It’s been a heck of a busy week. Work and all just kickin my ass. I hadn’t had a planned day off in over a year until I finally took a vacation day Friday, giving me a four day weekend.
Dabnabit if I didn’t deserve it. ‘Specially now as it’s coming to a close here on Monday night.
Ehh? You guys agree? Right?
OK, so it’s sort of like the end of the summer too. Just means hockey season is around the corner then. That’ll be some good shit to get that going again.
The honey and me went for pizza and beer Friday night. Went to an end of the summer country music concert in the park on Sunday and just kicked it easy today and Saturday. I tell ya, me and the honey danced our little drunken asses off this summer with those concerts in the park with some damn fine music, friends and family. Love our little cultural community if ya know what I mean.
Now, Thursday night if I didn’t have just one surprising evening.
I told the honey that I was gonna stop into Culla’s to watch the end of the game on my way home. Last of the pre-season, and the Vikings let the Cowboys take it away 10 to 16. Shit! Well they’ve got all season to make amends, ehh.
Culla’s ain’t such a bad little hole in the wall. I been going there since the ‘70’s – back when you could get a pitcher of draft for sixty cents and a pickled egg for a dime. Damn if prices haven’t changed over the years – sheeeet! To say the least. The bar had to move twice since back then due to municipal construction. But the beer’s just as damn good – same with the pickled eggs and all the new shit you can get there now.
Culla passed away a long time ago now and her grandson runs the place. He’s put in some big sports screens in three of the corners and one behind the bar – so there ain’t a bad seat in the place.
I’m basically drinking by myself tonight. I mean, I know most of the old hacks like myself in the place but usually don’t know any of the young college twerps. Their girls are sweet to look at but if the young-ons ain’t pucksters, then they got their fool heads right up their asses. (Sorry about that guys – but that’s my after-work-attitude coming through – until at least I’m juiced up or laid.)
So, I’ve got a couple a pitchers in me, several of them green eggs, peanuts, chips, popcorn, pretzels, and greasy little sausage links on toothpicks – damn If I’m not going to be foul tomorrow I’m thinkin calling this dinner. But I’ve got the vacation day, so what the hell.
Culla’s starts getting pretty filled up. I got a seat at the bar and folks are standing behind jabbering away and hooting and hollering at the appropriate times as the game goes along. Except for one fucking ass-hole who’s just saying the most inappropriate things inside of a frigging Viking’s bar. And he ain’t being none to subtle with it either. At one point when it sounds like it gets really rank I turn around and glance at the guy. He’s just some old codger like me, really tan though and wearing some sort of south-seas getup like Jimmy Buffet or something. One of the college kids is starting to give him back some “What the fuck?!?!” shit and I’m thinking here we go another damn bargument, why don’t you guys take it to the street.
Before it escalates into shoving and shit the Jimmy Buffet dude yells out over the noise of whole damn bar, “Hey Wheats, ain’t that a damn pity the way the Vikes are playing?”
Well, like I said most the old folks know me in this bar and I guess I’ve got a reputation with the young-ons too, cuz the place got real quiet. Like you could hear the TV it was so hushed.
Now what the devil? This surfer looking dude knows who I am and seems sure as shit to be calling me out. So I spin my stool around real slow like and plant my feet wide (though lopsided) getting ready to rumble. “What’s that you say ass-hole?”
“I said, “Ain’t that a damn pity….” he growled at a few decibels above a whisper as the crowd splits an opening between us.
He had one of those shit eatin grins on his face like Jingles gets when it’s time to drop the gloves. I’m guessing its one of Tidwilly’s friends from the joint – so I’m just about ready to give it a go when he says again “Damn pity!”
Wait a bloody second …… I’m thinkin again. The gears are spinning upstairs but the beer’s impeding engagement. Damn pity, damn pity, ummmm, damn pity???? What the …? Come on Jasper – I’m starting to sweat as I stand up off the barstool. What’s going on? My memory banks have peeled into overdrive. Damn pity, damn pity …. D-Pity.
Oh for goodness sake.
I shut my bad eye to get a better look at this dude and I say “Wayno Studholm?”
And he responds “Abso-friggin-lutely! At your service, Jasper Wheats, you old coon’s ass!”
We each took a step towards each and then both reached for an embrace like long lost friends will do and the bar crowd got lively again.
Dang, I hadn’t seen him twenty or thirty years. He had gone to school with me, played hockey with me and then just disappeared a year so after high school. His parents had named him Wayno Edward Studholm, but back when we were playing Midgets some wise ass on the team started calling him “Damn Pity’s Boy” and eventually just abbreviated it to “D-Pity”. And it stuck.
Wayno’s dad had been in a bad accident before then and had had some minor (I think it was minor anyway) brain damage. When he’d come watch Wayno play (oh shit and Wayno played sooooo bad) he’d always be yelling after a bad play or lots and lots of times after we’d lose a game, “Ain’t that a damn pity?”
So we back off from our man-hug and the guy in the seat next to me points at his stool and moves on.
So me and D-Pity sit down to the bar and the barmaid, Heidi, brings us a fresh pitcher on the house. I’m sure Culla’s smiling down from heaven. You know, when we were eighteen, after high school, you could legally drink around here and me and D-Pity tipped our share of brewskies while she was still pulling drafts.
Well, you can’t really get completely caught up on twenty to thirty years of living while you’re trying to get your Vikings to win a game. But D-Pity gave me his high points while I shared some of mine.
His dad had been hurt much more seriously than any of us ever knew. His lawyers had secured one hell of a hefty sum which Wayno inherited after his dad passed away about two years after we got out of high school. He’d gone off to college in the east somewhere and got a PhD in some zoological subject that nobody’s ever heard of (I’m sure of this – no way, no how, nobody’s ever …) that led him to a stint in the South Pacific and making his home for a while in Australia. But now he’s back and looking for a place to hang his hat for a long time in the back woods.
The shit is though, he asked me if I was still skatin. Said he’d been going to hockey camps for a few years now and could pretty much hold his own on the ice as opposed to his lack of skills back when we were kids.
Damn, we’ll see. D-Pity might just be walking with wood, ehh?
I’m sure there’s a story or two to pull out of his ass for you folks that read this garbled shit of mine.
Until, next time, Jasper here just tellin ya to skate hard ya roudy puckheads!
Showing posts with label back woods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label back woods. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Penalty Time-Keeper
Ya, the days are gone by where bench clearing brawls were the norm. The game of hockey has been revised considerably from the time where the sticks were up and elbows were flying. Hell, you can’t even tap a guy with your stick anymore without getting two minutes – I think that they’re calling that “hooking”.
Hell, I’ll show you “hooking” any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays.
Hockey has always been a rough sport. Lots of bruises, stitches, knocked out teeth, an occasional broken bone or dislocated joint is standard fare from a season on the ice. I’ve certainly had my fair share of injuries from playing the greatest game in the world. Lets see, this has included stitches from pucks and sticks to the face (had my lower lip completely split in half and took a stick blade to my right eyeball to name a few), broken wrist, broken humerus (that’s the upper arm bone ya noggin heads) from a cross check, torn knee cartilage, separated shoulder, and complete right hip joint replacement (my demise).
And I have played some dirty hockey too. The sin bin has been my refuge upon occasion. It is the bane of many a determined player too. You play your ass off and you still get beat in your own end; so you trip the guy to stop him from going in one on your goalie.
Was it worth it?
Ohhhhh ….. you’re damn tootin it was Olie!
So you’re doomed to the box for two minutes again. Your teammates give ya shit later for letting the guy beat ya. Yeah ya hear them say “Wheats, ya get beat on the right side every time. Ya gotta move em to your left before they cross the blue line you dumb-ass!”
What’s worse the box and maybe a missed shift or the razzing?
Fuck the razzing. It’s that missed time on the ice, baby.
Oh yeah and how about the intensity of getting a little rowdy and taking coincidentals only to jump back onto the ice and take up where the two of ya left off a couple of minutes ago? The fans love that shit, ehh?
I coach a bit ya know. I teach the kids to go in high, keeping their elbows up. Sure don’t want them skating like a damn Texas armadillo with their noses down to the ground now do ya? Keep your head up, go in hard and come out with the puck.
The worst of all penalties, though is too many men on the ice. Man, that is just a mistake to get that kinda shit-ass call. Whoever is running the bench should have to eat two donuts or something to serve that fool penalty.
Another one of my gripes is that goalies don’t serve penalties. Now to me, that is a real crock of shit. I think it would really open the game up. Ehh?
Have ya ever wondered about the guy that’s taking care of the box? In the NHL, he’s an official and has to keep track of the time and other sorts of pricy shit (that’s why ticket prices are so high – it ain’t the players’ salaries). In youth hockey this person is usually one of the parents that volunteers or is coerced into the position by the domineering team mother. In the infinite number of beer leagues out there it’s usually just an interested fan that just wants to help out – maybe loves the game but can’t play anymore – maybe never played but is the biggest wanna-be in the world. Kudos to these folks cuz they walk with wood too.
I’ve got a story to tell about the penalty box official at the tournament I played in last week. Got to play in the Snoopy games out in Santa Rosa, California. Wild Bill knew some guys down in Marshall, Minnesota that needed a couple of players to fill the roster for the over 45 team they were putting in the tournament. We decided that it’d make a fun little vacation, so we coughed up the bucks each and told the guys that we’d hook up with them out west. Wild Bill was coming down from the northwest with his wife and daughter and I’d be heading out of the back woods with my honey. All to play a minimum of three games with the Marshall Meat-Packers.
The honey and I flew into Sacramento, rented a car and drove over to Santa Rosa via Napa and Sonoma Valleys so that she could do some mighty fine (and awfully damned expensive) wine tasting. You guys know that I don’t drink the stuff (brewskies brothers – pour me another!) but if it makes her happy it makes me happy.
The Meat-Packers had made arrangements for all of us to stay at the same hotel which gave us a fair discount over normal rates – and I’ll tell you that’s awfully danged important when your staying in a hotel for over a week. Good group of folks, those Meat-Packers, though they were a little disturbed that Grain Belt wasn’t on tap at the hotel pub and that they couldn’t find it in the liquor stores either. We had a team meeting the first night to get introduced to all and lay down some strategies and shit. As I figured most didn’t play on the same team but had gathered for the tournament from a beer league in southern Minnesota. I brought a couple of cases of Moosehead to the meeting to appease their Grain Belt withdrawal. I had found it at a Bevmo liquor store that we had driven past and turned back to as we had driven over from Sacramento (sheeeet – I was looking-out for myself cuz the honey – I just knew – was gonna be really wined up). The meeting went well and it seemed like the dude, Mike, that was running the team, was afraid that we all would spend too much time in the penalty box. Warned us to play “nice” and kept referring to all of us as “ya bunch of brawlers”. The first time he used the phrase I glanced over at Wild Bill and gave him the thumbs up. Our kinda guys. Could be this whole team was composed of close relatives of the Hanson brothers, ehh?
Wild Bill and I told them that we’d prefer to play defense mainly. Bill had been a forward from my days of playing with him back a generation or so ago but had now maybe slowed down to my pace or something. I really think that he wanted to skate as my partner – which was really cool. Our first game was going to be Sunday evening and Mike said that we’d be wearing numbers 2 and 3, he’d bring the jerseys and socks.
I don’t know, but we really didn’t click in that first game. It’s about ten or twelve minutes left in the third and were down 6 to 2. Wild Bill’s playing left and I’ve got right de. The opposing team’s center whipped the puck back into my corner from the opposite side outside the blueline as their left week jammed in skating like a Junior A allstar. I turned and skated like hell to try to cut it off behind the net. Wild Bill was tracking their rightwing as he came in hard too. I realized that I couldn’t make the cutoff and turned to the slot as their center started to pick a perch high. Wild Bill must have had the same thoughts as me as we both punched to the high slot to pick this guy – both of us clobbering him full blast in an ass sandwich like the old days (got to do something to rile the old team – cuz right then we sure for shit hadn’t been skatin with wood). Oh and don’t you know it - the fuckin whistle blows.
Both of us get called for roughing ………….
Running time: three minutes each. It’s the shit!
The gate keeper at the box opens the door and Bill goes in first; swearing up a storm. I jump in and sit down with my stick out in front of me and start to take my gloves of when the dude shuts the gate and turns to us, (damn if he doesn’t look just like Ernie Rucks from the old days of skating Sunday pickup – in retirement, Ernie was an NHL goal judge down in LA and came from the Canadian north woods) oh yeah lost my train of thought there, ok so he turns to us and says “You boys ought to play nice now”, taps the right side of his nose two times with his index finger and ………….
Holy shit its cold! I look over at Bill and he’s looking back at me. What the fuck????
We aren’t in Santa Rosa anymore. Were outside and it feels like it’s about 50 below. Were standing next to the gate at a crude outdoor rink with some sort of antiquated equipment on. Our uniforms are harsh wool sweaters and socks with about twenty stripes on them. My gloves have got hardly no padding or length to them and on the jersey it says “St. Paul Hockey Club”. And my skates are pretty wobbly feeling – all leather it looks like.
In and instant, I knew it and I know Bill knew it too – that we had been somehow transported back in time. To another era, to another game. Utterly amazing. But we had a game to play and we knew that we both had to jump on the ice.
And off we went, skating our asses off playing with sticks that looked like they had been made from a single piece of wood. The game was seven on seven with a rover. Somehow we knew. It all came together in an instant. Our rover was Francis “Moose” Goheen, probably the second best if not best American hockey player of the time, next to or equal alongside of Hobie Baker. What a deal. This guy’s was from White Bear Lake, Minnesota – Herb Brooks’ hero when he was growing up. Silver medalist from the 1920 Olympics. This dude was good! And he walked with wood from one end of the ice to other. Untouchable.
I figure its got to be somewhere around 1925 based on the way the folks were dressed that were watching and the looks of cars that we could see over at the street.
Wild Bill skates across my lane and yells at me as he passes, “Jasper do you see who’s skating rover for Boston over there?”
Bewildered I look around and astonishingly realize that the visitors’ rover was none other than Bobby Orr. Damn if this ain’t something. He musta been somehow transported here from the late ‘60’s or ‘70’s. And oh, could he skate. He was made for the position of rover!
The scoreboard, being manned by a guy with a handlebar mustache, fur coat and the weirdest hat that I’d ever seen, said that we were tied at 4 to 4.
Game on kids!
The puck skittered up the boards on the rough ice to Wild Bill and he took off on a meandering journey into the opposing end. Shit he was skating damn near as good as young Moose Goheen. He got in about 40 feet out – and I could tell – he tried to take a slap shot. No dice – it couldn’t happen – the slap shot wouldn’t be invented for another forty years or so. Bill fell flat on his chest like he’d been close-lined.
Orr picked up the puck and took it behind his net to apparently regroup and eye the up-ice layout and off he went. Smoothly left, smoothly right … Goheen swooped in to cut him off and Orr just went horizontal in flight mode or something with the puck almost slipping through Moose’s skates. He kicks it forward and heads after it. Orr, still horizontal, spins in midair and takes off superman style after Goheen, sweeps in with outstretched downward angled stick and takes it off Goheen only to come back down to ice behind his own net again smooth as silk.
Orr eyes up ice again and takes off through the center. I pick him up as he cuts to the boards to my right. Again the smart bastard goes airborne to my left and picks up the puck off the boards on the other side of me. WTF! I’m all over myself and Orr’s on net. Oops, did he lose the puck on the rough ice or is it a deke. Wham – bam – thank you mamm– if he didn’t stuff it in the puck from between his own legs and he’s off flying again.
The fans start booing as Orr keeps flying around celebrating his goal but the game is different. No face off after goals – just pull the puck out and take it behind the net while everyone gets on side and take off skating again. Mr. Moose Goheen picks up the puck while Orr is still celebrating. He seems pumped, the crowd’s booing now sounds excited rather than angry. A teammate skates by and yells “Watch him now. His family calls him “Boo” and that really riles his ass!”
He weaves, he dekes, elbows out, he stiff arms one guy like a running back and goes in on net like a bull in a matador’s outfit. He’s putting a little drift to the left and I can tell he’s got it set to pull the goalie with him with quick plans to go upstairs in the right corner.
Its in my mind – I know it …. And poof – Wild Bill and I are back in the box in Santa Rosa. Ghosts of Charles Schulz or what. Damn! I look over to Wild Bill. “You go on first.” He’s white as a ghost and as the penalty box time keeper opens the gate he steps on the ice and falls flat on his face. Not realizing what happened I stumble over him as I hit the ice. Both of us out there like a big pile of shit.
Bill twists his bloodied up face back towards me and asks “Wheats, what the fuck just happened?”
“Sheeeesh! I don’t know, but we better get back in the game, ehh.”
The center that we had crunched getting our penalties stopped in front of us and tapped us each on our helmets with his stick and laughed as he said “You turkeys, ya might as well head back to Marshall and get back to that business of packing meat.”
Ya know you guys – some days ya walk with wood and some days you sure for shit don’t.
Jasper here. Skate hard! Stay out of the sin-bin ….. or not.
Hell, I’ll show you “hooking” any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays.
Hockey has always been a rough sport. Lots of bruises, stitches, knocked out teeth, an occasional broken bone or dislocated joint is standard fare from a season on the ice. I’ve certainly had my fair share of injuries from playing the greatest game in the world. Lets see, this has included stitches from pucks and sticks to the face (had my lower lip completely split in half and took a stick blade to my right eyeball to name a few), broken wrist, broken humerus (that’s the upper arm bone ya noggin heads) from a cross check, torn knee cartilage, separated shoulder, and complete right hip joint replacement (my demise).
And I have played some dirty hockey too. The sin bin has been my refuge upon occasion. It is the bane of many a determined player too. You play your ass off and you still get beat in your own end; so you trip the guy to stop him from going in one on your goalie.
Was it worth it?
Ohhhhh ….. you’re damn tootin it was Olie!
So you’re doomed to the box for two minutes again. Your teammates give ya shit later for letting the guy beat ya. Yeah ya hear them say “Wheats, ya get beat on the right side every time. Ya gotta move em to your left before they cross the blue line you dumb-ass!”
What’s worse the box and maybe a missed shift or the razzing?
Fuck the razzing. It’s that missed time on the ice, baby.
Oh yeah and how about the intensity of getting a little rowdy and taking coincidentals only to jump back onto the ice and take up where the two of ya left off a couple of minutes ago? The fans love that shit, ehh?
I coach a bit ya know. I teach the kids to go in high, keeping their elbows up. Sure don’t want them skating like a damn Texas armadillo with their noses down to the ground now do ya? Keep your head up, go in hard and come out with the puck.
The worst of all penalties, though is too many men on the ice. Man, that is just a mistake to get that kinda shit-ass call. Whoever is running the bench should have to eat two donuts or something to serve that fool penalty.
Another one of my gripes is that goalies don’t serve penalties. Now to me, that is a real crock of shit. I think it would really open the game up. Ehh?
Have ya ever wondered about the guy that’s taking care of the box? In the NHL, he’s an official and has to keep track of the time and other sorts of pricy shit (that’s why ticket prices are so high – it ain’t the players’ salaries). In youth hockey this person is usually one of the parents that volunteers or is coerced into the position by the domineering team mother. In the infinite number of beer leagues out there it’s usually just an interested fan that just wants to help out – maybe loves the game but can’t play anymore – maybe never played but is the biggest wanna-be in the world. Kudos to these folks cuz they walk with wood too.
I’ve got a story to tell about the penalty box official at the tournament I played in last week. Got to play in the Snoopy games out in Santa Rosa, California. Wild Bill knew some guys down in Marshall, Minnesota that needed a couple of players to fill the roster for the over 45 team they were putting in the tournament. We decided that it’d make a fun little vacation, so we coughed up the bucks each and told the guys that we’d hook up with them out west. Wild Bill was coming down from the northwest with his wife and daughter and I’d be heading out of the back woods with my honey. All to play a minimum of three games with the Marshall Meat-Packers.
The honey and I flew into Sacramento, rented a car and drove over to Santa Rosa via Napa and Sonoma Valleys so that she could do some mighty fine (and awfully damned expensive) wine tasting. You guys know that I don’t drink the stuff (brewskies brothers – pour me another!) but if it makes her happy it makes me happy.
The Meat-Packers had made arrangements for all of us to stay at the same hotel which gave us a fair discount over normal rates – and I’ll tell you that’s awfully danged important when your staying in a hotel for over a week. Good group of folks, those Meat-Packers, though they were a little disturbed that Grain Belt wasn’t on tap at the hotel pub and that they couldn’t find it in the liquor stores either. We had a team meeting the first night to get introduced to all and lay down some strategies and shit. As I figured most didn’t play on the same team but had gathered for the tournament from a beer league in southern Minnesota. I brought a couple of cases of Moosehead to the meeting to appease their Grain Belt withdrawal. I had found it at a Bevmo liquor store that we had driven past and turned back to as we had driven over from Sacramento (sheeeet – I was looking-out for myself cuz the honey – I just knew – was gonna be really wined up). The meeting went well and it seemed like the dude, Mike, that was running the team, was afraid that we all would spend too much time in the penalty box. Warned us to play “nice” and kept referring to all of us as “ya bunch of brawlers”. The first time he used the phrase I glanced over at Wild Bill and gave him the thumbs up. Our kinda guys. Could be this whole team was composed of close relatives of the Hanson brothers, ehh?
Wild Bill and I told them that we’d prefer to play defense mainly. Bill had been a forward from my days of playing with him back a generation or so ago but had now maybe slowed down to my pace or something. I really think that he wanted to skate as my partner – which was really cool. Our first game was going to be Sunday evening and Mike said that we’d be wearing numbers 2 and 3, he’d bring the jerseys and socks.
I don’t know, but we really didn’t click in that first game. It’s about ten or twelve minutes left in the third and were down 6 to 2. Wild Bill’s playing left and I’ve got right de. The opposing team’s center whipped the puck back into my corner from the opposite side outside the blueline as their left week jammed in skating like a Junior A allstar. I turned and skated like hell to try to cut it off behind the net. Wild Bill was tracking their rightwing as he came in hard too. I realized that I couldn’t make the cutoff and turned to the slot as their center started to pick a perch high. Wild Bill must have had the same thoughts as me as we both punched to the high slot to pick this guy – both of us clobbering him full blast in an ass sandwich like the old days (got to do something to rile the old team – cuz right then we sure for shit hadn’t been skatin with wood). Oh and don’t you know it - the fuckin whistle blows.
Both of us get called for roughing ………….
Running time: three minutes each. It’s the shit!
The gate keeper at the box opens the door and Bill goes in first; swearing up a storm. I jump in and sit down with my stick out in front of me and start to take my gloves of when the dude shuts the gate and turns to us, (damn if he doesn’t look just like Ernie Rucks from the old days of skating Sunday pickup – in retirement, Ernie was an NHL goal judge down in LA and came from the Canadian north woods) oh yeah lost my train of thought there, ok so he turns to us and says “You boys ought to play nice now”, taps the right side of his nose two times with his index finger and ………….
Holy shit its cold! I look over at Bill and he’s looking back at me. What the fuck????
We aren’t in Santa Rosa anymore. Were outside and it feels like it’s about 50 below. Were standing next to the gate at a crude outdoor rink with some sort of antiquated equipment on. Our uniforms are harsh wool sweaters and socks with about twenty stripes on them. My gloves have got hardly no padding or length to them and on the jersey it says “St. Paul Hockey Club”. And my skates are pretty wobbly feeling – all leather it looks like.
In and instant, I knew it and I know Bill knew it too – that we had been somehow transported back in time. To another era, to another game. Utterly amazing. But we had a game to play and we knew that we both had to jump on the ice.
And off we went, skating our asses off playing with sticks that looked like they had been made from a single piece of wood. The game was seven on seven with a rover. Somehow we knew. It all came together in an instant. Our rover was Francis “Moose” Goheen, probably the second best if not best American hockey player of the time, next to or equal alongside of Hobie Baker. What a deal. This guy’s was from White Bear Lake, Minnesota – Herb Brooks’ hero when he was growing up. Silver medalist from the 1920 Olympics. This dude was good! And he walked with wood from one end of the ice to other. Untouchable.
I figure its got to be somewhere around 1925 based on the way the folks were dressed that were watching and the looks of cars that we could see over at the street.
Wild Bill skates across my lane and yells at me as he passes, “Jasper do you see who’s skating rover for Boston over there?”
Bewildered I look around and astonishingly realize that the visitors’ rover was none other than Bobby Orr. Damn if this ain’t something. He musta been somehow transported here from the late ‘60’s or ‘70’s. And oh, could he skate. He was made for the position of rover!
The scoreboard, being manned by a guy with a handlebar mustache, fur coat and the weirdest hat that I’d ever seen, said that we were tied at 4 to 4.
Game on kids!
The puck skittered up the boards on the rough ice to Wild Bill and he took off on a meandering journey into the opposing end. Shit he was skating damn near as good as young Moose Goheen. He got in about 40 feet out – and I could tell – he tried to take a slap shot. No dice – it couldn’t happen – the slap shot wouldn’t be invented for another forty years or so. Bill fell flat on his chest like he’d been close-lined.
Orr picked up the puck and took it behind his net to apparently regroup and eye the up-ice layout and off he went. Smoothly left, smoothly right … Goheen swooped in to cut him off and Orr just went horizontal in flight mode or something with the puck almost slipping through Moose’s skates. He kicks it forward and heads after it. Orr, still horizontal, spins in midair and takes off superman style after Goheen, sweeps in with outstretched downward angled stick and takes it off Goheen only to come back down to ice behind his own net again smooth as silk.
Orr eyes up ice again and takes off through the center. I pick him up as he cuts to the boards to my right. Again the smart bastard goes airborne to my left and picks up the puck off the boards on the other side of me. WTF! I’m all over myself and Orr’s on net. Oops, did he lose the puck on the rough ice or is it a deke. Wham – bam – thank you mamm– if he didn’t stuff it in the puck from between his own legs and he’s off flying again.
The fans start booing as Orr keeps flying around celebrating his goal but the game is different. No face off after goals – just pull the puck out and take it behind the net while everyone gets on side and take off skating again. Mr. Moose Goheen picks up the puck while Orr is still celebrating. He seems pumped, the crowd’s booing now sounds excited rather than angry. A teammate skates by and yells “Watch him now. His family calls him “Boo” and that really riles his ass!”
He weaves, he dekes, elbows out, he stiff arms one guy like a running back and goes in on net like a bull in a matador’s outfit. He’s putting a little drift to the left and I can tell he’s got it set to pull the goalie with him with quick plans to go upstairs in the right corner.
Its in my mind – I know it …. And poof – Wild Bill and I are back in the box in Santa Rosa. Ghosts of Charles Schulz or what. Damn! I look over to Wild Bill. “You go on first.” He’s white as a ghost and as the penalty box time keeper opens the gate he steps on the ice and falls flat on his face. Not realizing what happened I stumble over him as I hit the ice. Both of us out there like a big pile of shit.
Bill twists his bloodied up face back towards me and asks “Wheats, what the fuck just happened?”
“Sheeeesh! I don’t know, but we better get back in the game, ehh.”
The center that we had crunched getting our penalties stopped in front of us and tapped us each on our helmets with his stick and laughed as he said “You turkeys, ya might as well head back to Marshall and get back to that business of packing meat.”
Ya know you guys – some days ya walk with wood and some days you sure for shit don’t.
Jasper here. Skate hard! Stay out of the sin-bin ….. or not.
Friday, May 25, 2007
VOODOO HOCKEY
(or was it fakies?)
Hey my fellow woodsmen and puck heads. Greetings for a wonderful USA holiday: Memorial Day 2007.
Hope that all of you guys have your weekends planned cuz there sure as shit ain’t any hockey on the tube in my neck of the woods until Monday night. Yours neither, I expect.
I didn’t get so lucky as to find the Stanley Cup Finals going to Detroit and Buffalo like I wanted. Instead we’ll have to settle for the Ducks versus the Senators. It might be inspiring play - don’t know. We’ll see, ehh?
So, because I spent some years in Southern California as a Kings fan (and still am) and because of the close proximity I’ll toss my hat for the Ducks in this round. But I’m tellin ya, I ain’t no Ducks fan!
Moving on here and before getting to the subject at hand I gotta ask "You guys walking with wood this past week?" Ehh? Couldn’t hear ya here - just deathly silent here in the back woods. Whasup my friends?
Those of you in the know understand that I write mainly factual shit; spiced up a bit to get your attention and maybe give ya a chuckle or two while ya read. Today ain’t no diff. I spent quite some time doing the research on this blog and then married the story to some of my past experiences. Hope ya like it. Let me know.
If you’ve read all of my stories you know that I’ve got a thing for cheerleaders, right? Ehh, which of you boys don’t? Take off, you ain’t no hoser in my book then. Short skirts, stimulating cheers, pom poms, the whole damn works. I like it all - no doubt about it.
Well, I like hockey like crazy and I like to read a lot too. Reading about hockey though is going to get kinda slow in a couple of weeks. Shiiite! It’s already down to about nothin. So any article in my newspaper has been devoured and savored like the last bit of browning and ice cream that you slobber up as ya wipe the bowl with your index finger. Oh, another tasty little morsel. What’s this say?
I subscribe to two newspapers. One is local and so small its a wonder that they can publish it on a daily basis. There usually isn’t any hockey articles published in it. Just the local gab that I try to keep up on in case I’ve gotta chat with some one down at the bar or liquor store or something. The other paper is considerably larger and is published in one of the larger gay-ass cities on the west coast. This second paper covers hockey; so I read it like any dumb ass puck head would.
Today’s edition had two small blurbs - neither more than a couple of column inches on an inside page of their sports section. The first was some more follow up on the gambling issues with Rick Tocchet and the other was about Courtney Prince, the former head cheerleader of the New York Ranger’s "Ranger City Skaters."
Jasper Wheats here is going to discuss the cheerleader of course. Ya bet your damn ass I am!
It seems as though Ms. Prince has filed a sexual discrimination law suit against Madison Square Garden. Actually I believe that she filed the lawsuit back in 2004 so this business has been going on for some time. Some of you guys out there may know a lot more about this thing then I do, but I’m going to summarize the relevant issues that I understand.
Courtney, as it was, had been the head cheerleader and led practice sessions and led the cheer team at home Ranger events. She of course was instructed to teach the other girls moves that were sexually alluring, etc. Sex sells I’ve heard; so if there’s nothing going on on the ice then ya might as well watch these honey’s, ehh? She made about $150 per game which doesn’t sound like bad money, but ya gotta figure they weren’t paying these girls for their practice time.
The Garden has a policy that these cheerleaders and Rangers aren’t supposed to fraternize with each other. Apparently there was no such restriction between the Gardens’ staff and the cheerleaders. After a game in late 2003 Courtney was at a bar on New York’s Westside called Daddy-O’s. I don’t think Daddy-O’s has anything to do with my good bud Robbie-O, but who knows it could be his hep brother’s place that he never talked to me about.
So anyway, Courtney’s at Daddy-O’s waitin on a quesadilla and maybe or maybe not hangin with James Vogel, PR for the Rangers, and Jason Diamos, reporter for the New York Times. The claim here is that Vogel played some tongue hockey on Courtney and suggested a threesome. She shot him down and later warned her girls on the squad that there was someone on the Ranger staff that was a sexual predator. Mix and mingle folks - it ain’t what it used to be, ehh?
Shortly thereafter she was let go from the Ranger City Skaters. Allegations are bouncing back and forth.
Some say she’s bipolar. Others that she’s suffering from hypersexuality (whatever the heck that is I want some of it). Some of the girls say that she told them to make the fans feel like they want to get in your pants. Some of them say that she told them to stuff their bras if they felt the need. She says that the Garden’s executive staff instructed her to say that.
I don’t really care. Its just this little bit here towards the end that I’m concerned with. Do these girls have fakies or not? Nah, that’s not it. I like how the whole package looks. Entice me ladies. Real or not the requirement from me is for anything fake to be functional or toss it. I mean, you guys, look at me, I’ve got a fake hip. It works. I love it. Ain’t no bullshit! Fake this - fake that. From my perspective if it looks right or it acts right, then its A-OK.
So when’s it not OK. Let me tell ya a true story.
A couple of years after I quit playing full check hockey and joined the ranks of old farts playing non-check I came across a faky. This jerks name was Hurt. You know like painful. Hurt was a genuine faky from the get go. He played on one of the teams in our league - I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. He really sucked. If it had been me running the league at that time I’d have put him down with the Squirt A’s or lower. The dude just couldn’t skate. I mean give him a chair to push around. It didn’t bother me so much when we played his team cuz he was just another pylon to skate around. The problem that I had is that someone allowed him to officiate games also.
Holy shit if that wasn’t a mistake!
He couldn’t keep up with the play and I’m not sure if he really knew how to interpret the rules. At least that’s my contention and I’m stickin by it.
As was typical for most of us that transitioned from checking to non-check; I had a hard time staying out of the box. As a defenseman I worked the slot a little too hard on occasion or took ‘em into the boards or dumped someone into our bench every once in a while shooting for a free beer later, or what have ya. And on this particular night I don’t remember what got me in a fix. But I figure that some a da Irish came outta me - arguing or maybe even some physicality with Hurt after the call. Well the shiite little faky tossed me!
Pissed me off like ya can’t believe, ehh? The dudes so far from walking with wood that he’s just a flamin mush pie.
Jingles skates over to me and in his vicious nice way gets my ass off the ice. Someone serves my penalty as the game continues on. Ding dang fakies don’t belong on the ice. I’ve got no respect for somebody faking to be something that they can’t be - not in a million years. Ya hear?
I’m sitting in the dressing room taking off my gear so I can get back out and watch the end of the game when Jingles’ oldest kid runs into the dressing room. We call him Ry-Guy. He’s about ten years old at the time and sometimes sits on the bench with us wearing a helmet and helping out running water bottles and such. Good kid, always an entrepreneur, taping sticks and other shit for us in the locker room for tips. He’s finished his undergrad now and is going to go to law school soon. Like I said - good kid.
Well Ry-Guy yells "Uncle Jasper, Uncle Jasper! Hurt just broke his leg!"
I said, "You kidding me, ehh?"
"No." he says. "Come on out and see."
So I walk out a the dressing room, turning my sock liners black walking on the rubber mats in the rink, and look through the glass at the near corner. Way down to the other end I could see that faky Hurt sprawled on the ice screamin his fool lungs out.
Deserved it, I’m thinking.
Ry-Guy goes, "I was on the bench and everybody starting saying that you must have a Voodoo doll in your bag!"
"That’s not bad Ry-Guy", I say chuckling, "But I wish he’d quit screamin. It’s makin me kinda sick."
I don’t know how the game ended up - seems like the final score is never as important as the adrenaline of playing. Hurt had broke both bones in his leg right above the top of his skate boot. Probably did hurt like hell. Did he deserve it? I don’t know. Was it Voodoo Hockey? Nah, I wouldn’t tell ya if it was. I sure for shit though to this day think that he was one of the biggest fakies of all time that ever laced on the skates.
I admire him for loving our sport and trying to be a part of it - but the dude was just way outta his league.
If your going to do it then do it right! Ehh? No fakies allowed.
Walk with wood my friends!
Hey my fellow woodsmen and puck heads. Greetings for a wonderful USA holiday: Memorial Day 2007.
Hope that all of you guys have your weekends planned cuz there sure as shit ain’t any hockey on the tube in my neck of the woods until Monday night. Yours neither, I expect.
I didn’t get so lucky as to find the Stanley Cup Finals going to Detroit and Buffalo like I wanted. Instead we’ll have to settle for the Ducks versus the Senators. It might be inspiring play - don’t know. We’ll see, ehh?
So, because I spent some years in Southern California as a Kings fan (and still am) and because of the close proximity I’ll toss my hat for the Ducks in this round. But I’m tellin ya, I ain’t no Ducks fan!
Moving on here and before getting to the subject at hand I gotta ask "You guys walking with wood this past week?" Ehh? Couldn’t hear ya here - just deathly silent here in the back woods. Whasup my friends?
Those of you in the know understand that I write mainly factual shit; spiced up a bit to get your attention and maybe give ya a chuckle or two while ya read. Today ain’t no diff. I spent quite some time doing the research on this blog and then married the story to some of my past experiences. Hope ya like it. Let me know.
If you’ve read all of my stories you know that I’ve got a thing for cheerleaders, right? Ehh, which of you boys don’t? Take off, you ain’t no hoser in my book then. Short skirts, stimulating cheers, pom poms, the whole damn works. I like it all - no doubt about it.
Well, I like hockey like crazy and I like to read a lot too. Reading about hockey though is going to get kinda slow in a couple of weeks. Shiiite! It’s already down to about nothin. So any article in my newspaper has been devoured and savored like the last bit of browning and ice cream that you slobber up as ya wipe the bowl with your index finger. Oh, another tasty little morsel. What’s this say?
I subscribe to two newspapers. One is local and so small its a wonder that they can publish it on a daily basis. There usually isn’t any hockey articles published in it. Just the local gab that I try to keep up on in case I’ve gotta chat with some one down at the bar or liquor store or something. The other paper is considerably larger and is published in one of the larger gay-ass cities on the west coast. This second paper covers hockey; so I read it like any dumb ass puck head would.
Today’s edition had two small blurbs - neither more than a couple of column inches on an inside page of their sports section. The first was some more follow up on the gambling issues with Rick Tocchet and the other was about Courtney Prince, the former head cheerleader of the New York Ranger’s "Ranger City Skaters."
Jasper Wheats here is going to discuss the cheerleader of course. Ya bet your damn ass I am!
It seems as though Ms. Prince has filed a sexual discrimination law suit against Madison Square Garden. Actually I believe that she filed the lawsuit back in 2004 so this business has been going on for some time. Some of you guys out there may know a lot more about this thing then I do, but I’m going to summarize the relevant issues that I understand.
Courtney, as it was, had been the head cheerleader and led practice sessions and led the cheer team at home Ranger events. She of course was instructed to teach the other girls moves that were sexually alluring, etc. Sex sells I’ve heard; so if there’s nothing going on on the ice then ya might as well watch these honey’s, ehh? She made about $150 per game which doesn’t sound like bad money, but ya gotta figure they weren’t paying these girls for their practice time.
The Garden has a policy that these cheerleaders and Rangers aren’t supposed to fraternize with each other. Apparently there was no such restriction between the Gardens’ staff and the cheerleaders. After a game in late 2003 Courtney was at a bar on New York’s Westside called Daddy-O’s. I don’t think Daddy-O’s has anything to do with my good bud Robbie-O, but who knows it could be his hep brother’s place that he never talked to me about.
So anyway, Courtney’s at Daddy-O’s waitin on a quesadilla and maybe or maybe not hangin with James Vogel, PR for the Rangers, and Jason Diamos, reporter for the New York Times. The claim here is that Vogel played some tongue hockey on Courtney and suggested a threesome. She shot him down and later warned her girls on the squad that there was someone on the Ranger staff that was a sexual predator. Mix and mingle folks - it ain’t what it used to be, ehh?
Shortly thereafter she was let go from the Ranger City Skaters. Allegations are bouncing back and forth.
Some say she’s bipolar. Others that she’s suffering from hypersexuality (whatever the heck that is I want some of it). Some of the girls say that she told them to make the fans feel like they want to get in your pants. Some of them say that she told them to stuff their bras if they felt the need. She says that the Garden’s executive staff instructed her to say that.
I don’t really care. Its just this little bit here towards the end that I’m concerned with. Do these girls have fakies or not? Nah, that’s not it. I like how the whole package looks. Entice me ladies. Real or not the requirement from me is for anything fake to be functional or toss it. I mean, you guys, look at me, I’ve got a fake hip. It works. I love it. Ain’t no bullshit! Fake this - fake that. From my perspective if it looks right or it acts right, then its A-OK.
So when’s it not OK. Let me tell ya a true story.
A couple of years after I quit playing full check hockey and joined the ranks of old farts playing non-check I came across a faky. This jerks name was Hurt. You know like painful. Hurt was a genuine faky from the get go. He played on one of the teams in our league - I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. He really sucked. If it had been me running the league at that time I’d have put him down with the Squirt A’s or lower. The dude just couldn’t skate. I mean give him a chair to push around. It didn’t bother me so much when we played his team cuz he was just another pylon to skate around. The problem that I had is that someone allowed him to officiate games also.
Holy shit if that wasn’t a mistake!
He couldn’t keep up with the play and I’m not sure if he really knew how to interpret the rules. At least that’s my contention and I’m stickin by it.
As was typical for most of us that transitioned from checking to non-check; I had a hard time staying out of the box. As a defenseman I worked the slot a little too hard on occasion or took ‘em into the boards or dumped someone into our bench every once in a while shooting for a free beer later, or what have ya. And on this particular night I don’t remember what got me in a fix. But I figure that some a da Irish came outta me - arguing or maybe even some physicality with Hurt after the call. Well the shiite little faky tossed me!
Pissed me off like ya can’t believe, ehh? The dudes so far from walking with wood that he’s just a flamin mush pie.
Jingles skates over to me and in his vicious nice way gets my ass off the ice. Someone serves my penalty as the game continues on. Ding dang fakies don’t belong on the ice. I’ve got no respect for somebody faking to be something that they can’t be - not in a million years. Ya hear?
I’m sitting in the dressing room taking off my gear so I can get back out and watch the end of the game when Jingles’ oldest kid runs into the dressing room. We call him Ry-Guy. He’s about ten years old at the time and sometimes sits on the bench with us wearing a helmet and helping out running water bottles and such. Good kid, always an entrepreneur, taping sticks and other shit for us in the locker room for tips. He’s finished his undergrad now and is going to go to law school soon. Like I said - good kid.
Well Ry-Guy yells "Uncle Jasper, Uncle Jasper! Hurt just broke his leg!"
I said, "You kidding me, ehh?"
"No." he says. "Come on out and see."
So I walk out a the dressing room, turning my sock liners black walking on the rubber mats in the rink, and look through the glass at the near corner. Way down to the other end I could see that faky Hurt sprawled on the ice screamin his fool lungs out.
Deserved it, I’m thinking.
Ry-Guy goes, "I was on the bench and everybody starting saying that you must have a Voodoo doll in your bag!"
"That’s not bad Ry-Guy", I say chuckling, "But I wish he’d quit screamin. It’s makin me kinda sick."
I don’t know how the game ended up - seems like the final score is never as important as the adrenaline of playing. Hurt had broke both bones in his leg right above the top of his skate boot. Probably did hurt like hell. Did he deserve it? I don’t know. Was it Voodoo Hockey? Nah, I wouldn’t tell ya if it was. I sure for shit though to this day think that he was one of the biggest fakies of all time that ever laced on the skates.
I admire him for loving our sport and trying to be a part of it - but the dude was just way outta his league.
If your going to do it then do it right! Ehh? No fakies allowed.
Walk with wood my friends!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Cheap Skate
Jasper here again with a weekly entry to the world of hockey humor blogs.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
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