REDZONIANS

Everybody get off to a good start so far this year? Shit, you can count on it here that I’ve done damned good-ok so far. Yupper and the year is only six days old, uh huh.

I pretty much figure that there were a few holiday tournaments that some of ya played in. You guys know how I feel about them. They’re right up there with pond hockey and road trips in my book (crap, over half of ‘em are road trips, ehh). Love every minute of them. Ya meet some cool folks and if ya get in a winning bracket you definitely get your share of games played. Hooie, maybe ya even play more then one game a day. Your gear doesn’t get a chance to dry and ends up smelling pretty ripe and all. You juggle your eating and sleeping habits a bit – all for some great days of playing.

I guess it doesn’t really matter throughout the year if it’s a holiday tournament, summer tournament or an invitational – they’re all good times. Ehh?

You win some but mainly you end up losing. It’s a select few that manage to hang together for the final victory and get to take home the trophy.

Hell, I’ve played in tournaments where we played in that final game only to lose. The teams that I’ve played on of course haven’t take losing lightly. On occasion, we’ve taken offense to that final handshake with just a smattering of fisticuffs instead.

Don’t shake your head at that. You know as well as I do that a good donnybrook is as memorable as a win. I’m thinkin that if ya disagree still, it just means that ya ain’t been there and ya ain’t done that.

Over the past few years I’ve done some researchin about why we have had so damn many losses along the way. More often then not there has been one team that just plain ass kicks tail on everyone else. Why? I mean, really, why? You know the usual responses that ya hear are “They’re a stacked team” or “They’re all former pros.” I’m sure you guys have heard the same questionable comments.

Yah, occasionally that may be the case.

But I’ve determined through some highly scientific analysis that that just ain’t true most a the time. If ya got just one particular team that just whoops on everybody, then ya got yourself a team of aliens playing in that tournament! No shit! No shineola! Aliens, dab-nab-it! And I ain’t talking about them illegal aliens that have jumped the fence to enter our borders. Nope. These dude’s are outer-space type aliens.

You’re thinking: that dude Jasper, has got a gear loose.

But I don’t. I’m tellin ya. I got the inside scoop on some classified government files that a friend of my brother’s friend’s friend, etc. managed to illegally extract off the internet. Its some valid honest to goodness shit.

These winning teams always show up and are registered from some far distant land that ya can’t even pronounce and have even less of a chance verifying. Like Skukumchuck, or Khatanga, or Olekminsk or maybe Thibaudeau. Where the hell are these places? How’d these guys get here to this hockey tournament, ehh?

I’m tellin ya that they aren’t from those places. They’re from someplace beyond our solar system. Guaranteed, that if you played in a tournament where one team overwhelmingly kicked everybody else’s ass then you’re also going to have some local reports of UFOs. Check it out. Do your own research, ehh. You’ll see.

According to the classified files, these weenies have been showing up for some years to compete in our sporting events. They like the competition I guess and as of late with all the identity theft issues and the modern security controls in place the tournaments are the only places that they can play. They’ve had a few guys that have played in the NHL over the years but they don’t really excel individually. This wasn’t discovered until Gretzky was in the league. The NSA thought that he might have been an alien that had been implanted in his family as an infant. Their reasoning for the study was that he was such a superstar yet was really a physical weakling (everybody knows that his upper body strength was always the weakest of any player on the teams that he played on). They couldn’t figure it out, but used him for some of the initial testing experiments.

The government has spent many years now developing an accurate test to determine whether someone is an alien or not. It used to be a blood test but most of the time you couldn’t get a decent blood sample unless there was a high stick injury or the results of an errant puck and a player’s face. I mean ya just can’t arbitrarily ask some one for a blood sample, can you? So they developed something else. Something that could be a little more indiscernible in its administration. They came up with a urine analysis.

All government employees and contractors that have security clearances now have to daily take this test to ensure that aliens haven’t infiltrated our secure ranks. The modern device is fairly similar to an EPT (early pregnancy test) and all ya have to do is piss on it. The chemical activation system on test strips, kind a like litmus paper, unfortunately, also indicates if you’re on steroids. If your piss turns the strip a shade of blue then, honey, you’ve been doing the juice. But if a red hue appears then you’re an f’n alien.

Like I said though, this handy little testing device is used within government ranks. When they want to check on the common public then they use a version that looks like a toilet bowl deorderizer. It comes in a couple of different forms: one with a wire hanger that can be hung over the edge of the bowl and one that looks like a hockey puck that is generally just dropped in urinals. Both version, prior to testing, are just a milky white color. But once they’ve been activated they either turn pinkish if an alien pissed on it or bluish if someone doing steroids whizzed on it. If I drizzled all over one of these detectors not a damn thing would happen.

So the next tournament that ya play in you might just be able to tell if you’ve got aliens or guys on steroids playing against ya by just checking in the can. If the NSA guys are on to some alien leads, and one team in the tourney is just creaming everybody else, then chances are you’ll notice the detection devices in use.

Word is, from that friend of a friend dude, that the government guys refer to the filthy rich pro athletes on steroids as “Bluebloods” because of the revealing color on the indicators.

“Redzonians”, apparently is the nickname that they’ve given to the aliens. The only time that I actually heard the term “Redzonian”, I thought he guy talking was referring to a guy on the ice that was playing just balls out with no fear. Guess I was wrong, ehh.

I pretty much believe all this shit and I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you do or not. But I’ve got one thing that I can’t figure out about these “Redzonians”. I mean they’re sure walking with wood, ehh? Kicking our asses from one end of the rink to the other. So here it is: How’d they learn how to play so damn good?

Jasper here walking with wood, but just bloody bewildered.

Road Trip with T-Ball

One thing that I’ve always found pretty tight about sports is all of the nicknames. Who gives a rats-ass where they came from? I’d have to say that the nicknames of most pro athletes were created by the fans or sportscasters. I mean look at a few on my “short list” here:

Boom Boom – Bernie Geoffrian – what’s that tell you?

The Great One – Wayne Gretzky – certainly was – not so sure now.

Red Light – Andre Racicot – ooooh, sunburn city.

The Turk – Derek Sanderson – what the ……..?

The Golden Jet – Bobby Hull – blondie, ehh?

The Golden Brett – Brett Hull – like father, like son – you betcha.

The Pocket Rocket – HenriRichard – couldn’t be Rocket Richard could he?

The Russian Rocket – Pavel Bure – another “rocket” - ok.

Mr. Hockey – Gordy Howe – now that’s sayin sompun, ehh?

Chopper – Al MacGuinnis – should have been Radar with that slapshot.

In some of the other sports ya got Catfish Hunter, the Babe, William The Refrigerator Perry and on and on and on. Ehh – what’s it all mean? Shit I don’t really know.

And then you’ve got nicknames that are some sort of abbreviation or modification of the player’s name. These I can understand a bit better. They sound like they mighta come from the guys on the bench or back in the locker room. Like what’s wrong with Grets for Gretzky? Here’s a few of them that I can think of:

Ziggy – Zigmund Palffy – great with the Kings.

O – Gerry Odrowski – I coached his boys.

The Flower – Guy Lefleur – yo Habs!

Cheesie – Gerry Cheevers – shit I thought he was in a museum.

Rogie – Rogatien Vachon – Habs and Kings goalie, but with a nickname that you’d give a dog.

Ollie the Goalie – Olaf Kolzig – hey in the Northwoods if we call ya Ollie its cuz your last name is Olson, ehh?

Beezer – John Vanbiesbruck – a nickname every want-a-be goalie wanted.

Cujo – Curtis Joseph – sounds like a damn mutt’s name again.

So being from the Northwoods and all maybe I don’t know shit about nicknames, ehh? I mean, I’ve had a few over the years, like Bobby-O (I’ll never figure out where they came up with that) and the Team Bleeder (the season I got stitched up a few too many times). A lot guys just call me by my last name, Wheats – shit it’s what’s on the back of my jersey dabnabit. My brothers generally go by Bronzy and Jingles. Bronzy’s just a jazzed up version of Brian and I guess that even a rock band or media head could come up with that. But Jingles is a definite bench derived name for Jimmy. During his years in juniors, Jingles would get sent out on the ice (pretty….damn…..often…..folks) to take guys out the game, but when he was a midget he really knocked the socks outta some jackoff. When he came back to the bench, I believe it was the back up goalie that said “You really shook the jingles out of that guy”. And it stuck.

So some guys get named by their team mates and some get nicknamed by the fans or media muthas.

Well T-Ball got nicknamed by his buds. I ain’t real sure whether it was his on ice antics or bar room charisma that led to his naming – but it fit. His real name was Tim (I won’t use his last name here ‘case he wants to sue me for some shit or other) so the “T” was for that. And he lived hockey and life like it was just a non-stop speed ball (Not to say that he didn’t have to get rushed to the hospital few times due to extracurricular activities).

He was from Cape Breton Island (yo - Canadian Maritimes if that ain’t Northwoods, ehh?) and had somebody sponsor him so he could work down in the lower forty-eight. He worked as a plumber – hard worker – dirty work. Got his shirt caught in the pipe threading machine once. Spun him around about three times before some jerkoff figured he could stop it by un-plugging the machine. It really busted up T-Ball’s wrist and he missed more then a season. Sucks – not being able to play!

T-Ball wasn’t always an Outlaw. I think when I first met him he played for the Rangers in our league. Really tough guy to play D against. He’s about 6’-2”; I’d guess and maybe 210 – 220 pounds of solid muscle. All speed and good puck control – balls out sort of business and yappin at ya all the time. The league got all changed around and eventually fell apart which was when we joined up with a semi-pro league and T-Ball joined us.

He was good acquisition and I was coachin the boys by then. He was loud but daggone stimulatin if ya know what I mean. The guys needed a charge in their shorts and T-ball could bring it.

He could be damn down to earth though too. If he’d a been my son he would a made me proud. Give ya an example here. I had season seats to the Kings back then and they made the Stanley Cup finals against Montreal that year. T-Ball went to one of the games with me at Los Angeles’ Fabulous Forum (before Staples Center). I forget which game it was and I forget the score and the whole shebang except for this (Could it have been the beer?):

T-Ball jumps up out of his seat and says he’s got to get out to the lobby. I figure he’s got to take a leak cuz we’d really been chuggin em. But it was game on and you gotta hold it during play. Didn’t make any sense to me. I think the Kings scored while he was gone cuz it got really, I mean really loud. After a bit T-Ball comes running back up the stairs taking two or so at a time. He was beamin if ya know what I mean – thought maybe he’d just done a toot or two. But he yells at me “I just called my Dad back in Montreal on one of the pay phones!”. Well I thought his folks were back on CBI but he says, no his dad’s on a job in Montreal. He says “Wheats, I said to my dad to listen to this, I’m at the Forum for the Stanley Cup Finals. Then I took the phone away from my ear and held it out so he could hear the crowd. Shit, I get back on the phone with him and he say’s back to me “Yeah, wrong Forum, ehh?” Ain’t that something – smartass Pop.”

Yeah, he was ok.

On road trips he ruled.

Road trips are good hockey. Ya win some and ya lose some, but if ya got enough guys to ice a team its hockey at its best. Ya got rubber legs from the travel and ya got butterflies to counter that by pumpin ya full of adrenalin.

Secondly, road trips are partying. Folks, I’m telling ya, there ain’t no better partying then that of road trips. First thing that you do is designate whose hotel room gets the beer. That done then ya fill their tub with beers and ice. This shit is for casual thirst quenchin, gut bustin after last call and breakfast of course. Serious drinkin will be done at the bar after the game.

So the third thing is to scope out the neighborhood for a decent bar or two. You couldn’t always trust the local team’s recommendations and sometimes game results dictated that you really didn’t need to win in the bar too (though damn if we couldn’t if we had too).

On this particular road trip that I’m thinking of we were all set up at the hotel and had gone on to the rink to suit up. T-Ball dumps his gear out on the floor in front of himself. Kicks it around a bit and grabs a t-shirt and sniffs it then throws it in the trash. Grabs another one, sniffs it and throws it in the face of one our wingers. Kicks his gear some more and reaches out and grabs another t-shirt. He sniffs this one too and says “Aw, fuck they all smell like shit – what’s the dif? Probably’ll give me a little maneuvering room out there.” I’m telling ya that his gear just reeked.

Game on. Game over. Shower up and time to partaaaaaaaaaa!

T-Ball comes up to me before we head to the bar and says he’s got to run back to the hotel cuz he left his wallet there. Wanted to know if I could give him a ride. I thought about it for a sec – thinkin – he’s the chick magnet, I’ll look good walkin into the bar with him. So I tell him, “Yeah, lets scoot.”

We get back to his room and he snags his wallet off the top of the chest of drawers. He gives it a quick peek for cash and says to me “Wheats, ya need some protection? Grab a couple of those.” I look over at the chest and see that he’s got like thirty condoms of maybe five different varieties spread out on top. Holy shit, is he ready for the game later tonight, or what?

Good hockey! Good partying! Good night!

That was T-ball. That was road trips. That was walking with wood.

Balls Out

First of all, if you’re a lady and find this blog entry offensive or sexist, then I would like to apologize for your sensitivity. I cannot apologize for my opinions about the differences in our sexes. Man and woman, we are each a distinct sex as the way God intended it. And I am always thankful for the distinction and the joy that the differences make. For I am heterosexual as opposed to what any of the other tendencies might be being called these days. (Brings back memories of the Dodge Caliber commercial “Silly Little Fairy”. The flying redhead in the green fairy costume is HOT! But the limp wristed dog walker is schnot.)

Being a fictional character, I, Jasper Wheats, firmly believe that the North Woods makes a man a man. Why shit, I go to play hockey and I walk with wood. What more can I say?

Yo! Dudes and dudettes I can say a lot.

This morning as I read through my local little paper (Fairfield’s Daily Republic) I come across a sports article from one of the great North Woods states, Maine. Now the local rag doesn’t usually have much ink being spent on hockey and today was no exception. The article was in reference to one of the other lesser winter sports called basketball. It’s not really a winter sport but the media giants that rule TV decided that they needed to put a sport on the screen between football season and baseball season where the viewing audience could see the instrument used for scoring. Fucking blind son-of-a -bitches. You know, if you play our sport and the camera angle is from high enough up to see what’s really going on, then you don’t need to see the puck to know where it is. ‘Nof said about that shit ESPN and your dis’n of our great sport. Come on you other networks – pick up the slack (thank you Versus and your East Coast coverage of games that are over before I get home from work).

Basketball and manhood – that’s what the article was about. Seems as though during half-time of a basketball game for Leavitt Area High School the coach asked his players to do something that later got him fired. He apparently asked them to check out their package with the insinuation that the Big Boys were going to win the game that night. The strategy worked because they went on to win the game. Probably the unfortunate part of this motivational move was that he asked the guys to reach into their shorts to check out the tools. Sad – that doesn’t sound so bad when you look at gangsta wanna-be’s grabbing their units as their walking down the middle of a public street - or are they just trying to keep their pants from falling off. Crap even highly paid popular music types grab their sexy parts when performing now days.

Did this coach deserve to be fired for this? SHIT NO!

Damn it – it was in the locker room. There’s some sanctity here. It’s like lawyer/client privilege what goes on in the locker room between a coach and his players. Hell it doesn’t even have to be locker room chatter – bench behavior should be protected too. You know the article said that one player didn’t respond to the coach’s spirit. Pity that poor guy later in life when he looks back at his insubordination. CHOKE! The little pecker-head was probably ashamed of his size. Dude – Size Don’t Matter – its all how you use it.

I don’t know how the school’s administration got wind of this or who filed the initial complaint. But I’m going to guess that it was some relocated city scum from San Francisco or other priss ass – kiss ass community. Down East’rs just aren’t brought up that way to raise an issue over manhood and winning.

This same sort of parental/administration interference was revealed to me many years ago when I was coaching youth hockey. I was a Bantam AA coach and was assisting with the Midget A team also. Sam was the coach of the Midget A team and had a fine playing and coaching reputation. He even ran an equipment repair business repalming gloves, fixing goalie gear and adding extra stitching to stiffen-up skate boots. Good guy. Always loud and really made the guys skate.

Well we had one smart ass on the team and during the course of a game, Sam had to grab a near-by player’s stick and use it to smack the smart ass on his helmet to get his attention. No anger just motivational nudging. The kid’s dad took offence to the Sam’s behavior and within the week I was coaching two teams.

I coached most of those guys the next season on the Midget A team again. I even had a couple of young ladies on the team that year. I’ll tell you – you’ve never seen such a tight team as the time some opposing goon tried to take out one of those ladies. But I had one young man that got into trouble with the law because of his messed up folks. He truly loved the game. We had a monthly rotating practice schedule that had us out at 6:00 AM Sunday mornings for a while. One of my goalies worked for the rink and could get us in (read: knew how to break in) and turn lights on if the morning staff didn’t show up. But this other kid that got in trouble had parents that wanted him to play (so he wouldn’t be in their way) but regularly wouldn’t get him to the rink. These early Sundays were the worst and he couldn’t get a hold of anyone to give him a ride one morning. So he took his parent’s car. Apparently he had done this before and this time the parents, upon waking, called the cops. Shit sometimes happens when you really pursue what you want.

Dedication, motivation – that’s what I’m talking about. Coaches should be immune from punishment for their behavior – no matter what it is if the team or the player becomes inspired enough to improve – to play at their best – and to win.

Years after coaching youth hockey some of those guys later played on the same senior team (the Orange County Outlaws) with me. At some point in time I quit playing a checking game and moved on to a more relaxed yet still enjoyable version. The Outlaws started drifting apart because a lot of the original players had done like me and moved to non-checking. Both of my younger brothers, Jingles and Bronzie, were still playing so I decided to run the team and renting the ice for practice, etc.

We joined the West Coast Hockey League (WCHL) which was a shared gate semi-pro organization (what a laugh that was – only Vegas drew any substantial crowd). We were pretty good though and held our own. After a couple of years we were asked to join another league that had its hub draw at Anchorage – it later became the league that the Long Beach Ice Dogs joined and we now see that they’re in the ECHL. Unfortunately we didn’t move on but that’s another story yet to be told.

We were in the semi-finals playing back-to-back games in Fresno against the Aces. Our first game which we had won had been on Saturday night. The usual partying and heavy drinking followed for a late night with an early Sunday morning game the next day. The guys showed up hung over - I mean badly hung over and were playing worse then flat. I don’t know how bad we were losing but it didn’t help my confidence from the get-go when our starting goalie showed me that he couldn’t hold his hands steady. I’m not sure which intermission it was when we were back in the locker room when I let the guys have it. Jamie Todd, our captain, happened to be video taping it so I got to see myself in action later. The video tape could have been used at one of those boot camp leadership seminars. I held nothing back and let the guys know that regardless of their hangovers and shit ass playing I hadn’t driven all the way up to fucking Fresno to watch them lose a game. You know there’s a phrase “Balls to the Wall” that’s used as similar to “Pedal to the Metal”. It makes “Skate Hard” sound so trivial. Well all of that, as my memory works, wasn’t enough. For at least ten of those fifteen minutes I just screamed at them. There were no niceties, like, “You made a good check at the blue line” or “Sweet breakout pass”. No “Nice shot”, “Good goal”, or “Great save”. I just whipped them like the delinquents they were.

It was my success. It was their success - as we pulled that one out by a winning our semi-final round.

I’m not sure if I used this one or not because I don’t have a copy of the video to review right now, but it was always one of my favorites. “Balls out!”

Think about that.

What does “Balls out!” mean?

I’ll explain to you like I had to explain to the team.

When you play highly competitive hockey you have to play fearless. What can cause fear? Fear of the dark? Nah. Fear of losing face? Yeah, sometimes. Fear of losing? Sure, but that’s just a lack of confidence. Fear of pain? Usually not.

Fear is a weakness when you’re on the ice. I’ve had that fear and I know that it’s a weakness. I’ve taken a slap shot in the balls while making a backwards sliding block. Those little jewels got squished against the inside of my cup with so much pain that I had to crawl to the bench from the far side boards. Pain, embarrassment, weakness. What is weakness? Fear.

If you have a weakness you’ve got to overcome in. A man’s balls are his weakness in more ways then one. Boys, if you’re going to let your balls hinder your play then leave them at home in jar.

That’s what “Balls out!” means.

If I yell to the guys to skate balls out is it so much different then this Maine basketball coach asking his guys to measure up? Its motivation, its inspiration – it’s a request for dedication to your sport, your team, and yourself to be the best that you can be. It damn sure isn’t something to get fired over.

Jasper Wheats here. Skate hard boys cuz walking with wood feels so good.