Marian Gaborik’s record time of 13 seconds.

The highlight of my disappointment here culminated in Alex Ovechkin’s dalliance with two sticks, a hat and tourist sunglasses. What a mess. So what if he scored with his off-hand. I thought it sucked. I want to see skill that you would find extraordinary if it was performed in the course of a game, not this horseshit. Gee, I’ve got one of my new friends over at myspace, a spif puckhead from Germany, whose profile photo shows him balancing an upright stick off the palm of each hand. Regardless of the fact that he’s in street clothes and maybe in a rink parking lot instead of the ice, I’m sure next year will see Ovechkin pulling this stunt in the skills competition for no useful hockey purpose. Ha, ha!

The Young Star’s game is a pretty neat thing most of the time since they started it. It gives the first and second year stars a chance to be recognized for their seasonal on ice accomplishments. But, in my opinion, their regular season play is way more exciting than this four-on-four showcase event. Again, I’m disappointed.

So, that was on Saturday and then we move to the big event on Sunday.

I guess that the Hollywood types that produce these things think we need something other than hockey. I’m mean why does the NHL think it needs to create an event along the lines of the Super Bowl. Come on it isn’t even the same and besides who watches football anymore anyway. Well, these producers, they’re fools. I’ve seen Cirque du Soleil once, even paid for it, but once is enough. I want to see hockey. I want to see the best damn hockey ever.

Won’t happen in an all star game, ehh.

These guys that get chosen to play in an all star game are definitely all qualified to walk with wood in my book. But they sure don’t strut it in this game.

Defense? What’s that?

Aggressive? What did we have only one penalty?

And to be picked to play this game as a goalie? Whoa-dogs! That’s got to be the most em-bare-assing thing in the world. Why would ya wanna show up?

But, I watched the game and I’ve got to say that the city of Montreal and the Habs deserved this event. It was their time and their show. And as worthy as it was, it was their MVP too.

In my opinion, the best part of this whole weekend was during the main game, when time was taken out to acknowledge and showcase, live, some of the past Canadian greats. Kudos to Montreal and its great hockey heritage. Now that impressed me.

I’ll tell you though, that no matter how much I complain about this NHL show piece there is one really major quality that is portrayed every single year. And that’s the camaraderie that these normally opposing combatants display during this weekend. They have fun together. Yessirree! I’m always impressed by this aspect of my favorite game. It isn’t just shown here but I tell ya to take a look sometime at the handshakes at the end of a Stanley Cup playoff series as the winning team advances and the loser sadly goes home. Sometimes to me, getting to see that handshake is just as important as seeing the game. This element of hockey is instilled in players from the time that they are kids and the mandatory handshake at the end of every game.

There are those of you that don’t think too highly of this, but even in beer leagues, I never had a real problem partying along with vile opponents after the game. Not to say there wasn’t the occasional turd-ball that I’d just as soon wail on no matter the time or location. But that too is what makes this sport of hockey so great.

NHL rivalries. They are the best. And that’s the part that goes omitted from the All Star games. That’s why this specific game lacks the polish that interests me.

I don’t recommend that this game be scrapped but it sure lacks the luster of a regular season game and hands down is a loser to the Winter Classic. Now that is the best thing that the NHL has come up with in years next to reducing the size of goalie equipment. I love it!

There, you’ve got my biased opinion of things important.

So, here’s the shit that’s going on here.

Last writing, I was invited to do some super sledding over at the hill on D-Pitty’s property. With my injury and all, you may recall, that I deemed it best to just watch. And that I did. Unbeknownst to me, D-Pitty had hired Stinky to groom some channels into the slope and iced them up almost to the point of becoming luge runs. Damn it all anyway if those makeshift sleds of Stinky’s didn’t just haul ass. On the Saturday afternoon that I went to watch, D-Pitty had gotten a hold of Jingles and Bronzy and had them invite all my kids on Norris’ Nightmares to join in the action. Now I don’t know if ya remember from last year that these slobagons that Stinky built were made from the halves of an RV’s holding tank and had partial goalie stick outriggers for steering and that one of these had fallen apart last year about killing us. Well, he beefed these babies up and they were the shit. Most of the kids brought their own gravity operated snow vehicles but opted to stand in line to ride Stinky’s slobagons. Damn I wished I’d a taken some movies of this blasted-ass good time. Would be a U-Tube hit, shit for sure. Luckily the bros recommended almost full hockey gear to anybody shooting the slope or we’d a been hauling kids to the hospital all afternoon.

I’m telling you guys that you shoulda been there. Yup!

I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday that the Sherriff stopped by to give me some news. He said that Tidwilly and the Wanker boys had done their time and were out of jail now. Said that Tidwilly, though, had been commissioned for another six months in a halfway house down in Winona and the Wanker boys had been furloughed to work for an uncle over in North Dakota. He said that it was just a warning, owed me and my bros that, even that these no-goods weren’t back in town you never can trust them to honor their obligations now that their out of the hoosegow. No telling that they might hookup together and show up around here to give us some trouble again. Well, we’ll see about that. I sure don’t need any trouble right now given the shape that I’m in.

I gave the news to Jingles and Bronzy that same day. Jingles said that he’s gonna start carrying that Colt 45 replica that he got at Cabella’s and Bronzy said that he was sticking under the seat of his truck that Ruger 22 mag single six that Dad had given to him. Me, ahh yup, I ain’t in good shape but I think I can still swing a tire iron pretty good, so I’m keeping one handy in the pickup. Hope nothing comes of this but ya never know what those ass-wipes might do. I’ll have to fill D-Pitty in on this action. Don’t think he knows these boys or their nasty rep.

What else???

Oh yeah, really interesting game gonna be on TV Tuesday. Sharks against the Bruins. Should be good being played on Boston ice. Ha-ha and the Sharks have lost three in a row for the first time going into this.

Damn, and what’s going on with that favorite team of mine, the LA Kings? Have they finally turned their game around? We’ll see, ehh.

Well that’s it for today my puckbuddy friends.

Jasper here calling it another one.

Skate hard or get off the ice, ehh!

HOCKEY – ON THE TUBE

Greetings, my puck buddies!

Gee, doesn’t that sound like something Spock would have said on the old Star Trek TV series, ehh? What a hoot those old shows were. Cap’n Kirk always got the chick. I didn’t ever think about that until one evening a few years back, a young lady that I was dating told me so. It was right after a mighty fine evening, at that, where she kept saying “Way to go Captain”. As I gave her a ride home afterwards I finally asked her what she meant and she provided the simple explanation. Made me feel pretty good – musta been doing something right, for sure.

Yeah, but Spock on the other hand would just raise an eyebrow in his quiet resourceful way and contemplate the situation as completely logical (or maybe illogical). He himself only getting off on some sort of Vulcan specific mind-meld of sorts. Well, whatever toots your horn is what I say. I myself though prefer to stir the pot if ya get my drift.

Gosh durn if it isn’t already 2009. Ain’t that something, ehh? Getting as old as I fool am, I gotta tell ya, I managed to stay up this time to watch the old digital clock on the cable TV box flip over to 12:01. Yup, lots of these years lately I haven’t made it to that point in the evening. Pounding a six pack and some celebratory holiday hard stuff, all combubulated together, just pretty much knocks me on my ass anymore. But in my day, I’m telling ya, I could drink all a ya young whipper-snappers right under the table. And party my fool ass off, you betcha, finishing up every damn good-time evening before going home with some early morning breakfast at Denny’s – the Grand Slam, baby. Uh huh! I was always looking for a good time and any opportunity to get my drink on – didn’t have to be no New Years Eve party, no sirree.

Eating, drinking, TV and turning into a lard-ass right now is all it seems that I’m doing. Being unemployed and recovering from that freakin brain injury has just about turned me into a turd. I need to get my ass out on the ice again and I mean soon.

Damn! I really love hockey. That’s all there is to it. It’s the best dang sport in the world. In my day, the faster that it was and more physical that it was the better it was. Hell, the dirtier the better. And it didn’t matter if it was me and my boys or some opposing rascals that were pulling the high-jinx. It all made it better. That’s what folks mean when they refer to “old time hockey”. Yup, the rough stuff.

Well if I can’t skate right now then I at least can watch a mess of it on the tube. Oh heck, that term is going to be phased out soon enough. All of my televisions are the type with picture tubes. They still work just fine so I’m not about to replace them anytime soon. Now I figure most a ya out there have TVs that are of the newer flat screen technology – LCD or plasma. So what term are we gonna use when “tube” gets retired? Makes ya wonder, ehh.

Since Christmas there sure has been a bunch of hockey to watch though. Gee, I got to see some of a Minnesota high school tournament going on down at the cities, parts of a college tourney coming out of Denver I think, some regular NHL games, the Winter Classic in Chicago (again another one of the best ideas from the NHL in ages), and best of all the World Junior Championships.

I loved watching those national junior teams kicking it. Damn good hockey all around. Those boys, no matter which team, no matter the outcome – they’re all walking with wood for sure. Only draw back in my opinion, of course, is that they restrict them too much from dropping the gloves and really getting rough. Oh well, you can’t have it all. And as a second thought, punching face cages and half shields just ain’t really the same. Is it?

Wayno “D-Pity” Studholm came by the cabin and watched the final with me between Canada and Sweden. It was an excellent game all the way around. Yup. It was more physical than most of the others that I had watched. I had seen Sweden play in a previous game and had really been quite impressed with their speed and play making skill. So I had been expecting quite a bit more from them. I was pretty much pulling for them, didn’t hurt that I’m half Swedish by my ancestral decent. I think that D-Pity might be one hundred percent Swedish, but I ain’t absolutely sure.

So me and D-Pity are pounding the brews and munching on pizza that he brought over while watching the game. We’re cussing and screaming on occasion. High-fiving and such as was necessary to increase the entertainment value of the game. But damn if it didn’t seem that at about half way through the second period the Swedes just started to fuck-up. Well, not all of them. Just the forwards. It seemed to me that each forward didn’t realize that he was skating on a line with two other dudes. What I was seeing from the mid point on was a forward skating with the puck thinking that he could do it all and only working with his defensemen, but not with his line mates. It got so bad that it turned into one of those situations where I wished that I could pick up the phone and call the Swedish coach and tell him what was going on. Have him pull the boys in and give them the “what for” that they seemed to need.

Damn though! It probably wouldn’t have done any good anyway if I could have gotten a call through because the Swedish coach didn’t look like he could understand English very well. And I sure for shit can’t speak a word of Swedish. Oh well, it just got a bit frustrating.

But the game was still great to watch regardless of the victor and late poor play by the Swedes. The beer we drank was cold and the pizza hit the spot. D-pity was good to have around. Ya know, all those years where he just sort of had vanished off the face of the earth have just kinda melted away. It seems as though we’ve been best friends all along – never skipping a beat in our crazy lives. That’s good shit – having close buds and of course having puck buddies are the best, ehh.

During one of the intermissions in the game I got up to take a leak and just a whole shit-load of pizza crumbs fell from my lap onto the floor. I commented, “Oh fuck! The honey’s gonna give me heck over that mess!” She’d gone over to her sister’s earlier to catch up on some gossip and watch a chick-flick that one of ‘em had rented, so she wasn’t around to keep the two of us in line.

D-Pity saw the mess on the floor and started to get up, dumping some from his lap too, saying, “Jasper, I’ll clean this up, but it reminds me of something. I’ll tell you about my trip when you get back from pissing.”

When I came back from the head, he was just dumping a dustpan full of pizza crumbs into the trash. We both sat back down and he grabbed the clicker and muted the tube.

“Those crumbs reminded me of my trip to Cleveland a week or so before Christmas. I generally fly back there every other month or so for a couple of days. I’m majority owner of a business there and just like to stop in to meet with management and make sure everything is on track. It’s just one of the investments that I have from the money I got back then.”

“I fly into Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport and always stay at the Holiday Inn down on Royalton Road. It’s near the airport, the factory and best of all an ice rink. Its pretty nice rink, the Hoover Arena, and only about two blocks from the Holiday Inn. They’ve got pickup games there on weeknights so I’ve got a set of gear that I keep in a locker at the factory and usually get in a game or two while I’m in town. It’s a good skate and I usually don’t have to get up too early any time when I’m in Cleveland. I schedule the times for meetings so I generally can get the skate in, some drinking after and then a good night’s sleep without messing anything up.”

“So Jasper this no shit. I’m telling you the truth. This happened to me. I think it was a Tuesday night and I had gotten in a good game. Even scored a couple of goals. Afterwards a couple of the guys said they were going over to McCarty’s Ale House on Pearle for some brews. It’s pretty much just around the corner and I usually go there and tip a few with the guys. But that night I was feeling a little beat because my travel had originated in California that day instead of up here. Just had seemed like a long day already. So I went back to the hotel instead and stopped in their lounge, Vinney’s, for just one cold one before going up to my room. Most nights that I’m in town and not skating I’ll stop in here after dinner and chat with the bartender. Usually it’s pretty quiet, maybe a couple of other folks at the bar and a group or two at tables or the booths, but pretty subdued compared to McCarty’s.”

“I’m about finished with my first brew and contemplating whether to take one up to my room when two ladies strolled in from the hotel lobby. One looks kinda skanky like a crack whore but the other one was a looker. She had a face and body like Jessica Biel but with kinky dark hair like Amy Irving. They started moving over to a booth when the cute one broke away and bounced off some tables coming up to the bar. I’m telling you Jasper, there was all kinds of space for her to stand at the bar but she squeezed in between me and the stool next to me and called to bartender. Then she sort of leaned away from me and gave me a good look. I could tell that she was looped but she had a sweet fragrance about her.”

“The bartender came over and took her order and then she said to me ‘Hi.’ She twisted sideways and leaned into me and dropped her left hand in my lap trying to keep her balance. Then she said ‘You’re kinda cute’, and gave me a firm squeeze. There was no fumbling, it was quite apparent that her hand knew exactly what it was doing. Then she said to me ‘What do ya want to do, I’m feeling pretty good’, and smiled.”

“I looked back at her friend, she was ignoring us and looked about ready to pass out in the booth. She looked over at her friend too and said ‘Fuck her, she’s been a bitch all night. Are you staying here? Lets go to your room.’”

“I was there Jasper! This was like something you only fantasize about. I waved to the barkeep and told him to put it on my tab as I wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her to the elevator.”

“Once we got up in my room we started to get down to it. A lot of passion and lot of heat. She got up after a while and found her purse and pulled a baggy out of it. I’m thinking ‘drugs’ and shit we don’t need that – not now. Before I know it she squeezes the baggy with both hands, then rips it open over the bed and dumps crumbs all over me and the bed. Before I know even know what the shit is she’s crawling all over me and the bed licking and sucking the crumbs up. All the while just sort of moaning ‘Mmmmm, graham crackers, mmmm I just love graham crackers, mmmm’ over and over again. Well, I’ll tell you, I wasn’t complaining even though that bed was an absolute mess. After a while, quite a while actually, she jumped up after looking at the clock radio on the nightstand and said ‘Oh shit, I gotta go. I gotta get Cindy home before her hubby gets off of night shift.’ She got herself dress and bolted.”
“Best night I’ve had in ages Jasper! Couldn’t believe it. Never even got her name.”

“D-Pity, ya might be thinking that I think that that’s a pile a bullshit. Right? Crazy-ass as it sounds, that graham cracker mess and all, but I had something similar almost happen to me once.”

“Wheats” he says, “you’re full of it. You’re so butt-ugly there isn’t any way that a looker like this woulda ever hit on you.”

I returned with, “Yeah maybe now, cuz I’ve aged and my little lopsided body has shrunk a bit. But there was an evening after a late practice where two sweethearts came in the bar together. Course this was before I ever had met my honey. One chick was hot and the other not. The hotty pulled in between me and whoever the heck was sitting next to me at the bar and grabbed me a bit too. The other girl came over to the bar and pulled her friend away from me before anything more could transpire. Hell, who knows, it could have been crackers in bed for me that night too. Ya lucky son of a bitch.”

With that, I threw an empty at him bouncing off of his shoulder.

The intermission had about ended and the game was going to start back up.

Wayno walked over and picked the can up and said “Ya know Jasper? Ya know? Maybe I believe you. Maybe I don’t. No biggie. Hey! You know we‘ve had enough snow now that those hills by the creek are probably ready for some radical sledding again. You think you and Stinky can come on out for some emergency room action again?”

“Shit, that was such a blast last year. You’ll dig it big time D-Pity. But I think cuz of my brain injury that I’ll have to pass on it this whole winter but I’ll come out and watch you and Stinky hurt yourselves. Ha-ha!”

And we got back to watching hockey on the tube. Sure glad that there’s still half of the regular season left to be played and then there’ll be the terrific second season ehh.

Okee dokee! Jasper here flinging it until next time.

Skate hard ya crazy-ass crunked out puckers.

HOCKEY ECONOMICS

Oh! Gee you guys, I’m just feeling so friggin rich right now. I’ve got moola squirtin outta my ass if you know what I mean. I’ve got so much shit I don’t know what to do with it. Could you use a little? I’ll send ya some. Just send me $9.95 to cover shipping and handling and it’ll be delivered on your door step before ya know it.

Yah, I tried to sell “Fall Foliage” last year on the internet. It was one of my get rich quick schemes. All I had to do was rake it up outta the front yard and package it in 10 gallon trash bags. For $10.00 plus $9.95 to cover shipping and handling you could get your own sweet decorations just in time for Thanksgiving. What a deal, ehh? Including delivery, that’s less than two bucks a gallon. Cheaper than milk, until two weeks ago it was cheaper than gas. What a deal!

I figured that I’d sell out my own yard pretty quick-like and then hire my services to extract these colorful decorations from the yards of folks in town.

Of course it wasn’t just me, I hornswaggled my old pal and inventor extraordinaire Mr. Stinky Duval to assist with this golden opportunity. Stinky and I sat down towards the end of the summer last year and sorta planned the whole thing out. He a had a couple of industrial vacuums out at the junk yard that he had refurbished with bailing wire, duct tape and Shoe-Goo that we could attach to my yard tractor. Combining that with a hybrid snow blower he had converted we figured that we could harvest a hundred thousand worth of tree droppings in no time flat. Just gather it all up, haul it back to my place in our trucks and one of Stinky’s makeshift trailers, and repackage it out by the barn for shipping.

I checked into the costs for fuel, trash bags, colorful and arty labels, shipping cartons, UPS, and of course internet expenses on ebay. All in all we figured that what we charged for gathering in town plus the shipping and handling fee would cover all of this. The ten bucks a pop would be our pay for doing all the work.

Some things that we didn’t think about included the amount of dog doodoo that we had to separate out of our collection, the other useless and less than colorful fodder that got sucked up, and most importantly that maybe nobody was willing to buy our wonderful “Fall Foliage”. Needless to say we ended up with three piles of stuff out by the barn: one small pile of dog crap (that I have since hauled out into the woods and buried – it was really friggin putrid), a medium sized pile of twigs and other useless fodder, and one humongous pile of leaves that is still sitting there and here it is over a year later. The leaves have settled some but it’s still just as big as a hay mound.

So now I’ve got Stinky trying to figure out a way to convert or compress the leaves and fodder into some sort a very solid cylindrical shape so that we could market the stuff as fireplace logs. Who knows, we maybe could be successful some day.

And then this past fall we had whole bunch a folks that wanted to hire us again to clean their yards. Being pretty pissed off about the whole thing we of course turned ‘em all down. Based on the volume of calls though, it makes me think that we hadn’t charged enough anyway to do the jobs last year.

So Christmas 2008 has now come and gone. The economic situation in the world and especially here in the back woods is just about as smelly as that pile of dog crap I buried. Yup! Kinda sucks. So a get rich quick scheme would suit me just fine.

If you aren’t having problems right now, well kudos to you my friend.

How’s this all going to affect hockey? Well, things might change for a while.

I mentioned recently how the triumphant success of Gretzky in the ‘80’s and 90’s had recently created a growth in hockey. Because he ended up playing in Los Angeles it created a lot of growth there. We also have seen the former North Stars moved to Dallas and several other NHL teams have created homes in locations not conducive to natural ice hockey. These being Phoenix, Florida, North Carolina, Atlanta, Nashville, etc.

So your saying “Jasper, what ya mean ‘conducive to natural ice hockey’?“

Well, I’m talking about pond hockey, of course. The cheap kind of hockey!

Pond hockey is the fundamental, grass roots form of the game we love. It might be on a neighborhood pond, a flooded area in a community park, or a gosh-for-durn big old lake. Is pond hockey organized? Yup there are generally respected rules like maybe no lifts over the knees, no slapshots, no checking, take it behind your own net after a goal, etc. But is it ‘overwhelmingly organized’? No way! That’s what makes it so pure.

Probably the most organized version of pond hockey occurs in the various regional tournaments that are held. Bronzy, Woody and some of the other Outlaws are heading over to Eagle River, Wisconsin for the Labatt Blue 2009 Pond Hockey Tournament starting on February 13th. As of this writing, they have over 200 teams already signed up. Four to six man teams, no goalies, and a minimum of three games guaranteed. Now that’s organized. Bring on the brews, ehh! And ya know it’s gonna be colder than poop over there, but that’s the spirit of good pond hockey. Brings out some good color in your cheeks.

But pond hockey can be nothing more than a game of shinny, two on two; to maybe as big as two pickup teams of ten each with even goalies in the net. But often times there are no goalies, just the nets tipped over or a couple of boots set out to shoot between, and no more than a line each side because everyone wants to skate instead of standing around getting frostbit.

The equipment for pond hockey ends up being a little different too. Generally, you’re never in full gear. If ya have a helmet on, then it’s been adjusted so you can where a stocking cap under it. If you’re gonna be out there for a long time then your gloves might be big enough to wear knit gloves inside of but more than likely you’re wearing big old leather mittens with heavy knit wool liners. Shin pads? For sure, but over your best and warmest long johns. And your skates, they might be size or two bigger than you’d use in an indoor rink because again, you’re wearing something thick and warm – on your feet inside of what ya lace up. The skates won’t be as sharp as you’d have them for perfect indoor use. Nope, no point in that.

Yep, when your playing pond hockey, there’s a good chance you might not be wearing as much gear. It’s more economical than club hockey, that’s for sure. Shit throw out those club dues, ehh. I checked around a bit and if you were playing at the Midget or Junior level in Rochester, MN it would cost ya $645 for the season. The same thing down in Southern California costs ya about $950. Good old neighbor hood pond hockey – zip! And ya can’t play that in Tampa Bay or Anaheim can ya?

So it doesn’t cost a bunch to play pond hockey. And if the pond is near enough to a bunch of houses that can shoot flood lights out there, you just might be able to play out there every night, not to speak of all weekend long. Sure, finding an errantly passed puck is a bit of a bitch at night, but it ain’t no piece of cake during the day either depending upon what type of snow you’ve got surrounding your playing surface.

So these kids that want to start playing hockey in the southern regions are up against some financial road blocks. And like I said with the economy hitting the skids its only going to be more cumbersome to their folks. And will all of the southern youth leagues survive? Don’t know. Will the rinks survive? Again I don’t know.

I dug into the economics of suiting up a player for league play. Below I present the cost of gear showing low end to high end for an approximately fourteen year old male player (non-goalie) with new equipment (in the northern regions there are countless places to purchase good used equipment with considerable discounts – this is not readily available to players in the southern belt area of the USA) using a wooden stick (yup – gotta be walking with wood). These are internet prices (USD) and I don’t indicate the store location or brand. Anyway, you’ll be able to see ice hockey isn’t cheap (and again, you’re saying “Well I coulda told ya that Jasper”). So here it is – in your face:

Helmet $30 to $150
Cage $23 to $130
Mouth Guard $3 to $34
Shoulder Pads $30 to $120
Elbow Pads $16 to $75
Gloves $40 to $200
Jersey $12 to $300
Long Johns $8 to $35
Cup/Shorts w/Cup $10 to $50
Pants/Breezers $30 to $135
Shin Pads $25 to $105
Socks $10 to $25
Skates $48 to $650
Gear Bag $20 to $125
Wooden Stick $13 to $85
Roll of Tape $2 to $4
TOTAL $320 to $2226

Wow! That’s not cheap, ehh! And some of this stuff you have to buy every year because the kid outgrows it. Some things last damn near forever – like shoulder pads (of course they end up smelling pretty ripe and that can be used as a defensive tactic – if nothing more than securing bench space in the locker room). And of course I didn’t include an undershirt, suspenders, garter belt, skate socks, or this or that doodad that ya just have to have. If ya belong to club team add the cost of dues; numbers, names and logos on the jersey and maybe the helmet; travel costs and refreshments. It all adds up.

Because of this and the situation with our economy will we see a major reduction in organized club hockey? I think so. And even the great play of Sidney Crosby and his super skilled teammate Evgeni Malkin, or putting all of the Staal brothers on the ice at once will not help this forthcoming skid.

Yep that neighborhood pond sounds like a good deal. Wish I had one in my backyard, uh-huh.

Maybe I should figure out how to market pond hockey in Florida, ehh. Could be my get rich scheme. Or maybe not. Seems as though they’ve got outdoor roller hockey. Is it the same as freezing your nookies off playing pond hockey? Uh-uh, I don’t think so. Don’t want to rag on that perspective of our sport, but it’s not even close.

In closing I say this to all of my crazed out puck buddies – skate hard always, and play pond hockey as often as you can. Use it or lose it.

Jasper here until next time.

DUCT TAPE CHRISTMAS

I didn’t actually write this myself. I did edit it a bit to keep it aligned with my other tales though. I’m told that it is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. It won first prize.

As a joke, my brother Jingles used to hang a pair of pantyhose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. Yeah, right, you guys, he needed a skirt and pantyhose would just get in his way.

What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jingles’ kids' stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty. Needless to say those pantyhose had also gotten a little groaty over the years.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and an old Outlaws jersey and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. No sirreee! I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. (Actually I had to go down to the Cities cuz there shit as shit ain’t any store like that around here.)

If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself. I was there like an hour or so saying things like, 'What does this do?' 'You're fuckin kidding me, ehh?' 'Who would buy that?' ‘No way, you guys actually sell this shit?’

Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.

I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane when I drive down in the Cities sometimes during rush hour. Or maybe we could put her in the nets when we needed a goalie during pickup, ehh.

Finding what I wanted was difficult. 'Love Dolls' come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for 'Anna Nickel, the Gal with the Big Nips.' She was at the bottom of the price scale, or so I was told, but it still cost me an arm and a leg to get out of the damn store – of course I had to get something for myself too. Now hush your mouth you degenerate fools.

To call Anna Nickel a 'doll' took a huge leap of imagination.

So anyway on Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Anna Nickel came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours (well it was late and I had been kicked out of the bar because they closed early on Christmas Eve). Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose (yeah “dangling” like Crosby douching your defensemen) with Anna Nickel's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. Damn near threw up cuz I’ll tell ya that warm milk really stirs up a gut full a beer.

Anyway, I went on home, and giggled and puked for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy, but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more. Damn good thing old pooch didn’t sniff and lift a leg, ehh.

We all agreed that Anna Nickel should remain in her pantyhose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Anna Nickel the moment she walked in the door. 'What the hell’s bell is that?' she asked. (They say that my gutter mouth comes from her side of the family – Norwegian-Irish mix the mongrel bitch is!)

Jingles quickly explained, 'It's a doll.'

'Who would play with some kinda shit thing like that?' Granny snapped. I kept my mouth shut but my gut was about to bust.'Where are her clothes? Is she supposed to be some kind of floozy doll or what?' Granny continued.

'Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran,' Jingles said, to steer her into the dining room.

But Granny was relentless. 'Why doesn't she have any teeth? Crappininee Jasper boy” as she turned towards me, “Barbie dolls don’t even have tits that big'

Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted Granny to flash her floppy ones again this year!

My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, ' Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?'

I told him she was Jingles’ friend.

A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Anna Nickel. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home. Yup, might have to put him off the farm next year.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Anna Nickel made a noise like Pops doing his dooty in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa.

The cat screamed.

I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Didn’t know he knew how to do that shit. Nope!

Jingles fell back over his chair and wet his pants.

Granny threw down her napkin, flashed her sagumsush love sacks at her kneeling husband and stomped out of the room to sit in the car with a half-gone bottle of gin.

It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.

Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Anna Nickel’s collapse. We discovered that she had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh.

Fortunately, thanks to some all purpose and ever ready duct tape that Jingles dug out of his hockey bag, we restored her to perfect health.

I can't wait until next Christmas.

Have a good one gang!

Jasper here just walking with wood again.