Hey puckesters, woodsmen and woodswomen. Jasper here for a weeks worth of dumbshit happenings. But because of this crap I’m gonna have to keep it short this time.
Just a heads up though, the team is coming together fine. And I did a bit a scouting earlier in the week that I’ll fill ya in on at a later date. Ehh?
Here’s the shit.
I can’t type very good today and figure I won’t be able to for a little while. Its not like I could type very damn good before but now I’m having to use an unfamiliar finger on my right hand. Yeah, you guys got that right, I only type with two fingers. Never got myself edumecated in the fine art of typing. Always was a dang bit more interested in playin hockey, chasin ‘tang and consuming massive quantities of brew.
So bear with me my friends from the backwoods.
Here in the fine state of California you have to get a smog inspection on your cars and trucks every couple a years. Got my truck smogged last year - the old pile a shit passed again. Not bad for Detroit iron, ehh?
Well, the notice on the honey’s little neat beast came in the mail some time two weeks ago. Its fairly new so I didn’t expect any problems. Went to get a new air filter for it but couldn’t find one at our nearest franchise auto parts. Don’t know what the deal is with that so I went back home feeling kinda screwed. Opened up the barn, pulled the neat beast in to do a little self maintenance. Fired up my air compressor and pulled out the air filter and blew it out with the compressed air. That’s about all I could do. Its either going to pass or fail. I’m at the mercy of the dang smog test computer.
So that was Friday night and after a long day on the road working. I had checked earlier in the week for the best deal to get the test done and picked out a place that would be open Saturday morning.
The place was about twenty minutes away back in town. So at 7:30 I left the cabin and headed into town. I got to the smog shop a little earlier then the 8:00 am advertised opening and waited for the gate to be opened. A truck pulled up and a couple guys unlocked the gate and drove in. I fired up the neat beast and followed them in pulling in front of the middle business, Smog Pros, of the three inside the fenced area. I waited a few minutes thinking the guys needed to get organized and then I got out and went up to the office door of the shop. It was still locked and I noticed the guys that opened the gate were at the neighboring business.
Shit, I thought, I guess I’ll have to wait for someone from the smog testing joint. I went back to the neat beast and settled in with a paperback while I waited for someone to show up.
I looked around every once in a while when I heard some noise but never saw anyone else show up. Most of the noise I heard was from two or three crows in the next door parking lot trying to get a tossed out fast food to-go container opened up. Ingenious little fucks, those crows are. They went at it the whole time I waited, but I’m not sure they ever really got the trashed container open.
By 8:30 I got fed up with the waiting and decided to leave. Drove over to the gate and found I was locked in. Fuckin-A!
I tried the business phone number and no one answered but could hear it ringing inside the shop. I looked around and decided that the three strings of barbwire over the top of the chain link was going to deter me from climbing out. Damn! I was laughing at this shit now. I’m fuckin locked in this place and more then likely nobody’s going to come back to unlock the gate until Monday morning. Ehh, whacha think?
So I get my shit together and called the honey to get the non-emergency number for the local sheriff’s office. She gave me the number and I called but waited about five minutes before someone finally picked up. I explained my unbelievable little tale of circumstance and asked if they had an emergency contact number for the business. After some hemming and hawing and need for more info from me the dispatcher came up with a number. I gave her my number and she said she’d call me back to let me know what she was able to do for me.
A few minutes later she calls back and said she had gotten a hold of the owner’s wife and she would come and let me out. They lived in the neighboring town so it would take a bit. I called the honey back to let her know my frigged out status and laughed our asses off for a bit. Broke off with her and settled into my paperback again.
After about a half hour the owner’s wife showed up with another lady and they unlocked a different gate then the one I had come in through. The first gate was a swing gate but this one was on rollers. It was all jammed up and I assisted with the ladies to get it opened enough for the neat beast to get through. While doing so the owner’s wife explained why nobody showed up. Her husband was out of town and the mechanic that does the test had volunteered to do some work at his church for the day. Just my luck to pick this Saturday, ehh. She also said the guys that the other business were at are never there on Saturdays and she didn’t know why they had been there this morning.
Aw shit, what are gonna say? Its really pretty funny when ya think about it - getting locked in some place.
So anyway, I’m trying to un-jam the bottom roller of the gate when all of a sudden it rolls pretty good until it hits my hand that is so stupidly holding onto the top rail. The top roller damn near severs my right index finger from my shooting hand. Shit if I don’t grab the little sucker quick like and apply direct pressure like they teach ya in first-aid class. The blood is getting everywhere and the owner’s wife says that they don’t have any bandages. I look in the neat beast and see a used paper towel on the passenger floorboard and wrap it snug around my pointer.
The owner’s wife wants to know if I’m ok and that they’ll give me a real deal if I can come back next Saturday for the smog test. I tell her I’m fine and I’ll give it a shot on coming back next week. Am I nuts or what?
The gate’s opened just enough for the neat beast to get out so I pullout and head back home while I continue to apply pressure to the dirty rag wrapped around my poor little fingey.
Since I just started my new job the health insurance hasn’t kicked in yet - so the emergency room is out the question.
I come inside the cabin and yell for the honey. “Ya need to patch me up sweets!” She digs the fixin stuff from under the bathroom sink and I peel back the grubby paper towel from my finger. The blood gushes again and the honey gets weak in the knees. I tell her I’m ok and we’ll fix it all up nice and nifty. (Like I never fixed anything up after a hockey game or bar brawl, ehh?)
So we clean it up, put a bandage on and tape it so it won’t bend. That wasn’t enough to keep it from bending though. I needed a splint. So I went to the kitchen and busted a plastic spoon in half and used it for a splint - taping that little chunk of white plastic snug to my index finger like some jerry-rigging expert. I don’t think my old hockey buddy, Stinky, could have done a better job
So that’s the shit.
It cracks my ass.
Get locked in, splice myself up with a plastic spoon, and can laugh about it the whole time its happening.
Yeah, I must be walking with wood …. Or some sort of shit, ehh?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
SECOND SKATE
Whooya guys and gals, bitches and bastards.
Just woke up from a little nappy and getting ready to chug another brewski. Got my fingers warmed up by doing one of those stupid surveys over at Myspace about one of my bloody high schools. What a waste of valuable time, ehh?
Shit, I held my second skate for Norris’ Nightmares this morning at 4:00 am. That’s why I was napping just a bit ago. Its not like you get up at four o’clock but ya gotta be at the rink sharp as a tack and on the ice at four o’clock. Ya know, at least a cup a joe in ya and havin take a good crap by then. Had the ice for two hours again, well, an hour forty-five this week. The price was alright at that hour and it gave me chance to see who “really” wanted to play for me.
Just got my second beer now and poured in the primo glass mug that I got a quarter a century ago for being the best man in my brother Jingles’ wedding. That damn mug is like Jingles - tough as all get out. Don’t know how many times its been dropped but its still not busted.
Good dude that bro of mine. He showed up again to help out this morning. Runs the ice like some kinda drill instructor. Bronzy, my other bro, the jerk, called at about seven o’clock and said he musta forgot to set his alarm. Ya know I forgive him though, cuz honestly I figure one of his cute kids probably farted with the clock in the middle of the night when they snuck into his and the wife’s bedroom to tell him they were having dreams about hockey and the sun and cookies and …. Yeah, it happens.
But I don’t cut no slack for the guys that want to skate for me. You show up when I say so, you skate your ass off and ya don’t give me no lip. Yup 4:00 am is mighty early.
Good turnout again. A few of the guys were hung-over I could tell. That’s ok with me. Being able to get crunked out and then later skate some shit shows the character that I’m looking for. Now if I can just find the skill set that we need to turn this team into a winner. Ehh? Whacha think you guys?
We had em do the standard stretches and shit. Want to keep them from getting injured from strains and I emphasized how skating once or twice a week isn’t going to get it - they’ve got to work on stuff on their own time too. Jingles got them skating paired laps with sprints on the whistle then switched it into full rink figure-eights to add some interference and agility into the mix. When we took the first break from that we had a bunch of em hurling over the boards. Now ya know why the rink always smells so damn bad and vomitous early in the morning. Ya always thought it was an ammonia leak or something didn’t ya.
One of the heavy heavers was Whitney. Yup, I’ve got ladies trying out for the team too. She hails from the University of Denver and wears a practice jersey from Planet Hockey Skills Camp. Says that she was an instructor there. Anyway after she had finished with Ralph Chunks I heard her say that she’d been partying hard until two and hadn’t slept yet. Good shit - she’s got potential.
Another honey, Jamie from Duluth, skates her ass off and was on a national championship team last year. A little moody, skates without socks and has a tattoo of crossed hockey sticks on one of her feet. There’s a chance for her too.
A third lady showed up this morning also. Jessa, she cracked me up. Wears a jersey that says “Hockey Ass”. I think she’s a little hemp hoe that rings the bell from Rapid City. Ya can tell that she’s into bikers and shit like that - bad ass and all. Wonder if she read my blog about the Sturgis run/tournament for next year? She seemed to be favorin one leg all morning and I mentioned to her that she looked weak when she cut to that side. She told me “My knee is all fuckered up, but it’ll get better coach.” Cracks my ass that one!
So there’s a whole slew of guys and gals out there on the ice this morning. Made me feel good to see their liveliness and stamina. They were all walking with wood for showing up and puttin out.
With about forty-five minutes left I hauled out the barrel of practice pull-overs and Jingles and I broke em down into lines and defensive pairings so we could run some three on twos and short scrimmage sessions. I inherited these colors from Bif’s Broncos a former Junior team that’s now faded into notorious oblivion. Same jerseys, same brown plastic barrel, and same bloody bad stink. Don’t think they’ve ever been washed and I ain’t planning on doing it any time soon.
The drills ran well and the guys looked sharp. I gotta tell ya I was feeling fuckin proud this morning. The goalies were quiet as usual but did the job. Thinkin I might need to dig up somebody to help coach them but not sure yet. Everybody was getting in each others’ faces but no one dropped the gloves yet. Its intense, I can tell, and that’s what I want. I gotta get get this group of forty or so down to twenty in the next month.
Haven’t had any serious injuries either yet. So that’s been good but lucky. We did have one guy miss the last twenty minutes or so cuz of some fun shuckin and jivin on the bench. He got pushed and knocked off balance. Fool bounced his head off the end a the bench and had to sit cuz he got freakin dingy. Had to yell at the guys to keep their helmets on from that point forward. Didn’t really miss the dude though cuz he was one of the weaker skaters this week. Kinda hope that he won’t show up for the next skate.
We finished up with paired laps again. Single whistle sprint with a double whistle to skatin backwards. The guys dropped the practice pullovers in the barrel as they stepped off the ice at the end of practice. I had to laugh when each one commented on how bad the pull-overs stunk when they skated backwards. Oh yeah, I remember how bad that was from my days wearing em. When ya skate backwards at speed ya create a vacuum and that smell can’t escape your vapor trail. And that’s where you’re taking your next heavy breath, in that vapor trail, and the stink will just about suffocate ya. Love those pull-overs!
Love these guys!
Gotta go get another brew now and start a list ranking of the tryouts. This is the tough part.
Until next time - keep skatin hard - enjoy the shit - and walk with wood every chance ya get!
Jasper Wheats
Just woke up from a little nappy and getting ready to chug another brewski. Got my fingers warmed up by doing one of those stupid surveys over at Myspace about one of my bloody high schools. What a waste of valuable time, ehh?
Shit, I held my second skate for Norris’ Nightmares this morning at 4:00 am. That’s why I was napping just a bit ago. Its not like you get up at four o’clock but ya gotta be at the rink sharp as a tack and on the ice at four o’clock. Ya know, at least a cup a joe in ya and havin take a good crap by then. Had the ice for two hours again, well, an hour forty-five this week. The price was alright at that hour and it gave me chance to see who “really” wanted to play for me.
Just got my second beer now and poured in the primo glass mug that I got a quarter a century ago for being the best man in my brother Jingles’ wedding. That damn mug is like Jingles - tough as all get out. Don’t know how many times its been dropped but its still not busted.
Good dude that bro of mine. He showed up again to help out this morning. Runs the ice like some kinda drill instructor. Bronzy, my other bro, the jerk, called at about seven o’clock and said he musta forgot to set his alarm. Ya know I forgive him though, cuz honestly I figure one of his cute kids probably farted with the clock in the middle of the night when they snuck into his and the wife’s bedroom to tell him they were having dreams about hockey and the sun and cookies and …. Yeah, it happens.
But I don’t cut no slack for the guys that want to skate for me. You show up when I say so, you skate your ass off and ya don’t give me no lip. Yup 4:00 am is mighty early.
Good turnout again. A few of the guys were hung-over I could tell. That’s ok with me. Being able to get crunked out and then later skate some shit shows the character that I’m looking for. Now if I can just find the skill set that we need to turn this team into a winner. Ehh? Whacha think you guys?
We had em do the standard stretches and shit. Want to keep them from getting injured from strains and I emphasized how skating once or twice a week isn’t going to get it - they’ve got to work on stuff on their own time too. Jingles got them skating paired laps with sprints on the whistle then switched it into full rink figure-eights to add some interference and agility into the mix. When we took the first break from that we had a bunch of em hurling over the boards. Now ya know why the rink always smells so damn bad and vomitous early in the morning. Ya always thought it was an ammonia leak or something didn’t ya.
One of the heavy heavers was Whitney. Yup, I’ve got ladies trying out for the team too. She hails from the University of Denver and wears a practice jersey from Planet Hockey Skills Camp. Says that she was an instructor there. Anyway after she had finished with Ralph Chunks I heard her say that she’d been partying hard until two and hadn’t slept yet. Good shit - she’s got potential.
Another honey, Jamie from Duluth, skates her ass off and was on a national championship team last year. A little moody, skates without socks and has a tattoo of crossed hockey sticks on one of her feet. There’s a chance for her too.
A third lady showed up this morning also. Jessa, she cracked me up. Wears a jersey that says “Hockey Ass”. I think she’s a little hemp hoe that rings the bell from Rapid City. Ya can tell that she’s into bikers and shit like that - bad ass and all. Wonder if she read my blog about the Sturgis run/tournament for next year? She seemed to be favorin one leg all morning and I mentioned to her that she looked weak when she cut to that side. She told me “My knee is all fuckered up, but it’ll get better coach.” Cracks my ass that one!
So there’s a whole slew of guys and gals out there on the ice this morning. Made me feel good to see their liveliness and stamina. They were all walking with wood for showing up and puttin out.
With about forty-five minutes left I hauled out the barrel of practice pull-overs and Jingles and I broke em down into lines and defensive pairings so we could run some three on twos and short scrimmage sessions. I inherited these colors from Bif’s Broncos a former Junior team that’s now faded into notorious oblivion. Same jerseys, same brown plastic barrel, and same bloody bad stink. Don’t think they’ve ever been washed and I ain’t planning on doing it any time soon.
The drills ran well and the guys looked sharp. I gotta tell ya I was feeling fuckin proud this morning. The goalies were quiet as usual but did the job. Thinkin I might need to dig up somebody to help coach them but not sure yet. Everybody was getting in each others’ faces but no one dropped the gloves yet. Its intense, I can tell, and that’s what I want. I gotta get get this group of forty or so down to twenty in the next month.
Haven’t had any serious injuries either yet. So that’s been good but lucky. We did have one guy miss the last twenty minutes or so cuz of some fun shuckin and jivin on the bench. He got pushed and knocked off balance. Fool bounced his head off the end a the bench and had to sit cuz he got freakin dingy. Had to yell at the guys to keep their helmets on from that point forward. Didn’t really miss the dude though cuz he was one of the weaker skaters this week. Kinda hope that he won’t show up for the next skate.
We finished up with paired laps again. Single whistle sprint with a double whistle to skatin backwards. The guys dropped the practice pullovers in the barrel as they stepped off the ice at the end of practice. I had to laugh when each one commented on how bad the pull-overs stunk when they skated backwards. Oh yeah, I remember how bad that was from my days wearing em. When ya skate backwards at speed ya create a vacuum and that smell can’t escape your vapor trail. And that’s where you’re taking your next heavy breath, in that vapor trail, and the stink will just about suffocate ya. Love those pull-overs!
Love these guys!
Gotta go get another brew now and start a list ranking of the tryouts. This is the tough part.
Until next time - keep skatin hard - enjoy the shit - and walk with wood every chance ya get!
Jasper Wheats
Sunday, September 2, 2007
FIRST CALL
A lot’s been happening as I’m getting ready for the new season. Last week, you know, you guys, I finally picked a name for the team. Thanks to Chuck Norris, ehh, the name is Norris’ Nightmares. We’re going to be a “kick-ass team” playing as dirty as we gotta to beat our opponents. I’m guessing from past experience that we’ll be on the verge of getting kicked out of the league after game one. Yeah, we’ll be on secret - double, double secret probation. Been there, done that.
But, I guess that we’ll just have to hang out and wait and see.
Oh, yeah - I almost forgot - we will be quite skilled too. No hacks on Norris’ Nightmares, ehh. Goalies are stoners, forwards are danglers and defense are fearsome with killer slapshots. Everybody’s gotta be a grinder. No candy-asses allowed; just skilled shit-kickers with attitude.
So a couple weeks back I put the word out that I was going to have tryouts for a new team and last week I updated the info by letting folks know that the team’s name was Norris’ Nightmares and that the first tryout was going to be at 10:00 pm Tuesday night.
Now that was last Tuesday night and I had rented the rink for a couple of hours. They were kicking a public session off at 9:45 and cutting new ice for us. We could stay on right until midnight cuz some church youth group was coming on for broomball after us and they wanted the ice fairly roughed up. Noggin heads those broomballers!
I got-a-hold of my brothers, Jingles and Bronzy, to come out to help me run the show. Told em I’d buy the brews afterwards but I needed to have someone helping out while I took notes and shit. I picked them up a couple of whistles and we got together in one of the dressing rooms around nine to go over the game plan.
I didn’t know what to expect. The flyer’s I posted said $15 a pop for “A” level competitive tryouts, with goalies for free. I don’t have a sponsor yet so the cost is fairly steep on the front end. I figured that I’d probably have to cover for at least an hour of the ice time myself until the word spread about what I was putting together.
All I can figure is that my reputation musta proceeded me in this endeavor as we had thirty-nine skaters and six goalies show up our first night. I had thrown together a quick little one page questionnaire that everybody had to fill out with name, phone number, email address, experience, preferred playing position , etc. You know the shit. And most importantly what they were going to wear on the ice so that we could identify them for my notes.
I’m telling ya it was a good turnout. Jingles and Bronzy were even impressed with the quantity of good players that showed up. Of course there were a couple of real beginners that didn’t belong there and so I talked to them and gave them a refund as I excused them.
All of the others went through the drills and at the end I asked them all to come back next week for a continuation of the evaluation. This was just the first call and they could invite others if they wanted. I wouldn’t start winnowing the group for couple or three weeks yet.
I’m tellin ya I was absolutely in heaven with this turnout. It was good, I was walking with wood when we headed up to the bar later.
As usual though we had the typical horse shit stuff happen. Guys forgot some of their gear and others were pretty nervous.
Two guys stepped on the ice with those damn fabric soakers on their skate blades. I think it was Chase and that hotshot friend of Matt’s. Both of them lit right on their asses. Looked just like I figure those broomballers were going to look like later on. Matt had stood out in the locker room as he sat there laced up finishing off a package of Cheez-Its like he hadn’t eaten in a week or something so I remembered him quite well.
We had one goalie show up almost an hour into the skate. He was in full gear, like the way we showed up when we were kids when our folks would drop us off. At first I wasn’t going to let him on the ice, but a couple a guys, including Shawn, vouched for him so I let him skate. He smelled a bit like beer and smoke but played snappy. During a break from his time in the net I chatted with him a bit to find out what was up and he told me that he lived close by and often dresses at home and walks over to the rink. Tonight he passed by a house where a party was going on and a couple a dudes out in the front yard started laughing at him and said that he had to come on in for a brew and meet the local gang hanging there. Not able to pass up a free beer he jumped in. Said he’d probably head back after the skate cuz a couple of cute sisters seemed kinda interested in him.
I guess I’d probably had done the same - can’t pass up a good thing.
Shapiro had a picture of his great dane glued to the back of his helmet (a real ugly bitch) and forgot one of his gloves. Bronzy had an extra pair in his bag so Shaprio was good to go but not until he totally freaked figuring he wasn’t going to get to show his stuff.
The worst of all - I mean we just about had to air the place out - was Cam. I don’t know what the fuck he’d eaten earlier but it pretty much reeked. I know about getting nervous before going on the ice but this was extreme. Cammy is skating in for a one timer drill when he winds up and nails a dinger but unloads his shorts at the same time. Embarrassed as all get-out he did the fastest gear change and shower on record. I’m not real sure where he disposed of his soiled shorts but it was relief when we couldn’t smell that ass-wipe anymore.
This week was good and I figure next week will be even better.
Norris’ Nightmares are moving forward. We be walking with wood, guys!
I’ll fill ya in on what happens next week. So come back again for some more good reads.
Skate hard!
Jasper Wheats
But, I guess that we’ll just have to hang out and wait and see.
Oh, yeah - I almost forgot - we will be quite skilled too. No hacks on Norris’ Nightmares, ehh. Goalies are stoners, forwards are danglers and defense are fearsome with killer slapshots. Everybody’s gotta be a grinder. No candy-asses allowed; just skilled shit-kickers with attitude.
So a couple weeks back I put the word out that I was going to have tryouts for a new team and last week I updated the info by letting folks know that the team’s name was Norris’ Nightmares and that the first tryout was going to be at 10:00 pm Tuesday night.
Now that was last Tuesday night and I had rented the rink for a couple of hours. They were kicking a public session off at 9:45 and cutting new ice for us. We could stay on right until midnight cuz some church youth group was coming on for broomball after us and they wanted the ice fairly roughed up. Noggin heads those broomballers!
I got-a-hold of my brothers, Jingles and Bronzy, to come out to help me run the show. Told em I’d buy the brews afterwards but I needed to have someone helping out while I took notes and shit. I picked them up a couple of whistles and we got together in one of the dressing rooms around nine to go over the game plan.
I didn’t know what to expect. The flyer’s I posted said $15 a pop for “A” level competitive tryouts, with goalies for free. I don’t have a sponsor yet so the cost is fairly steep on the front end. I figured that I’d probably have to cover for at least an hour of the ice time myself until the word spread about what I was putting together.
All I can figure is that my reputation musta proceeded me in this endeavor as we had thirty-nine skaters and six goalies show up our first night. I had thrown together a quick little one page questionnaire that everybody had to fill out with name, phone number, email address, experience, preferred playing position , etc. You know the shit. And most importantly what they were going to wear on the ice so that we could identify them for my notes.
I’m telling ya it was a good turnout. Jingles and Bronzy were even impressed with the quantity of good players that showed up. Of course there were a couple of real beginners that didn’t belong there and so I talked to them and gave them a refund as I excused them.
All of the others went through the drills and at the end I asked them all to come back next week for a continuation of the evaluation. This was just the first call and they could invite others if they wanted. I wouldn’t start winnowing the group for couple or three weeks yet.
I’m tellin ya I was absolutely in heaven with this turnout. It was good, I was walking with wood when we headed up to the bar later.
As usual though we had the typical horse shit stuff happen. Guys forgot some of their gear and others were pretty nervous.
Two guys stepped on the ice with those damn fabric soakers on their skate blades. I think it was Chase and that hotshot friend of Matt’s. Both of them lit right on their asses. Looked just like I figure those broomballers were going to look like later on. Matt had stood out in the locker room as he sat there laced up finishing off a package of Cheez-Its like he hadn’t eaten in a week or something so I remembered him quite well.
We had one goalie show up almost an hour into the skate. He was in full gear, like the way we showed up when we were kids when our folks would drop us off. At first I wasn’t going to let him on the ice, but a couple a guys, including Shawn, vouched for him so I let him skate. He smelled a bit like beer and smoke but played snappy. During a break from his time in the net I chatted with him a bit to find out what was up and he told me that he lived close by and often dresses at home and walks over to the rink. Tonight he passed by a house where a party was going on and a couple a dudes out in the front yard started laughing at him and said that he had to come on in for a brew and meet the local gang hanging there. Not able to pass up a free beer he jumped in. Said he’d probably head back after the skate cuz a couple of cute sisters seemed kinda interested in him.
I guess I’d probably had done the same - can’t pass up a good thing.
Shapiro had a picture of his great dane glued to the back of his helmet (a real ugly bitch) and forgot one of his gloves. Bronzy had an extra pair in his bag so Shaprio was good to go but not until he totally freaked figuring he wasn’t going to get to show his stuff.
The worst of all - I mean we just about had to air the place out - was Cam. I don’t know what the fuck he’d eaten earlier but it pretty much reeked. I know about getting nervous before going on the ice but this was extreme. Cammy is skating in for a one timer drill when he winds up and nails a dinger but unloads his shorts at the same time. Embarrassed as all get-out he did the fastest gear change and shower on record. I’m not real sure where he disposed of his soiled shorts but it was relief when we couldn’t smell that ass-wipe anymore.
This week was good and I figure next week will be even better.
Norris’ Nightmares are moving forward. We be walking with wood, guys!
I’ll fill ya in on what happens next week. So come back again for some more good reads.
Skate hard!
Jasper Wheats
Sunday, August 26, 2007
NAMING THE TEAM
Yup! Season’s getting ready to start and everybody better be in shape. Ehh? You guys ready for this shit?
Some a ya took the summer off but I know that the rest a ya played right on through. That’s good cuz you’re going to be ready when its time to make the cut.
I’m pulling together a team this year and I spent a bit a time naming it. The Outlaws are still kicking some shit elsewhere and I didn’t wanna infringe on their nasty reputation so I had to come up with something new, you know. My first thought was that the name had to be “Jasper’s somebodies”. Right?
So I went through my trusty old (yeah its probably thirty years old) dictionary looking for some good names that would start with the letter “J”. Take a look at the list below, plus my side comments, and let me know what ya think, ehh.
Jasper’s Jackals - not bad
Jasper’s Jackasses - Lady’s Home Journal probably wouldn’t approve
Jasper’s Jackhammers - that’s got some meat to it, ehh?
Jasper’s Jackpot - sounds like a Vegas Tournament team
Jasper’s Jailbirds - probably a little too accurate
Jasper’s Jailers - nah, that’s the refs job
Jasper’s Jalopies - based on the average age and current physical condition of my old Outlaws that’s probably what they should change their name to
Jasper’s Jams - sounds a little too much like roller derby
Jasper’s Jangles - do the dangle and hear our jangle
Jasper’s Javelins - spearheaded attacks from the neutral zone, ehh?
Jasper’s Jaywalkers - we never cross the blue line legally
Jasper’s Jazz - nah, too basketballish
Jasper’s Jellyfish - sure if we played near the Nova Scotia coast
Jasper’s Jerks - I’d have to see if Steve Martin would sponsor us
Jasper’s Jets - Bobby Hull probably already owns that name
Jasper’s Jewels - we’d wear some fuckin necklaces when we played - right …
Jasper’s Jinx’s - sure for shit - for the other team
Jasper’s Jitterbugs - drop the gloves fucka - we gonna dance!
Jasper’s Jockeys - nope, makes me think of that Frank Zappa song where the little statue dudes are getting knocked over on rich folks’ lawns
Jasper’s Johnnies - ya gotta think about all the different meanings this name carries
Jasper’s Journeymen - I kinda like that
Jasper’s Joyriders - we’re definitely in for a reckless good time
Jasper’s Judges - too dorky
Jasper’s Jugglers - we spin, we dance, we do it all
Jasper’s Juicers - that’s got some oomph to it, ehh?
Jasper’s Jumbos - nah - Jumbos like Dumbos we ain’t no elephants
Jasper’s Jumpers - jump your bones in the corner shit head
Jasper’s Juniors - just a little too limited
Jasper’s Junkies - uh huh - we’re in the shit
Jasper’s Junkyard Dogs - I like that - has some appeal
Jasper’s Jury - we decide the outcome of the game - yup - we control the horizontal - we control the vertical - take me back to the Twilight Zone
Jasper’s Jutemen - tough and fibrous - are we all
Jasper’s Juvies - again just a bit limited
Ok - ya read those through. Right? Did ya read them a second or third time? I’m telling you guys, I read through that list so many times trying to make a stinkin decision. I couldn’t pick the right one. None of them seemed to be the perfect fit to convey the aura and attitude of the team that I was going to run.
So I slept on it for a couple a days and still nothing.
Along the way though I had some inspiration. And inspiration comes from the strangest places.
Ehh?
Here’s how it came to me:
I took the honey to the state fair this past week. She wanted to see all the display stuff and awards handed out for student artwork, etc. I wanted to see the rodeo, demolition derby, some of the livestock (avoid the poultry - ain’t nothin worse then the smell a chicken shit ya know) and behind my sunglasses - eye all the other cutie-pies on display (shit she knows I do this …). Seems as though neither of us are into the rides and carny crap anymore.
So we’re wandering about going from one expedition hall to another and I’m gathering up brochures on the tourist and sightseeing activities available in the various counties of the state as we stop at the county booths. I like to take drives, ya know and see the sights, so these brochures give me some ideas for future day trips. I also stopped at the booths of an outdoor publication and a used car weekly rag where at each I snagged free sample magazines to look through while later back at the cabin.
On the way home we stop at one of our favorite spots for a late lunch/early dinner with some great amber brews. She sacks out when we get home and I look through the car ad magazine while catching a flick on the cable. So, like within about five minutes time two things of a curious nature happen. Some real co-inky-dinky! And you guys know how I am about that shit, ehh ! ? ! ?
First while looking at the car ads I come across this old Ford Anglia for sale where the ad states that the car was once owned by Chuck Norris. Then during a commercial on TV they announce that Chuck Norris never sleeps. (Hmmm - I wonder why?)
Eureka !!!!
The team’s gotta be named after Chuck Norris. I gotta tell ya this is just so damned inspirational I just about shit my pants thinkin of the potential for this team’s name. The man does it all without nary a blemish! He’s been walkin with wood since I don’t know when!
I bounced a few additive terms around to go with both “Chuck” and “Norris” and finally decided to toss out anything using “Chuck” cuz I figured that our opponents would regularly substitute it with “fuck” or would just shortcut the name by calling us the “Chuck Fucks” which I didn’t want. It’s got some pazazz when ya think about it but ya know most leagues won’t let you use some of the common vulgar terms in your team name. And I tried some things like the Norris Numbskulls, the Norris Nomads, Norris’ Nightwalkers and the Norris Nighthawks - but no-go. I still wanted to stick to the duplication of first letters so I continued to cogitate on this team’s handle.
I was really leaning towards “Nightwalkers” cuz it associates with the term “thieves” like the Outlaws and has some correlation to my walking with wood theme but unfortunately it’s first synonym is hooker/prostitute and we’d rather be pimps then whores. Ehh?
It finally came to me. I’d name the team: Norris’ Nightmares.
How’s that work, ehh?
Look it up dudes and dudettes.
My dictionary says “A dream full of great fear or terror. Any terrifying thought or experience.”
If Chuck Norris ever has a nightmare then it has to be a doozie. (Of course he never sleeps though - and now you know why.) And that’s what I want this team to represent. I want every team and every opposing player to be scared shitless when they know that they’ll be going up against us! They’ll have so much pain and agony from playing us. And we’ll run up that scoreboard every game like the Texas Rangers did last week in baseball.
It works for me. Does it work for you? Let me know. (As if your opinion means a rats ass to me and what I name my team - you can name your team whatever the fuck you want. Right?)
Ok. There’s more to come but that’ll be next week.
Skate hard!
See ya next time when we meet along the boards.
Jasper Wheats
Some a ya took the summer off but I know that the rest a ya played right on through. That’s good cuz you’re going to be ready when its time to make the cut.
I’m pulling together a team this year and I spent a bit a time naming it. The Outlaws are still kicking some shit elsewhere and I didn’t wanna infringe on their nasty reputation so I had to come up with something new, you know. My first thought was that the name had to be “Jasper’s somebodies”. Right?
So I went through my trusty old (yeah its probably thirty years old) dictionary looking for some good names that would start with the letter “J”. Take a look at the list below, plus my side comments, and let me know what ya think, ehh.
Jasper’s Jackals - not bad
Jasper’s Jackasses - Lady’s Home Journal probably wouldn’t approve
Jasper’s Jackhammers - that’s got some meat to it, ehh?
Jasper’s Jackpot - sounds like a Vegas Tournament team
Jasper’s Jailbirds - probably a little too accurate
Jasper’s Jailers - nah, that’s the refs job
Jasper’s Jalopies - based on the average age and current physical condition of my old Outlaws that’s probably what they should change their name to
Jasper’s Jams - sounds a little too much like roller derby
Jasper’s Jangles - do the dangle and hear our jangle
Jasper’s Javelins - spearheaded attacks from the neutral zone, ehh?
Jasper’s Jaywalkers - we never cross the blue line legally
Jasper’s Jazz - nah, too basketballish
Jasper’s Jellyfish - sure if we played near the Nova Scotia coast
Jasper’s Jerks - I’d have to see if Steve Martin would sponsor us
Jasper’s Jets - Bobby Hull probably already owns that name
Jasper’s Jewels - we’d wear some fuckin necklaces when we played - right …
Jasper’s Jinx’s - sure for shit - for the other team
Jasper’s Jitterbugs - drop the gloves fucka - we gonna dance!
Jasper’s Jockeys - nope, makes me think of that Frank Zappa song where the little statue dudes are getting knocked over on rich folks’ lawns
Jasper’s Johnnies - ya gotta think about all the different meanings this name carries
Jasper’s Journeymen - I kinda like that
Jasper’s Joyriders - we’re definitely in for a reckless good time
Jasper’s Judges - too dorky
Jasper’s Jugglers - we spin, we dance, we do it all
Jasper’s Juicers - that’s got some oomph to it, ehh?
Jasper’s Jumbos - nah - Jumbos like Dumbos we ain’t no elephants
Jasper’s Jumpers - jump your bones in the corner shit head
Jasper’s Juniors - just a little too limited
Jasper’s Junkies - uh huh - we’re in the shit
Jasper’s Junkyard Dogs - I like that - has some appeal
Jasper’s Jury - we decide the outcome of the game - yup - we control the horizontal - we control the vertical - take me back to the Twilight Zone
Jasper’s Jutemen - tough and fibrous - are we all
Jasper’s Juvies - again just a bit limited
Ok - ya read those through. Right? Did ya read them a second or third time? I’m telling you guys, I read through that list so many times trying to make a stinkin decision. I couldn’t pick the right one. None of them seemed to be the perfect fit to convey the aura and attitude of the team that I was going to run.
So I slept on it for a couple a days and still nothing.
Along the way though I had some inspiration. And inspiration comes from the strangest places.
Ehh?
Here’s how it came to me:
I took the honey to the state fair this past week. She wanted to see all the display stuff and awards handed out for student artwork, etc. I wanted to see the rodeo, demolition derby, some of the livestock (avoid the poultry - ain’t nothin worse then the smell a chicken shit ya know) and behind my sunglasses - eye all the other cutie-pies on display (shit she knows I do this …). Seems as though neither of us are into the rides and carny crap anymore.
So we’re wandering about going from one expedition hall to another and I’m gathering up brochures on the tourist and sightseeing activities available in the various counties of the state as we stop at the county booths. I like to take drives, ya know and see the sights, so these brochures give me some ideas for future day trips. I also stopped at the booths of an outdoor publication and a used car weekly rag where at each I snagged free sample magazines to look through while later back at the cabin.
On the way home we stop at one of our favorite spots for a late lunch/early dinner with some great amber brews. She sacks out when we get home and I look through the car ad magazine while catching a flick on the cable. So, like within about five minutes time two things of a curious nature happen. Some real co-inky-dinky! And you guys know how I am about that shit, ehh ! ? ! ?
First while looking at the car ads I come across this old Ford Anglia for sale where the ad states that the car was once owned by Chuck Norris. Then during a commercial on TV they announce that Chuck Norris never sleeps. (Hmmm - I wonder why?)
Eureka !!!!
The team’s gotta be named after Chuck Norris. I gotta tell ya this is just so damned inspirational I just about shit my pants thinkin of the potential for this team’s name. The man does it all without nary a blemish! He’s been walkin with wood since I don’t know when!
I bounced a few additive terms around to go with both “Chuck” and “Norris” and finally decided to toss out anything using “Chuck” cuz I figured that our opponents would regularly substitute it with “fuck” or would just shortcut the name by calling us the “Chuck Fucks” which I didn’t want. It’s got some pazazz when ya think about it but ya know most leagues won’t let you use some of the common vulgar terms in your team name. And I tried some things like the Norris Numbskulls, the Norris Nomads, Norris’ Nightwalkers and the Norris Nighthawks - but no-go. I still wanted to stick to the duplication of first letters so I continued to cogitate on this team’s handle.
I was really leaning towards “Nightwalkers” cuz it associates with the term “thieves” like the Outlaws and has some correlation to my walking with wood theme but unfortunately it’s first synonym is hooker/prostitute and we’d rather be pimps then whores. Ehh?
It finally came to me. I’d name the team: Norris’ Nightmares.
How’s that work, ehh?
Look it up dudes and dudettes.
My dictionary says “A dream full of great fear or terror. Any terrifying thought or experience.”
If Chuck Norris ever has a nightmare then it has to be a doozie. (Of course he never sleeps though - and now you know why.) And that’s what I want this team to represent. I want every team and every opposing player to be scared shitless when they know that they’ll be going up against us! They’ll have so much pain and agony from playing us. And we’ll run up that scoreboard every game like the Texas Rangers did last week in baseball.
It works for me. Does it work for you? Let me know. (As if your opinion means a rats ass to me and what I name my team - you can name your team whatever the fuck you want. Right?)
Ok. There’s more to come but that’ll be next week.
Skate hard!
See ya next time when we meet along the boards.
Jasper Wheats
Sunday, August 19, 2007
NHL Expands
Can ya believe this shit?
The NHL is expanding again!
Per my local paper, the Daily Republic, I picked up this wee bit a data in their “Deals” report in the sports section of the August 17th, 2007 edition. This is the shit you guys: San Antonio and Hershey teams are now in the NHL. No bullshit -- it was right there in print.
I’m thinkin: What the fuck is Bettman up to now. I mean what the ba-dinky? Newspapers don’t feed ya lies do they? I mean my blog here is often times full a shit - but that’s cuz “I’m allowed!”. But don’t newspapers have to feed ya the straight shit? Ehh?
Screw Bettman - maybe this is a good deal. San Antonio in recent years has grown bigger then Dallas and Dallas has the Stars so why shouldn’t San Antone have a team. In my visits to the home of the Alamo over the years I’ve seen that they’ve had the Iguanas that were in the CHL and then there were the Dragons that were in the IHL. So why not now, shouldn’t San Antonio have the Rampage in the NHL instead of the AHL.
Can you imagine the excitement that journeyman tough guy, Pete Vandemeer, was feeling when he found out that he was joining the NHL’s new San Antonio team. That’s what the “Deals” blurb said right there with the another blurb that said left wing, Tanner Glass, agreed to terms with the Florida Panthers.
I’m telling ya those folks in Bexar County, Texas are in for some excitement with Vandemeer. He’s led three different leagues in penalty minutes over the last eleven years. In 1998/1999 he led the UHL with 390 minutes, in 1999/2000 he led the ECHL with 457 minutes and then in 2003/2004 he led the AHL with 398 penalty minutes. The dude plays some old time hockey, ehh? Like to see him and Sean Avery dance a bit wouldn’t ya guys?
The little spec of text about Hershey under the NHL heading stated that Grant Potulny was joining the Bears. I didn’t know much about Grant so I Googled him and found out that he’d gone the full term with the University of Minnesota and then did some time with the Binghamton Senators. Crap, he’s Senators’ property having been drafted by them in the fifth round of 2000.
Now I’m sure that everybody in Hershey, Pennsylvania was excited that the Bears were going NHL after fifty or sixty years, ehh.
But now I’m becoming a little leery of this shit I read. I’m thinking that Hershey really couldn’t support an NHL franchise. It’s definitely a great town for chocolate, yup. But the Bears have been associated with the Capitals lately. So what gives?
So I go back and Google Vandemeer too and low and behold I see that he’s been property of the Capitals.
Shit are the gears spinning in my head now! I’ve got to figure that this section of sports transactions listed in my local paper just might be a conspiracy coming out of Washington, DC. There’s just too much co-inky-dinky for it to be anything else. Those folks over there in our nation’s capital are so good at spinning the shit that this has got to be the case.
It’s got to be the case, ehh? I’m beginning to think that this is all a big fat lie. The Caps are just trying to stress out the upper management of all the other teams. The other NHL management, right, are now trying to figure out how to revise their schedules and make new hotel and flight arrangements to accommodate the coming changes? That shit can just really throw ya off your game, ya know. I've been there, done that.
Yeah, its gotta be a big spin by the Caps …..
..... Or was it just a stupid typo in my local paper?
The season’s coming soon and your summer leagues are winding down so skate hard my friends and walk with wood!
Stay tuned for next week’s pile a shit.
Catch ya in the corner!
Jasper
The NHL is expanding again!
Per my local paper, the Daily Republic, I picked up this wee bit a data in their “Deals” report in the sports section of the August 17th, 2007 edition. This is the shit you guys: San Antonio and Hershey teams are now in the NHL. No bullshit -- it was right there in print.
I’m thinkin: What the fuck is Bettman up to now. I mean what the ba-dinky? Newspapers don’t feed ya lies do they? I mean my blog here is often times full a shit - but that’s cuz “I’m allowed!”. But don’t newspapers have to feed ya the straight shit? Ehh?
Screw Bettman - maybe this is a good deal. San Antonio in recent years has grown bigger then Dallas and Dallas has the Stars so why shouldn’t San Antone have a team. In my visits to the home of the Alamo over the years I’ve seen that they’ve had the Iguanas that were in the CHL and then there were the Dragons that were in the IHL. So why not now, shouldn’t San Antonio have the Rampage in the NHL instead of the AHL.
Can you imagine the excitement that journeyman tough guy, Pete Vandemeer, was feeling when he found out that he was joining the NHL’s new San Antonio team. That’s what the “Deals” blurb said right there with the another blurb that said left wing, Tanner Glass, agreed to terms with the Florida Panthers.
I’m telling ya those folks in Bexar County, Texas are in for some excitement with Vandemeer. He’s led three different leagues in penalty minutes over the last eleven years. In 1998/1999 he led the UHL with 390 minutes, in 1999/2000 he led the ECHL with 457 minutes and then in 2003/2004 he led the AHL with 398 penalty minutes. The dude plays some old time hockey, ehh? Like to see him and Sean Avery dance a bit wouldn’t ya guys?
The little spec of text about Hershey under the NHL heading stated that Grant Potulny was joining the Bears. I didn’t know much about Grant so I Googled him and found out that he’d gone the full term with the University of Minnesota and then did some time with the Binghamton Senators. Crap, he’s Senators’ property having been drafted by them in the fifth round of 2000.
Now I’m sure that everybody in Hershey, Pennsylvania was excited that the Bears were going NHL after fifty or sixty years, ehh.
But now I’m becoming a little leery of this shit I read. I’m thinking that Hershey really couldn’t support an NHL franchise. It’s definitely a great town for chocolate, yup. But the Bears have been associated with the Capitals lately. So what gives?
So I go back and Google Vandemeer too and low and behold I see that he’s been property of the Capitals.
Shit are the gears spinning in my head now! I’ve got to figure that this section of sports transactions listed in my local paper just might be a conspiracy coming out of Washington, DC. There’s just too much co-inky-dinky for it to be anything else. Those folks over there in our nation’s capital are so good at spinning the shit that this has got to be the case.
It’s got to be the case, ehh? I’m beginning to think that this is all a big fat lie. The Caps are just trying to stress out the upper management of all the other teams. The other NHL management, right, are now trying to figure out how to revise their schedules and make new hotel and flight arrangements to accommodate the coming changes? That shit can just really throw ya off your game, ya know. I've been there, done that.
Yeah, its gotta be a big spin by the Caps …..
..... Or was it just a stupid typo in my local paper?
The season’s coming soon and your summer leagues are winding down so skate hard my friends and walk with wood!
Stay tuned for next week’s pile a shit.
Catch ya in the corner!
Jasper
Saturday, August 11, 2007
BLUEBERRIES
What a great time a the year, ehh guys ! ? ! ?
The end of summer is rapidly approaching and Bonds has now broken Aaron’s home run record. Makes me wonder how many more dingers he’s going to hit before he finally retires from the sport of baseball and the rumors and shit hangin over his head with the steroid fiasco. But what’s he going to do?
Damn, I’ll be glad when baseball season and playoffs are finally over cuz it means that we’ll have then started our season of hockey. Wooo - Wooo !!
Of course for all of you knuckleheads we’ll have the start of football season in there too. School starts up for a whole bunch a you guys too I guess. Oh, those were the days, huh? Hookin up with your buds and trashin on each other about what you didn’t do over the summer and a course givin a good look-see at the parade of the opposite sex material. Good shit all around, ehh!
Next weekend, in a little town in Maine, the folks there will be celebrating their Wild Blueberry Festival. I happened to read about it in the American Profile, a weekly publication delivered in my local newspaper. The town is named Machias and they have a blueberry pie-eating contest and other activities that draws about 20,000 people to the small community.
The town that I currently live in has their Tomato Festival this same weekend. Guess I’d rather be in Maine though. Nothin wrong with tomatoes I’m telling ya but I just love blueberries.
Maine’s got lobster’s too and I sure like them a lot, uh huh. And it’s usually got a fairly good hockey team, the Black Bears, that quite often makes the finals for NCAA Division 1 playoffs. Quality hustler and skater extreme, NHL’er Paul Kariya played for them, even though he wasn’t born and raised in Maine. As a matter of fact there have only been four NHL players that have been born in Maine.
For half the school year and most of the following summer of the fifth grade I spent in Maine. A little town down east called Damariscotta, it was. Shared the opposite side of the river, named the same, with another little village that goes by the name of Newcastle. The Damariscotta River at this point is a tidal river. At high tide it looks like a river and at low tide it looks like a creek running through a mud flat. When the tides coming in the river flows inland which surprised the living shit out a me one time.
We were friends with the Reed family. They owned the dry goods store in town and lived right on the river. Dad rented a cabin from them before we joined him and rented the Page house. Anyway it was a hot day and a couple of the Reed kids wanted to go swimming so I decided to join them in diving off their dock. I dove in and I swear the water felt like it was about only thirty-five fuckin degrees which was shock enough to take my breath away, but when I surfaced I was already about forty feet upstream from the dock and awfully stinkin disoriented. I just about didn’t have enough strength to swim back to the dock against the incoming current and I sure as shit wasn’t going to try to go to the rocky shore. Climbing through the shallower water, rocks and those scary horseshoe crabs wasn’t going to get it for me. Shit, I figured I was going to drown, there for a minute.
When we first moved up there it was winter. Supposedly one of the worst that they had in years. So at school at recess we went out in the playground and I learned how to play marbles on top of packed snow. Yeah, marbles you guys, weren’t no Game Boys back then. I don’t remember that there was any hockey in town either. Shit there might not be any yet. The grade school was Castner and our nickname was the Coasters. Would-a been a good name for a slacker hockey team, ehh?
I did play some baseball there though. One of my classmates thought I was a good pitcher so he talked the coach into letting me pitch one afternoon. After the coach relented he told us to go off to the side and warm up. So we did and the first pitch I nailed the coach in the back of the head. So much for getting a chance to pitch.
What else do I remember about Maine?
Damariscotta has the Chapman House that I used to walk beside when I went uptown (yeah they said "uptown" not "downtown") to the drugstore for an ice cream. Its about 250 years old and is of historical value. I always thought it was the home of “Johnny Appleseed“ Chapman, but I checked on it recently and discovered that it was built by and lived in by Nathaniel Chapman, one of his relatives.
We drove somewhere once to see the total eclipse of the sun because it wasn’t "total" right in Damariscotta. We got to an old fort or something and the damn place was pretty much clouded over. Didn’t get to see much of anything. It was the shits! But that’s what ya did back then. If ya were kind of a techie like Dad then ya were into telescopes and outer-space shit. There weren’t any computers to fart around on and TV was only what ya could pick up with an antenna.
Newcastle, across the river, had an author, Mary C. Jane (maryjane???), that wrote kids’ mysteries that I had read much of before we moved to Maine. I hoped that I would run into her sometime and tell her that I liked her stories. Never did. I often times think that Stephen King must have read her stories as a kid too. Besides being scary-good they had some similar subject titles as King’s work; like “The Dark Tower Mystery (1966). I don’t know, but I’d like to meet Mr. King, too, and ask him about that.
Fifth grade at Castner still had cursive writing class and I’ll be damned if the bitch instructor wouldn’t rap your knuckles with a wooden ruler if ya talked or messed up. And we had French classes - that - I thought was pretty cool for fifth grade.
During the winter we could leave our free lunch milk out in the snow to keep cold or we could choose chocolate milk and take it inside and put it on the heating register ending up with hot chocolate for lunch. Mmmmnnn - not bad!
I got my first dog while we lived in Maine. She was a lab/golden mix and we named her George. Though I’ve got a shit load of siblings, George was mine to feed and clean up after. She used to leave little pretzel shaped turds behind the stove that I had to fuckin clean up. Yeah that’s the shits. Later when we had to move out of the Page house at the end of the school year and had moved into a guest house at a tourist farm, she’d break her choke chain to get into the lake when we’d take her along for our summer swims. She just loved water. Yup! Taught Jingles how to jump two feet flat right into fresh cow patties on those jaunts down to the lake, too. Caught hell for that exercise.
That was a great place, that farm. They had a bunk house above the barn that would sleep about sixteen. I always wanted to sleep up there but the folks never let me. I got to help gather hay and did some other odd chores. Got to see the farmer get his hair cut by his wife with hand shears (not scissors) with a damn bowl over his head. No shit - it cracked me up even then. We had raccoons that raided our trash and Dad shot woodchucks that he’d see on his way to work down closer to Pemaquid Point.
I’d look for blueberries out there on that farm, but never found any. I found some wild strawberries, really small suckers, but nope, no blueberries.
Now Nova Scotia’s got some blueberries, guys! Seems as though they got them like that town from the newspaper story.
Again due to Dad’s work we were in the coastal northeast. This had been a few years earlier then the time in Maine. We lived outside of Shelburne on a farm that we rented from the MaHaneys. This farm had been their grandparents or something and they lived on the farm right next to us. It was right on Shelburne Harbor where lobstering was pretty big. Once in while we would hear about someone from town whose boat had been swamped.
This place was pretty remote. We had electricity for lighting and such and had a phone that was on a party line. Don’t know what that is do ya? Just know how to text and shit on your cell phone, ehh? Well a party line means that several farms are on the same phone line and you had to pay attention to the ring sequence to determine the call was for your place. For instance: two short rings and one long ring might be for your place and two shorts and three longs might be for a neighbor. No ring tones here you guys.
Lets’ see, what else?
We didn’t have indoor plumbing until Dad fixed the hand pump at the sink in the kitchen. The hand pump above the well outside worked all the time but like the one inside you had to remember to prime it once in a while or all it did was draw air. So that meant we didn’t have an indoor toilet either but we had a double seat outhouse at the end of the driveway that was full of daddy long legs. No point in spending much time in that shanty. Same for no bathtub or tank type water heater. Took a bath in a big galvanized wash tub and the water got heated on the stove or with a submersible electric unit. Yeah and the stove was this big black cast iron wood burning baby. No electric or gas range gas and no fuckin microwave guys.
There were some woods between the house and the main dirt road that was about a quarter a mile away. I remember one time in the evening after coming back from town that we had to stop to let a freakin porcupine cross the drive way.
A lot of deer on the property too. Pretty wild and remote. I loved every bit of it though. Once in a while I’ll smell the combination of the scent of live cedar with ocean odors and it takes me right back there again!
I don’t remember much about Shelburne, the town, except that the grocery store sold peanut butter in colored plastic pails and that they had a place to get chocolate ice cream cones. Didn’t go to school there cuz we were just there for the summer.
I guess that was good that I didn’t. Later while playing senior hockey I got talking in the bar with Eddie, a guy from the opposing team. In the course of the bull shit he said that he was from Nova Scotia. So I told him that I had spent a summer in Shelburne. He raised one eyebrow and asked me what kind a shit I’d gotten into. I didn’t quite understand, but he explained that Shelburne had one of Nova Scotia’s boys reformatories - Shelburne School for Boys. Yeah, I was a good kid, unless ya talked to my ma - she always threatened to send me away to reform school.
Cuz it was summer, I didn’t see any hockey while we were in Nova Scotia either. But shit for sure they’ve got some, ehh? Almost sixty of the boys from this Maritime Province have made it to the NHL. Most current fan favorite from here is Sydney Crosby who was born in Cole Harbor. I don’t think anybody uses a picture of him as their background on their home page. LOL !!! We all know that Crosby’s walking wood. A couple a other guys from Nova Scotia that you’ll recognize by name are Al MacInnis and Glenn Murray. Big guns themselves, ehh?
One time I was climbing on a rock fence that divided our farm from the vacant one next to us and I discovered this thorny plant with grape like fruit. Sour as shit with a little prickly end on them. I took some back to mom and she said that they were gooseberries and that I should go get some more for a pie. I did, she baked it up and it was a damn good pie - kinda like rhubarb. Bring it on!
The folks coulda bought that vacant farm for about $4,000 back then. I sure wish they would have.
So now your sayin “Jasper, what about the freakin Nova Scotia blueberries, ehh?”
Yeah, right. The side of the house away from the road sloped on down to the ocean. A railroad tracks ran through this area running parallel to the shore line. There wasn’t really a beach, not much sand, mostly rocks. And there were washed up ugly eight to twelve inch diameter yellowish jelly fish drying out in the rocks. Nasty suckers they were. Before we got to stay on the farm we stayed in a cabin tent at a campground on the shore. It had a diving dock and one evening some guy dove face-first into one of these burning sensations. You could hear him screaming for about and hour or so that night. Yikes!
So it was nice slope down to the ocean that a couple of cows pastured in sometimes. This whole area was filled with scrubby little wild blueberry plants. I don’t remember if they flowered or anything - just too stupid for that shit - but we picked a hell of a mess of blueberries. Everyday! Remember those plastic pails I was telling ya about that the peanut butter came in? Well we filled a couple of those up and that was enough for a pie. In that one summer, Mom made almost thirty blueberry pies from the berries that us kids picked. But ya gotta remember that everyone of those pies that we ate, Mom had baked in that wood burning stove. And I’ll be damned if I know a women now that could do that.
I never got sick of blueberry pie. It’s still one of my favorites - probably equal to rhubarb - and every time I have some it makes me think of Nova Scotia - not Maine. Any of you honeys or chefs out there want to bake me up one then just email me and I’ll be there in a New York minute. Make sure ya got some vanilla ice cream to top it off, ehh. Best when its warm, you guys!
Either place - Maine or Nova Scotia - are great! I wouldn’t mind retiring in either one. And they both kick out some great hockey not to mention great blueberries.
Guess I’m getting fat on my memories.
Jasper Wheats here, just blueberried out.
Until next time, skate hard!
The end of summer is rapidly approaching and Bonds has now broken Aaron’s home run record. Makes me wonder how many more dingers he’s going to hit before he finally retires from the sport of baseball and the rumors and shit hangin over his head with the steroid fiasco. But what’s he going to do?
Damn, I’ll be glad when baseball season and playoffs are finally over cuz it means that we’ll have then started our season of hockey. Wooo - Wooo !!
Of course for all of you knuckleheads we’ll have the start of football season in there too. School starts up for a whole bunch a you guys too I guess. Oh, those were the days, huh? Hookin up with your buds and trashin on each other about what you didn’t do over the summer and a course givin a good look-see at the parade of the opposite sex material. Good shit all around, ehh!
Next weekend, in a little town in Maine, the folks there will be celebrating their Wild Blueberry Festival. I happened to read about it in the American Profile, a weekly publication delivered in my local newspaper. The town is named Machias and they have a blueberry pie-eating contest and other activities that draws about 20,000 people to the small community.
The town that I currently live in has their Tomato Festival this same weekend. Guess I’d rather be in Maine though. Nothin wrong with tomatoes I’m telling ya but I just love blueberries.
Maine’s got lobster’s too and I sure like them a lot, uh huh. And it’s usually got a fairly good hockey team, the Black Bears, that quite often makes the finals for NCAA Division 1 playoffs. Quality hustler and skater extreme, NHL’er Paul Kariya played for them, even though he wasn’t born and raised in Maine. As a matter of fact there have only been four NHL players that have been born in Maine.
For half the school year and most of the following summer of the fifth grade I spent in Maine. A little town down east called Damariscotta, it was. Shared the opposite side of the river, named the same, with another little village that goes by the name of Newcastle. The Damariscotta River at this point is a tidal river. At high tide it looks like a river and at low tide it looks like a creek running through a mud flat. When the tides coming in the river flows inland which surprised the living shit out a me one time.
We were friends with the Reed family. They owned the dry goods store in town and lived right on the river. Dad rented a cabin from them before we joined him and rented the Page house. Anyway it was a hot day and a couple of the Reed kids wanted to go swimming so I decided to join them in diving off their dock. I dove in and I swear the water felt like it was about only thirty-five fuckin degrees which was shock enough to take my breath away, but when I surfaced I was already about forty feet upstream from the dock and awfully stinkin disoriented. I just about didn’t have enough strength to swim back to the dock against the incoming current and I sure as shit wasn’t going to try to go to the rocky shore. Climbing through the shallower water, rocks and those scary horseshoe crabs wasn’t going to get it for me. Shit, I figured I was going to drown, there for a minute.
When we first moved up there it was winter. Supposedly one of the worst that they had in years. So at school at recess we went out in the playground and I learned how to play marbles on top of packed snow. Yeah, marbles you guys, weren’t no Game Boys back then. I don’t remember that there was any hockey in town either. Shit there might not be any yet. The grade school was Castner and our nickname was the Coasters. Would-a been a good name for a slacker hockey team, ehh?
I did play some baseball there though. One of my classmates thought I was a good pitcher so he talked the coach into letting me pitch one afternoon. After the coach relented he told us to go off to the side and warm up. So we did and the first pitch I nailed the coach in the back of the head. So much for getting a chance to pitch.
What else do I remember about Maine?
Damariscotta has the Chapman House that I used to walk beside when I went uptown (yeah they said "uptown" not "downtown") to the drugstore for an ice cream. Its about 250 years old and is of historical value. I always thought it was the home of “Johnny Appleseed“ Chapman, but I checked on it recently and discovered that it was built by and lived in by Nathaniel Chapman, one of his relatives.
We drove somewhere once to see the total eclipse of the sun because it wasn’t "total" right in Damariscotta. We got to an old fort or something and the damn place was pretty much clouded over. Didn’t get to see much of anything. It was the shits! But that’s what ya did back then. If ya were kind of a techie like Dad then ya were into telescopes and outer-space shit. There weren’t any computers to fart around on and TV was only what ya could pick up with an antenna.
Newcastle, across the river, had an author, Mary C. Jane (maryjane???), that wrote kids’ mysteries that I had read much of before we moved to Maine. I hoped that I would run into her sometime and tell her that I liked her stories. Never did. I often times think that Stephen King must have read her stories as a kid too. Besides being scary-good they had some similar subject titles as King’s work; like “The Dark Tower Mystery (1966). I don’t know, but I’d like to meet Mr. King, too, and ask him about that.
Fifth grade at Castner still had cursive writing class and I’ll be damned if the bitch instructor wouldn’t rap your knuckles with a wooden ruler if ya talked or messed up. And we had French classes - that - I thought was pretty cool for fifth grade.
During the winter we could leave our free lunch milk out in the snow to keep cold or we could choose chocolate milk and take it inside and put it on the heating register ending up with hot chocolate for lunch. Mmmmnnn - not bad!
I got my first dog while we lived in Maine. She was a lab/golden mix and we named her George. Though I’ve got a shit load of siblings, George was mine to feed and clean up after. She used to leave little pretzel shaped turds behind the stove that I had to fuckin clean up. Yeah that’s the shits. Later when we had to move out of the Page house at the end of the school year and had moved into a guest house at a tourist farm, she’d break her choke chain to get into the lake when we’d take her along for our summer swims. She just loved water. Yup! Taught Jingles how to jump two feet flat right into fresh cow patties on those jaunts down to the lake, too. Caught hell for that exercise.
That was a great place, that farm. They had a bunk house above the barn that would sleep about sixteen. I always wanted to sleep up there but the folks never let me. I got to help gather hay and did some other odd chores. Got to see the farmer get his hair cut by his wife with hand shears (not scissors) with a damn bowl over his head. No shit - it cracked me up even then. We had raccoons that raided our trash and Dad shot woodchucks that he’d see on his way to work down closer to Pemaquid Point.
I’d look for blueberries out there on that farm, but never found any. I found some wild strawberries, really small suckers, but nope, no blueberries.
Now Nova Scotia’s got some blueberries, guys! Seems as though they got them like that town from the newspaper story.
Again due to Dad’s work we were in the coastal northeast. This had been a few years earlier then the time in Maine. We lived outside of Shelburne on a farm that we rented from the MaHaneys. This farm had been their grandparents or something and they lived on the farm right next to us. It was right on Shelburne Harbor where lobstering was pretty big. Once in while we would hear about someone from town whose boat had been swamped.
This place was pretty remote. We had electricity for lighting and such and had a phone that was on a party line. Don’t know what that is do ya? Just know how to text and shit on your cell phone, ehh? Well a party line means that several farms are on the same phone line and you had to pay attention to the ring sequence to determine the call was for your place. For instance: two short rings and one long ring might be for your place and two shorts and three longs might be for a neighbor. No ring tones here you guys.
Lets’ see, what else?
We didn’t have indoor plumbing until Dad fixed the hand pump at the sink in the kitchen. The hand pump above the well outside worked all the time but like the one inside you had to remember to prime it once in a while or all it did was draw air. So that meant we didn’t have an indoor toilet either but we had a double seat outhouse at the end of the driveway that was full of daddy long legs. No point in spending much time in that shanty. Same for no bathtub or tank type water heater. Took a bath in a big galvanized wash tub and the water got heated on the stove or with a submersible electric unit. Yeah and the stove was this big black cast iron wood burning baby. No electric or gas range gas and no fuckin microwave guys.
There were some woods between the house and the main dirt road that was about a quarter a mile away. I remember one time in the evening after coming back from town that we had to stop to let a freakin porcupine cross the drive way.
A lot of deer on the property too. Pretty wild and remote. I loved every bit of it though. Once in a while I’ll smell the combination of the scent of live cedar with ocean odors and it takes me right back there again!
I don’t remember much about Shelburne, the town, except that the grocery store sold peanut butter in colored plastic pails and that they had a place to get chocolate ice cream cones. Didn’t go to school there cuz we were just there for the summer.
I guess that was good that I didn’t. Later while playing senior hockey I got talking in the bar with Eddie, a guy from the opposing team. In the course of the bull shit he said that he was from Nova Scotia. So I told him that I had spent a summer in Shelburne. He raised one eyebrow and asked me what kind a shit I’d gotten into. I didn’t quite understand, but he explained that Shelburne had one of Nova Scotia’s boys reformatories - Shelburne School for Boys. Yeah, I was a good kid, unless ya talked to my ma - she always threatened to send me away to reform school.
Cuz it was summer, I didn’t see any hockey while we were in Nova Scotia either. But shit for sure they’ve got some, ehh? Almost sixty of the boys from this Maritime Province have made it to the NHL. Most current fan favorite from here is Sydney Crosby who was born in Cole Harbor. I don’t think anybody uses a picture of him as their background on their home page. LOL !!! We all know that Crosby’s walking wood. A couple a other guys from Nova Scotia that you’ll recognize by name are Al MacInnis and Glenn Murray. Big guns themselves, ehh?
One time I was climbing on a rock fence that divided our farm from the vacant one next to us and I discovered this thorny plant with grape like fruit. Sour as shit with a little prickly end on them. I took some back to mom and she said that they were gooseberries and that I should go get some more for a pie. I did, she baked it up and it was a damn good pie - kinda like rhubarb. Bring it on!
The folks coulda bought that vacant farm for about $4,000 back then. I sure wish they would have.
So now your sayin “Jasper, what about the freakin Nova Scotia blueberries, ehh?”
Yeah, right. The side of the house away from the road sloped on down to the ocean. A railroad tracks ran through this area running parallel to the shore line. There wasn’t really a beach, not much sand, mostly rocks. And there were washed up ugly eight to twelve inch diameter yellowish jelly fish drying out in the rocks. Nasty suckers they were. Before we got to stay on the farm we stayed in a cabin tent at a campground on the shore. It had a diving dock and one evening some guy dove face-first into one of these burning sensations. You could hear him screaming for about and hour or so that night. Yikes!
So it was nice slope down to the ocean that a couple of cows pastured in sometimes. This whole area was filled with scrubby little wild blueberry plants. I don’t remember if they flowered or anything - just too stupid for that shit - but we picked a hell of a mess of blueberries. Everyday! Remember those plastic pails I was telling ya about that the peanut butter came in? Well we filled a couple of those up and that was enough for a pie. In that one summer, Mom made almost thirty blueberry pies from the berries that us kids picked. But ya gotta remember that everyone of those pies that we ate, Mom had baked in that wood burning stove. And I’ll be damned if I know a women now that could do that.
I never got sick of blueberry pie. It’s still one of my favorites - probably equal to rhubarb - and every time I have some it makes me think of Nova Scotia - not Maine. Any of you honeys or chefs out there want to bake me up one then just email me and I’ll be there in a New York minute. Make sure ya got some vanilla ice cream to top it off, ehh. Best when its warm, you guys!
Either place - Maine or Nova Scotia - are great! I wouldn’t mind retiring in either one. And they both kick out some great hockey not to mention great blueberries.
Guess I’m getting fat on my memories.
Jasper Wheats here, just blueberried out.
Until next time, skate hard!
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Agitator Status
This week has been especially good. I accepted a job offer and start a new position on Tuesday, August 7th. Last week’s blog story Durty Deeds (dun durt cheap) was especially good so I chuckled about that all week long. The honey’s sister’s bird went back home so the cabin was quiet again. Went to a concert in the park Friday night and a small beer fest/microbrew tasting event Saturday.
Now buds … I mean … let me tell you guys … that beer fest was a good event. For twelve bucks you got a commemorative glass and eight tickets for samples. And damn if they weren’t drawing full twelve ouncers. Got a good buzz! Favor the ambers myself - good stuff! And the whole while that me and the honey were there we listened to live bands - first a nice little jazz gang then some boys playing some good blusey rock. Wooot - Wooot !!
So how the hell was your week, you guys? Kick some shit? Chill with the guys or gals? Snake a little ass? Hope it was good for all a ya.
Anybody payin any attention to the trades and contract offers going on in the NHL? Ehh? There’s a lot a shit going on and by that I mean a lot a controversy.
Teams are scramblin to get their key guys resigned again - or not. They’re getting draft picks under contract and dosing the dudes that have hit the free agent market. It’s all interesting and adds to compassion that we have for this sport and our favorite teams.
You guys, know that I’m a die-hard LA Kings fan, right? Recently, they really suck but I still gotta love em, ehh? My own opinion, over the years, all-in-all, they don’t know jackshit about building a team or how to maintain it once they have something good. In particular I wanta go back to February before the playoffs started.
As usual the Kings weren’t a contender for the playoffs. And they did what so many hack teams do - they traded away players to teams that were going into the second season. Some of these players that vanish have been stalwarts and others may not have been - just journeymen grinders. But what really pisses me off is when they dump fan favorites. Sure, sometimes it’s good for the player, cuz he might end up finally gettin his name scribed on the Stanley Cup. Talk to any Bruins fan about that issue, ehh.
But wtf makes a fan favorite? Being a super star, helps. Being beefcake, hunk material helps. Being charitable and able to handle the media helps too.
Well, cuz I’m a fan of old time hockey (yeah I even advertise that shit wearin an NHL hat and hero’s jacket that sports that trademarked phrase) - blood and guts, bench clearing brawls, the whole fuckin shebang - I think the guy that acquires team agitator status is a fan favorite. Shit, from my point of view, he just might be “the fan favorite.” Who gets your team pumped up? Who rallies the fans into a screamin bunch of idiots? Who throws the opposing team off of their pace? Who do the opposing fans just hate? The agitator!
The Kings traded their agitator, Sean Avery, to the Rangers on February 5, 2007. I loved the guy. Hated him when he played for Detroit. Gonna hate him again if the Kings get a chance to play the Rangers this year. But what did he do after the trade?
Became a Ranger fuckin fan favorite, that’s what he did. And we all know that Ranger fans are old time hockey fans. Ehh? Some of his Ranger teammates say he was their post season catalyst. The sportscasters during the playoffs mentioned him almost every shift that he was on the ice. The little pain in the butt Avery was some kinda attention getter for fans and players alike.
But Sean Avery is not just a pain in the ass, he can play the game too. Ranger fans got to see that early on. He had a four point game on St. Patty’s Day against the Bruins and had a Gordie Howe hat trick (goal, assist and fight) on April Fools Day against the Leafs. That’s some good shit, ehh, you guys! This guy is walking with wood and I think he probably was from day one. He popped outta his momma’s womb back on April 10, 1980 sportin a stiff one I’m sure.
This past week Sean and the Rangers went to arbitration. Avery wanted $2.6 million and the Rangers only offered $1.3 million. The arbitrators split the diff and awarded him $1.9 million for the coming season. Nice jump of $800,000, over the contract he brought over from the Kings, for a guy that got eighteen goals and thirty assists combined for both teams last year. Noted, he had much fewer penalty minutes last year (only 174) compared to his two previous seasons but still enough to show his worth. Ranger management tried to weaken his worth by saying that he’s both a benefit and a detriment to the team. WTF????
Just look at your bottom line buck-o’s - how many Ranger fans are going to be wearing Avery jerseys this season, ehh?
But what makes a player an agitator? Well, this is key, he’s got to get in the face of the other team. He’s got a be talkin some shit down there on the ice. And not backin down too often. Take the other team off their game and sending some guys to the box. I think that’s why Sean’s penalty minutes were lower this year. He’s matured in technique. Previously he carried his agitation a little too far and ended up going to the sin bin himself. This past season, many times I saw him push until the opponent drew a penalty and then he’d just get back into the flow of the play instead of retaliating. Smart shit, that is.
My younger brother, Jingles, can play a good agitator. He’ll get in your face, smilin all the time, and take you out. I remember watching one game when he was playing juniors where his coach sent him out to take a certain opposing player off the ice. Jingles went out in that one shift and took not only the specified player out with a penalty but a second one too and did it without even drawing an infraction himself. That’s some shit! Hell, in a recent game, he told me that some guy had parked in the slot and wouldn’t budge. So ticked off and protective of his goalie he just picked the guy up by his upper arms and moved him outta the way - with that shit eatin grin and all. Got a holding penalty, but wtf, stirred up the other team a mess a horse shit for sure.
So the agitator is gettin in your face and talkin shit. He’s talkin about your momma, your wife, your girlfriend, your sister and even your ancestry. Hell, your anatomy sure the shit isn’t safe from comment either. He’s calling you an asshole, craky, nigga, fuckface. He’s commenting on your hockey skills and the fag color of your team’s jersey. He’s not being delicate having a parlor discussion with you. While he’s gettin his elbows up in the corner he’s being as damn derogatory has he can be. And at faceoffs he’s slappin your ankles and whisperin sweet nothings in your ear. He’s playing dirty and he’s playing mind games. The fans see the outcome but don’t know the reality.
They love it.
Sean Avery, we know, does it all. Truth or false, he got fined about a thousand bucks for calling Georges Laraque a monkey. My opinion, that’s lightweight verbalization - not worth the money nor the press. It’s just part a the game and part a the job. Penalty minutes, he’s had his share. Over 322 NHL regular season games he’s had 913 penalty minutes. Being a statistical sort a guy that I am, that works out to around 2.84 penalty minutes per game. How’s that rate compared to others?
Tie Domi, another guy that I loved to hate, had an average of about 3.45 penalty minutes per game. But he couldn’t put up the goals and assists like Avery can.
Here’s a little list of the lifetime NHL regular season stats of some other former LA Kings. Some you’d call agitators and some you’d call enforcers. But take a look and see how Sean compares.
Gerry “King” Korab - 1.67 penalty minutes per game
Ian Laperriere - 1.74 penalty minutes per game
Tony Granato - 1.84 penalty minutes per game
Rick Tocchet - 2.60 penalty minutes per game
Larry Playfair - 2.63 penalty minutes per game
Dave Hutchinson - 2.65 penalty minutes per game
Sean Avery - 2.84 penalty minutes per game
Stu Grimsom - 2.90 penalty minutes per game
Kenny Baumgartner - 3.35 penalty minutes per game
Warren Rychel - 3.50 penalty minutes per game
Marty McSorly - 3.52 penalty minutes per game
Dave “Tiger” Williams - 4.12 penalty minutes per game
Dave Schultz - 4.29 penalty minutes per game
So you can see, Avery, fits in there pretty good with some of the heavy weights from around the league over the years and is out penalized compared to the guys that I remember as being real agitators while with the Kings, like Granato, Tocchet and Laperrier.
Take a look a Avery, he’s not all that big. He lists out at 5’-9” and 185 pounds. He’s not the most handsome dude, looks more like a boxer then anything. But he’s been rumored to have chilled with some babes in his day. Take Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart’s former flame, that he hung with for about a year. Back in the day, she was always one of my favorite Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit models. So he hangs pretty good off the ice too.
Is he getting the credit that he’s due? Is he being allowed to play up to his potential? I think not on both counts. He wasn’t even originally selected in an NHL entry draft. During the lockout season he ended up playing for the Motor City Mechanics along with Chelios and several other NHLers. He’s the only player in their history to record two hat tricks in one season and he did that over less than twenty games played. I think that he’s got waaaaay more potential then what we’ve seen. But I think that the Rangers and any of his future teams will continue to utilize him as an agitator. He’s become extremely skilled at this and few players in the league can compare. In a recent poll, of a big chunk of the current NHL players, about two-thirds of them have ranked him as the most hated player in the league.
The Ranger fans will give him the credit and appreciation that he’s due!
Sean Avery, of Pickery, Ontario, Canada, has attained agitator status! He walks with wood.
Me, I’m just a has been. I’m your favorite old fart hockey humorist taking a look this week at a part of hockey that inspires the sport. Let those from the NHL governing body never take the spirit of the game away! Long live those that love the old time hockey.
Until next time, this is Jasper Wheats, over and out.
Skate hard !
Now buds … I mean … let me tell you guys … that beer fest was a good event. For twelve bucks you got a commemorative glass and eight tickets for samples. And damn if they weren’t drawing full twelve ouncers. Got a good buzz! Favor the ambers myself - good stuff! And the whole while that me and the honey were there we listened to live bands - first a nice little jazz gang then some boys playing some good blusey rock. Wooot - Wooot !!
So how the hell was your week, you guys? Kick some shit? Chill with the guys or gals? Snake a little ass? Hope it was good for all a ya.
Anybody payin any attention to the trades and contract offers going on in the NHL? Ehh? There’s a lot a shit going on and by that I mean a lot a controversy.
Teams are scramblin to get their key guys resigned again - or not. They’re getting draft picks under contract and dosing the dudes that have hit the free agent market. It’s all interesting and adds to compassion that we have for this sport and our favorite teams.
You guys, know that I’m a die-hard LA Kings fan, right? Recently, they really suck but I still gotta love em, ehh? My own opinion, over the years, all-in-all, they don’t know jackshit about building a team or how to maintain it once they have something good. In particular I wanta go back to February before the playoffs started.
As usual the Kings weren’t a contender for the playoffs. And they did what so many hack teams do - they traded away players to teams that were going into the second season. Some of these players that vanish have been stalwarts and others may not have been - just journeymen grinders. But what really pisses me off is when they dump fan favorites. Sure, sometimes it’s good for the player, cuz he might end up finally gettin his name scribed on the Stanley Cup. Talk to any Bruins fan about that issue, ehh.
But wtf makes a fan favorite? Being a super star, helps. Being beefcake, hunk material helps. Being charitable and able to handle the media helps too.
Well, cuz I’m a fan of old time hockey (yeah I even advertise that shit wearin an NHL hat and hero’s jacket that sports that trademarked phrase) - blood and guts, bench clearing brawls, the whole fuckin shebang - I think the guy that acquires team agitator status is a fan favorite. Shit, from my point of view, he just might be “the fan favorite.” Who gets your team pumped up? Who rallies the fans into a screamin bunch of idiots? Who throws the opposing team off of their pace? Who do the opposing fans just hate? The agitator!
The Kings traded their agitator, Sean Avery, to the Rangers on February 5, 2007. I loved the guy. Hated him when he played for Detroit. Gonna hate him again if the Kings get a chance to play the Rangers this year. But what did he do after the trade?
Became a Ranger fuckin fan favorite, that’s what he did. And we all know that Ranger fans are old time hockey fans. Ehh? Some of his Ranger teammates say he was their post season catalyst. The sportscasters during the playoffs mentioned him almost every shift that he was on the ice. The little pain in the butt Avery was some kinda attention getter for fans and players alike.
But Sean Avery is not just a pain in the ass, he can play the game too. Ranger fans got to see that early on. He had a four point game on St. Patty’s Day against the Bruins and had a Gordie Howe hat trick (goal, assist and fight) on April Fools Day against the Leafs. That’s some good shit, ehh, you guys! This guy is walking with wood and I think he probably was from day one. He popped outta his momma’s womb back on April 10, 1980 sportin a stiff one I’m sure.
This past week Sean and the Rangers went to arbitration. Avery wanted $2.6 million and the Rangers only offered $1.3 million. The arbitrators split the diff and awarded him $1.9 million for the coming season. Nice jump of $800,000, over the contract he brought over from the Kings, for a guy that got eighteen goals and thirty assists combined for both teams last year. Noted, he had much fewer penalty minutes last year (only 174) compared to his two previous seasons but still enough to show his worth. Ranger management tried to weaken his worth by saying that he’s both a benefit and a detriment to the team. WTF????
Just look at your bottom line buck-o’s - how many Ranger fans are going to be wearing Avery jerseys this season, ehh?
But what makes a player an agitator? Well, this is key, he’s got to get in the face of the other team. He’s got a be talkin some shit down there on the ice. And not backin down too often. Take the other team off their game and sending some guys to the box. I think that’s why Sean’s penalty minutes were lower this year. He’s matured in technique. Previously he carried his agitation a little too far and ended up going to the sin bin himself. This past season, many times I saw him push until the opponent drew a penalty and then he’d just get back into the flow of the play instead of retaliating. Smart shit, that is.
My younger brother, Jingles, can play a good agitator. He’ll get in your face, smilin all the time, and take you out. I remember watching one game when he was playing juniors where his coach sent him out to take a certain opposing player off the ice. Jingles went out in that one shift and took not only the specified player out with a penalty but a second one too and did it without even drawing an infraction himself. That’s some shit! Hell, in a recent game, he told me that some guy had parked in the slot and wouldn’t budge. So ticked off and protective of his goalie he just picked the guy up by his upper arms and moved him outta the way - with that shit eatin grin and all. Got a holding penalty, but wtf, stirred up the other team a mess a horse shit for sure.
So the agitator is gettin in your face and talkin shit. He’s talkin about your momma, your wife, your girlfriend, your sister and even your ancestry. Hell, your anatomy sure the shit isn’t safe from comment either. He’s calling you an asshole, craky, nigga, fuckface. He’s commenting on your hockey skills and the fag color of your team’s jersey. He’s not being delicate having a parlor discussion with you. While he’s gettin his elbows up in the corner he’s being as damn derogatory has he can be. And at faceoffs he’s slappin your ankles and whisperin sweet nothings in your ear. He’s playing dirty and he’s playing mind games. The fans see the outcome but don’t know the reality.
They love it.
Sean Avery, we know, does it all. Truth or false, he got fined about a thousand bucks for calling Georges Laraque a monkey. My opinion, that’s lightweight verbalization - not worth the money nor the press. It’s just part a the game and part a the job. Penalty minutes, he’s had his share. Over 322 NHL regular season games he’s had 913 penalty minutes. Being a statistical sort a guy that I am, that works out to around 2.84 penalty minutes per game. How’s that rate compared to others?
Tie Domi, another guy that I loved to hate, had an average of about 3.45 penalty minutes per game. But he couldn’t put up the goals and assists like Avery can.
Here’s a little list of the lifetime NHL regular season stats of some other former LA Kings. Some you’d call agitators and some you’d call enforcers. But take a look and see how Sean compares.
Gerry “King” Korab - 1.67 penalty minutes per game
Ian Laperriere - 1.74 penalty minutes per game
Tony Granato - 1.84 penalty minutes per game
Rick Tocchet - 2.60 penalty minutes per game
Larry Playfair - 2.63 penalty minutes per game
Dave Hutchinson - 2.65 penalty minutes per game
Sean Avery - 2.84 penalty minutes per game
Stu Grimsom - 2.90 penalty minutes per game
Kenny Baumgartner - 3.35 penalty minutes per game
Warren Rychel - 3.50 penalty minutes per game
Marty McSorly - 3.52 penalty minutes per game
Dave “Tiger” Williams - 4.12 penalty minutes per game
Dave Schultz - 4.29 penalty minutes per game
So you can see, Avery, fits in there pretty good with some of the heavy weights from around the league over the years and is out penalized compared to the guys that I remember as being real agitators while with the Kings, like Granato, Tocchet and Laperrier.
Take a look a Avery, he’s not all that big. He lists out at 5’-9” and 185 pounds. He’s not the most handsome dude, looks more like a boxer then anything. But he’s been rumored to have chilled with some babes in his day. Take Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart’s former flame, that he hung with for about a year. Back in the day, she was always one of my favorite Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit models. So he hangs pretty good off the ice too.
Is he getting the credit that he’s due? Is he being allowed to play up to his potential? I think not on both counts. He wasn’t even originally selected in an NHL entry draft. During the lockout season he ended up playing for the Motor City Mechanics along with Chelios and several other NHLers. He’s the only player in their history to record two hat tricks in one season and he did that over less than twenty games played. I think that he’s got waaaaay more potential then what we’ve seen. But I think that the Rangers and any of his future teams will continue to utilize him as an agitator. He’s become extremely skilled at this and few players in the league can compare. In a recent poll, of a big chunk of the current NHL players, about two-thirds of them have ranked him as the most hated player in the league.
The Ranger fans will give him the credit and appreciation that he’s due!
Sean Avery, of Pickery, Ontario, Canada, has attained agitator status! He walks with wood.
Me, I’m just a has been. I’m your favorite old fart hockey humorist taking a look this week at a part of hockey that inspires the sport. Let those from the NHL governing body never take the spirit of the game away! Long live those that love the old time hockey.
Until next time, this is Jasper Wheats, over and out.
Skate hard !
Sunday, July 29, 2007
DURTY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP
Gosh, guys its been a really fun week. As much as I love hockey season, I can’t really disagree too much with the advantages of the summer season.
I’ve been thinking for a while that I might try to buy a little place in northeastern Minnesota that I could use later after I retire to spend my springs, summers, and falls. I figure that it could be a pretty damn nice place to invite my hockey buds where we could spend some time fishin, huntin, feedin the skeeters and all the usual bullshit that goes along with those activities. Sorry guys but I’m tellin ya my arthritis in my right shoulder is gettin so bad that I figure I’m gonna be turnin into one a them snowbirds by then and will probably have to winter somewhere down in Mexico.
I did some real estate investigatin and made some appointments for last Saturday and Monday.
I flew into the Twin Cities and then got a little shuttle fight up to Duluth and rented a car there.
In my younger days I had done a six day canoe trip in Boundary Waters out of Ely and this part of the world, I’m telling you guys, is civilized enough to get brews when ya need them but wild enough to avoid your neighbors if ya have too. You guys know what I’m talking about, ehh?
I made my base camp for the trip at the Cascade Lodge and Restaurant in Grand Marais. Stayed in room 5A of their motel up the hill into the trees a bit where the parking was close. Unfortunately the walls were thin and I could hear the shabanging during the nights from the room next door. Aw hell, the price was right and I got a forty dollar discount for the four night stay that I had arranged. That was enough for beer money I figured for a couple a the nights.
The place is right on Highway 61 (Hey you guys, Bob Dylan made this highway famous before most a ya were born.) with Lake Superior on the other side of the road. It’s got a decent enough little restaurant that’s open from 8:00 am ‘til about 8:30 pm where you can get beer and wine with your dinner.
I went out Saturday and covered a couple a hundred miles looking at some places; hoping that they had access to a stream or other body of water. Not bad. They call this area round about here the Iron Range, so its hills and low mountains and such are home to some of the taconite (iron ore) workings. I never was much into skiing but I know that, nearby, Lutsen that I had driven through on the way up and again while heading back to the lodge had been a destination for many from my high school days. They’ve got a place there that had been a little out of my price range, the Lutsen Resort and Sea Villas, that I stopped at on my way back to checkout because they also advertise real estate. It was mainly “resort” properties. Not what I wanted. But they’ve got a place to wet your whistle, the Poplar River Pub, where I grabbed a cold one (damn that was good), another one and a case for Sunday. While the bartender went in back to get the case I grabbed one of the resort brochures from the counter by the cash register and stuck it in my back pocket. A little quiet in there right then, but I thought I might come back down after dinner.
I jumped back in my rental and made the seven or eight mile drive north back to the Cascade Lodge, cleaned up and went to dinner at their restaurant. Had a good pork chop plate with three cold ones and pulled the brochure from Lutsen out of my pocket and read through it as I was finishing the last beer. In the brochure they described some of the fun activities available back at their place. You could fish, kayak, ski (in season), throw rocks, hike and watch wildlife. Ya the typical stuff.
I left the wholesome waitress of Scandinavian descent a fair tip and went back to my room to get ready to go back to the Poplar River Pub and to give the honey back home a call to describe the progress I’d made for the first day of looking. We chatted for a bit and closed with “I miss you” stuff. Damn if I hadn’t pounded another three beers while I was talking to her and I had to piss like a horse now. Got that taken care with my tool in one hand and another brew in the other.
Shit, I think I’ve got a buzz on now. I go over to the mirror above the bureau take my glasses off and try to focus on myself. No dice - can’t do it. Maybe I better not drive anywhere I’m thinkin. Damn, I feel good but my overwhelming, almost senior citizen, common sense says “uh uhh, nope, no-way, nada.” Now what, the night’s still young?
I decide to go down and across the road to the lake and sit like an old fart on one of the bigger boulders. So I stick four brews in my pockets and continue on with the one in my hand down to the lake. At this rate I’ll only have half a case left for tomorrow and you can’t buy here on Sundays. Aw shit, what the heck!
Down at the lake I’m just watchin the sky, lookin back at the resort, watchin the cars pass by, checkin out the water and all that crap. Just enjoying it all and enjoying the brew that’s now not so dang cold. Ah, just chug em and move on I think. There’s just tons of rocks here, its not a sandy shore that’s for sure. What did that brochure say? Throwing rocks? Yeah, I haven’t skipped stones in ages. So I start tossin pebbles out across the water and pretty soon that old right shoulder of mine gives me a rowdy stinkin ouch.
Ok - lets try this with my left hand.
Booger if I don’t feel like some sorta spasmo-taz. I’m so f’n uncoordinated doing this I gotta look like some kind a fool. Sure hope that nobody’s watching me, ehh.
Oh, yikes! Someone’s coming down from the road. Shit, it’s a cop too. He says to me “What ya doing there buddy?” as I notice my empties tossed about in the beam of his flashlight. I tell him that I’m just tossing some rocks. Then he says that that ain’t allowed here. (What the fuck???) He says the only place it’s allowed is back down to Lutsen. I tell him, with a hell of a slur in my voice, “Ya gotta be kidding”
Then he says “Ya been drinking buddy?”
No denying that I guess so I said “Yeah a little.”
“Let’s go up to the side a the road there. Ya got ID on ya? Let’s get it out.”
So we scramble back up to the road by his squad car. “Cook County Sheriff”, I can sort of read.
Shit, shit, shit I’m thinkin.
He scrapes out a straight line with his boot, about twenty feet long, along his car in the pea gravel shoulder of Highway 61 and says “I want you to walk that line.”
Crap! I’d have a hard time doing that even if I was sober I’m thinking because a havin that one leg so much shorter then the other. I give it a shot though and just about spin a complete circle, almost falling down.
He now tells me that he’s gonna have to take me in for throwing stones and public intoxication. Knowing that I’m from outta state as shown on my license he asks me where I’m staying. I let him know that its just right across the highway.
He thinks about that a bit and says to me “I’d let ya go back to the motel if you were only drunk but because you were throwing stones you’re gonna have to come down to Cook County Law Enforcement Center with me and fill out some paperwork and post a bond for fifty bucks.”
I’m thinking “fifty bucks Esther, maybe this’ll be easy except for the fine“.
So he has me get in the back of his cruiser, no hand cuffs - thank you, and takes me in. We get to station and I post the bond money and start filling out the paperwork and I’ll be damned if I didn’t fall asleep or pass out drunk, ehh.
I wake up inside a cell on a bunk to all kinds of commotion outside the holding area that I’m in. I look around and get myself kinda cognizant of where I am, seeing that I’m the only one in here.
Damn what is going on out there and what was that crazy dream that I’d just had?
I’d been dreaming that I was walking up to an arena with my gear bag and sticks over my shoulder. It was a big place, I mean something big enough for an NHL game. I’m feeling a little nervous - kinda like when ya get the shits before the first couple a game of the season, ya know. And outside the arena were all these vendors pushing carts and hawking their goods like the guys ya see downtown selling ice cream and cold treats with bells ringing and shit. ‘Cept these guys were selling stuff called Durdy Deeds.
I walk by one vendor and he yells at me “Wut ya want kid? I got sum Hi-Stix, But-Ends and Cros-Chex left. Ya gonna neeeed em! Anything ya buy comes with get outta jail free cards.”
What the fuck is this ???
Another’s yelling “Get ya hooks right here! I got elbows, come on guys, I got elbows! Get ya hooks! Right here, right here, now!”
A vendor over to the left is hawking “Stitches, get your stitches, sutures here, you’re gonna need em! Get’m here! Going fast! Stitches!” Catches his breath and he starts again “I got knuckle bumps and black eyes, it’s all good shit guys, gettttemmm here!”
The dream continues and I’m feeling really queasy as I head through the doors of the arena.
Inside the music is screaming over the loud speakers of the public address system. So loud and so strong are the bass notes that it takes my breath away … “DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP … DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP …” I walk through the mezzanine with the adrenaline now coursing through my veins and look down upon the ice surface below.
No glass, no fish nets for the crowd’s protection - just from the top of boards to a structure of steel framework that runs all the way across the rink - nothing but chain link fence! This is old time hockey at its rawest - inside the cage. You go in and ya can’t come out. It’s the lions den, in the style of Roman gladiators. A fight to the finish; where only one man remains skating and his team will hoard the glory as being victors of it all.
That’s it. That’s when I woke up to all this damn commotion. I was sweating like crazy and really needed to take a wiz.
I got that taken care of and the sheriff that had popped me comes in through the far door and sees me standing in the cell. He says “Good, Mr. Wheats, glad to see your up. You passed out up front when we had you filling out the paperwork, so we put ya back here to sleep it off. We gotta get ya out of here though, need the room, cuz we got several carloads of rowdy asses that we gotta put away!”
Still feeling a little toasted, I ask him what time it was and what’s all the noise.
He lets me know that its past 4:30 going on 5:00 am. Says they had to bust up a bachelors party down at the Lutsen Resort. Says it was Eric Staals’ party and that he’s getting married in couple weeks or something. He and his brother Jordan and bunch of cousins and such had come down from Thunder Bay and they’d all gotten out of hand and they’d have to spend a little time in the poky.
I’m thinking to myself, why’d these boys (A couple a them were NHL stars, ehh?) come down here into the States to party. Eric’s maybe legal age here, but Jordan sure the hell isn’t yet. And how about those cousins? For my own dollar I’d rather party in Canada. The clubs up there are often times pretty good too.
Crazy man, just absolutely crazy!
So the Staals are walking with wood, doing a little time in this here sin-bin. Me too, done my time. Crazy dreams! And great Minnesota surroundings. The beer had been cold, the skeeters weren’t biting too bad and I had all of the rest of Sunday to get my shit together before I went looking at properties again.
Jasper here until next time.
Hey, skate hard you guys!
I’ve been thinking for a while that I might try to buy a little place in northeastern Minnesota that I could use later after I retire to spend my springs, summers, and falls. I figure that it could be a pretty damn nice place to invite my hockey buds where we could spend some time fishin, huntin, feedin the skeeters and all the usual bullshit that goes along with those activities. Sorry guys but I’m tellin ya my arthritis in my right shoulder is gettin so bad that I figure I’m gonna be turnin into one a them snowbirds by then and will probably have to winter somewhere down in Mexico.
I did some real estate investigatin and made some appointments for last Saturday and Monday.
I flew into the Twin Cities and then got a little shuttle fight up to Duluth and rented a car there.
In my younger days I had done a six day canoe trip in Boundary Waters out of Ely and this part of the world, I’m telling you guys, is civilized enough to get brews when ya need them but wild enough to avoid your neighbors if ya have too. You guys know what I’m talking about, ehh?
I made my base camp for the trip at the Cascade Lodge and Restaurant in Grand Marais. Stayed in room 5A of their motel up the hill into the trees a bit where the parking was close. Unfortunately the walls were thin and I could hear the shabanging during the nights from the room next door. Aw hell, the price was right and I got a forty dollar discount for the four night stay that I had arranged. That was enough for beer money I figured for a couple a the nights.
The place is right on Highway 61 (Hey you guys, Bob Dylan made this highway famous before most a ya were born.) with Lake Superior on the other side of the road. It’s got a decent enough little restaurant that’s open from 8:00 am ‘til about 8:30 pm where you can get beer and wine with your dinner.
I went out Saturday and covered a couple a hundred miles looking at some places; hoping that they had access to a stream or other body of water. Not bad. They call this area round about here the Iron Range, so its hills and low mountains and such are home to some of the taconite (iron ore) workings. I never was much into skiing but I know that, nearby, Lutsen that I had driven through on the way up and again while heading back to the lodge had been a destination for many from my high school days. They’ve got a place there that had been a little out of my price range, the Lutsen Resort and Sea Villas, that I stopped at on my way back to checkout because they also advertise real estate. It was mainly “resort” properties. Not what I wanted. But they’ve got a place to wet your whistle, the Poplar River Pub, where I grabbed a cold one (damn that was good), another one and a case for Sunday. While the bartender went in back to get the case I grabbed one of the resort brochures from the counter by the cash register and stuck it in my back pocket. A little quiet in there right then, but I thought I might come back down after dinner.
I jumped back in my rental and made the seven or eight mile drive north back to the Cascade Lodge, cleaned up and went to dinner at their restaurant. Had a good pork chop plate with three cold ones and pulled the brochure from Lutsen out of my pocket and read through it as I was finishing the last beer. In the brochure they described some of the fun activities available back at their place. You could fish, kayak, ski (in season), throw rocks, hike and watch wildlife. Ya the typical stuff.
I left the wholesome waitress of Scandinavian descent a fair tip and went back to my room to get ready to go back to the Poplar River Pub and to give the honey back home a call to describe the progress I’d made for the first day of looking. We chatted for a bit and closed with “I miss you” stuff. Damn if I hadn’t pounded another three beers while I was talking to her and I had to piss like a horse now. Got that taken care with my tool in one hand and another brew in the other.
Shit, I think I’ve got a buzz on now. I go over to the mirror above the bureau take my glasses off and try to focus on myself. No dice - can’t do it. Maybe I better not drive anywhere I’m thinkin. Damn, I feel good but my overwhelming, almost senior citizen, common sense says “uh uhh, nope, no-way, nada.” Now what, the night’s still young?
I decide to go down and across the road to the lake and sit like an old fart on one of the bigger boulders. So I stick four brews in my pockets and continue on with the one in my hand down to the lake. At this rate I’ll only have half a case left for tomorrow and you can’t buy here on Sundays. Aw shit, what the heck!
Down at the lake I’m just watchin the sky, lookin back at the resort, watchin the cars pass by, checkin out the water and all that crap. Just enjoying it all and enjoying the brew that’s now not so dang cold. Ah, just chug em and move on I think. There’s just tons of rocks here, its not a sandy shore that’s for sure. What did that brochure say? Throwing rocks? Yeah, I haven’t skipped stones in ages. So I start tossin pebbles out across the water and pretty soon that old right shoulder of mine gives me a rowdy stinkin ouch.
Ok - lets try this with my left hand.
Booger if I don’t feel like some sorta spasmo-taz. I’m so f’n uncoordinated doing this I gotta look like some kind a fool. Sure hope that nobody’s watching me, ehh.
Oh, yikes! Someone’s coming down from the road. Shit, it’s a cop too. He says to me “What ya doing there buddy?” as I notice my empties tossed about in the beam of his flashlight. I tell him that I’m just tossing some rocks. Then he says that that ain’t allowed here. (What the fuck???) He says the only place it’s allowed is back down to Lutsen. I tell him, with a hell of a slur in my voice, “Ya gotta be kidding”
Then he says “Ya been drinking buddy?”
No denying that I guess so I said “Yeah a little.”
“Let’s go up to the side a the road there. Ya got ID on ya? Let’s get it out.”
So we scramble back up to the road by his squad car. “Cook County Sheriff”, I can sort of read.
Shit, shit, shit I’m thinkin.
He scrapes out a straight line with his boot, about twenty feet long, along his car in the pea gravel shoulder of Highway 61 and says “I want you to walk that line.”
Crap! I’d have a hard time doing that even if I was sober I’m thinking because a havin that one leg so much shorter then the other. I give it a shot though and just about spin a complete circle, almost falling down.
He now tells me that he’s gonna have to take me in for throwing stones and public intoxication. Knowing that I’m from outta state as shown on my license he asks me where I’m staying. I let him know that its just right across the highway.
He thinks about that a bit and says to me “I’d let ya go back to the motel if you were only drunk but because you were throwing stones you’re gonna have to come down to Cook County Law Enforcement Center with me and fill out some paperwork and post a bond for fifty bucks.”
I’m thinking “fifty bucks Esther, maybe this’ll be easy except for the fine“.
So he has me get in the back of his cruiser, no hand cuffs - thank you, and takes me in. We get to station and I post the bond money and start filling out the paperwork and I’ll be damned if I didn’t fall asleep or pass out drunk, ehh.
I wake up inside a cell on a bunk to all kinds of commotion outside the holding area that I’m in. I look around and get myself kinda cognizant of where I am, seeing that I’m the only one in here.
Damn what is going on out there and what was that crazy dream that I’d just had?
I’d been dreaming that I was walking up to an arena with my gear bag and sticks over my shoulder. It was a big place, I mean something big enough for an NHL game. I’m feeling a little nervous - kinda like when ya get the shits before the first couple a game of the season, ya know. And outside the arena were all these vendors pushing carts and hawking their goods like the guys ya see downtown selling ice cream and cold treats with bells ringing and shit. ‘Cept these guys were selling stuff called Durdy Deeds.
I walk by one vendor and he yells at me “Wut ya want kid? I got sum Hi-Stix, But-Ends and Cros-Chex left. Ya gonna neeeed em! Anything ya buy comes with get outta jail free cards.”
What the fuck is this ???
Another’s yelling “Get ya hooks right here! I got elbows, come on guys, I got elbows! Get ya hooks! Right here, right here, now!”
A vendor over to the left is hawking “Stitches, get your stitches, sutures here, you’re gonna need em! Get’m here! Going fast! Stitches!” Catches his breath and he starts again “I got knuckle bumps and black eyes, it’s all good shit guys, gettttemmm here!”
The dream continues and I’m feeling really queasy as I head through the doors of the arena.
Inside the music is screaming over the loud speakers of the public address system. So loud and so strong are the bass notes that it takes my breath away … “DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP … DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP …” I walk through the mezzanine with the adrenaline now coursing through my veins and look down upon the ice surface below.
No glass, no fish nets for the crowd’s protection - just from the top of boards to a structure of steel framework that runs all the way across the rink - nothing but chain link fence! This is old time hockey at its rawest - inside the cage. You go in and ya can’t come out. It’s the lions den, in the style of Roman gladiators. A fight to the finish; where only one man remains skating and his team will hoard the glory as being victors of it all.
That’s it. That’s when I woke up to all this damn commotion. I was sweating like crazy and really needed to take a wiz.
I got that taken care of and the sheriff that had popped me comes in through the far door and sees me standing in the cell. He says “Good, Mr. Wheats, glad to see your up. You passed out up front when we had you filling out the paperwork, so we put ya back here to sleep it off. We gotta get ya out of here though, need the room, cuz we got several carloads of rowdy asses that we gotta put away!”
Still feeling a little toasted, I ask him what time it was and what’s all the noise.
He lets me know that its past 4:30 going on 5:00 am. Says they had to bust up a bachelors party down at the Lutsen Resort. Says it was Eric Staals’ party and that he’s getting married in couple weeks or something. He and his brother Jordan and bunch of cousins and such had come down from Thunder Bay and they’d all gotten out of hand and they’d have to spend a little time in the poky.
I’m thinking to myself, why’d these boys (A couple a them were NHL stars, ehh?) come down here into the States to party. Eric’s maybe legal age here, but Jordan sure the hell isn’t yet. And how about those cousins? For my own dollar I’d rather party in Canada. The clubs up there are often times pretty good too.
Crazy man, just absolutely crazy!
So the Staals are walking with wood, doing a little time in this here sin-bin. Me too, done my time. Crazy dreams! And great Minnesota surroundings. The beer had been cold, the skeeters weren’t biting too bad and I had all of the rest of Sunday to get my shit together before I went looking at properties again.
Jasper here until next time.
Hey, skate hard you guys!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Potter Party vs. Hockey Party
Shit! Its just f’n amazing how fast time flies by when you’re having fun. Ehh? Still involved with that new job search routine, but it doesn’t seem that anybody has a use for a little ole puckster like me. So I’m enjoying my time off instead. Kinda feel like a young pup again. Not a worry in the world (yeah, right, wtf). The honey and me drove over to a nearby town last night and caught one of those concerts in the park. It was some good shit and the beer as always was cold.
Yep. Another week’s gone by since my last bit of writing and Ms. Rowling’s released another Harry Potter book at midnight last night. Guess that’s her seventh story as compared to about thirty of my stories here at the blog. Kind wished I’d a met her back when she was poor and possibly was still a good looking bitch. Maybe we’d a made some time together or something. Anyway, I could sure use some of her income right now. I hear that she’s got more money than the Queen of England. Ain’t that something you guys?
This morning I see on the news how a bunch of these bookstores had “Potter Parties” last night with lots a the folks in costumes and all that make believe shit. Now I’ve got nothing against good fiction. Hell, you guys get a shit load of that here, ehh? And I gotta say that I’ve never, ever read one of the books or even seen one of the movies all the way through. But what the heck, I’ve seen enough to make some Wheats relevant comments here.
I’m kinda a nut for things bewitching, mysterious, fantasy and horror. And this Potter dude seems to be ok even though he’s not a puckhead. He’d probably been a pretty damn good one though if that’s the way Rowling woulda written it. You know ya see him flying around on his broom - he zigs when his pursuers zag and all that damn shit. I think he coulda put on some ding-dang good deaks and go top shelf easy. Whatta ya think about that? And that broom, it ain’t that damn much different then a durn good old wooden hockey stick. How many of you folks out there in your youth, didn’t pull that tripod trick where you squatted down and put your weight on your stick as you tucked it between your legs. Yeah, you were riding a broom, buster. Potter’s got the chick too. Nice! All in all I gotta say Harry is walking with wood.
Back to the “Potter Parties”. They remind me a lot of the hockey team’s Halloween parties. Shit if we didn’t get all duded up for those things. Dressed up like witches, wizards and warlocks. Monsters, whores and sexy little bunnies too. They started early and ya didn’t have to wait in no line before ya could get the party going. And they always lasted into the wee hours of the morning. We always had lots of liquor and plenty of cold beer. Well, never enough, someone always made a last beer run before the liquor store closed. Most a the time we had good eats cuz the ladies always liked to make a fuss about that stuff. Chips always worked for me or an occasional slice a pizza would do, but the girls always made it a bit better bringing lasagna, salads, deserts or something delish.
I remember one particular party that we had over to Damon’s. Damon was one hell of a burley sorta guy. He had played as forward up through Juniors and then there would occasional rotate through as de. When he came on board with us he was playing defense only and the first year or so he was my partner back there. He and couple of work buddies had rented a house over in the old part of town where the joints were well shaded under nice forty or fifty year old trees. Kinda quiet side of town but economical enough for him and his buds. It was a corner house with plenty of room for parking up and down both streets.
I can’t remember what disguise I was wearing that year - shit it doesn’t matter for the gist of the story so don’t worry about it, ehh, cuz I’m not going to. I’d been over to Damon’s few times before this party to watch video tapes. He was really into Friday night movies and beer if we didn’t have a game. But the night of this party the whole inside of his house had been stripped down. The only shit in the house was in the kitchen where there was still a table and couple of chairs, plus the fridge and stove. I don’t know, but maybe the guys were getting kicked out or leaving soon, but the place was bare. We all had to stand around but it made it better for dancin and shit.
The floor of the kitchen was a light/dark vinyl tile that was slippery when wet. With the keg in giant trash bag with bags of ice around it we were making one hell of a mess. Most of us slipped a couple a times, at least, and one time I saw Damon’s dog, a rowdy shepherd mix, come around the corner a bit too fast and slide out into the far wall. The whole time his nails scrappin like a mile a minute to get traction looking like some fool cartoon character.
Anyway, kudos to Damon for throwing the party. Yeah, guys, he’s walking with wood too.
We’re all shooting the shit and other bullcrap just getting totally krunk. Flirting, dancing, doing a little sqeezin and just generally all having a crazy ass time.
One of our teammate’s, Woody, was as usual having his share of beer. Good guy, always walking with wood. I had coached him when he was a Midget and after Juniors he came and skated with us. He’d been born in Scotland and raised as a young kid in Toronto. Was always fun to listen to his mom yell at him with that strong Scottish accent of hers during games. Woody wasn’t too tall but he’s a hell of good center. I believe he led the league two years in row for scoring. A little fire hydrant full of zip!
Yupper, full zip and that night of the party - full of beer. I’m sure that night in his boisterous lilt he led us in singing “Here’s to Brother Damon, Bother Damon …” and for sure in a round of “Mack the Knife”. Loves to sing that drunken fool!
Like I said he’s full of brewskies and full of shit. I’m standing there talking to him and he starts burping and clutching at his belly. I said to him “Ya alright dude?”
He says back “I think I better go outside for a bit and get some fresh air.”
He disappears for a while and comes back in and acts like he hasn’t missed a beat just looking a shit load better. I quiz him a bit and he tells me he just went out and threw-up so that he could keep drinking. No point in feeling sick, I guess, when there’s cold beer to chug.
After a certain point, Woody, always gets a bit obnoxious. Factual. No denying it - he just does. Hits the wall and he’s beyond shitfaced. That night was no different.
So what you do with a belligerent drunk that’s on the verge of passing out? Well, you take him outside and saran-wrap him to one of those fine shade trees in Damon’s front yard. And that’s zactly what we did. Fool never even knew what happened too him. Eventually someone took him down, yeah, poured him into a vehicle and took him home.
Yes-sirree, nothing like a kick-ass hockey Halloween party. I betcha that none of those “Potter Parties” last night were as good as one of these.
Later, my friends.
Jasper here, krankin from the backwoods telling ya to skate hard.
Yep. Another week’s gone by since my last bit of writing and Ms. Rowling’s released another Harry Potter book at midnight last night. Guess that’s her seventh story as compared to about thirty of my stories here at the blog. Kind wished I’d a met her back when she was poor and possibly was still a good looking bitch. Maybe we’d a made some time together or something. Anyway, I could sure use some of her income right now. I hear that she’s got more money than the Queen of England. Ain’t that something you guys?
This morning I see on the news how a bunch of these bookstores had “Potter Parties” last night with lots a the folks in costumes and all that make believe shit. Now I’ve got nothing against good fiction. Hell, you guys get a shit load of that here, ehh? And I gotta say that I’ve never, ever read one of the books or even seen one of the movies all the way through. But what the heck, I’ve seen enough to make some Wheats relevant comments here.
I’m kinda a nut for things bewitching, mysterious, fantasy and horror. And this Potter dude seems to be ok even though he’s not a puckhead. He’d probably been a pretty damn good one though if that’s the way Rowling woulda written it. You know ya see him flying around on his broom - he zigs when his pursuers zag and all that damn shit. I think he coulda put on some ding-dang good deaks and go top shelf easy. Whatta ya think about that? And that broom, it ain’t that damn much different then a durn good old wooden hockey stick. How many of you folks out there in your youth, didn’t pull that tripod trick where you squatted down and put your weight on your stick as you tucked it between your legs. Yeah, you were riding a broom, buster. Potter’s got the chick too. Nice! All in all I gotta say Harry is walking with wood.
Back to the “Potter Parties”. They remind me a lot of the hockey team’s Halloween parties. Shit if we didn’t get all duded up for those things. Dressed up like witches, wizards and warlocks. Monsters, whores and sexy little bunnies too. They started early and ya didn’t have to wait in no line before ya could get the party going. And they always lasted into the wee hours of the morning. We always had lots of liquor and plenty of cold beer. Well, never enough, someone always made a last beer run before the liquor store closed. Most a the time we had good eats cuz the ladies always liked to make a fuss about that stuff. Chips always worked for me or an occasional slice a pizza would do, but the girls always made it a bit better bringing lasagna, salads, deserts or something delish.
I remember one particular party that we had over to Damon’s. Damon was one hell of a burley sorta guy. He had played as forward up through Juniors and then there would occasional rotate through as de. When he came on board with us he was playing defense only and the first year or so he was my partner back there. He and couple of work buddies had rented a house over in the old part of town where the joints were well shaded under nice forty or fifty year old trees. Kinda quiet side of town but economical enough for him and his buds. It was a corner house with plenty of room for parking up and down both streets.
I can’t remember what disguise I was wearing that year - shit it doesn’t matter for the gist of the story so don’t worry about it, ehh, cuz I’m not going to. I’d been over to Damon’s few times before this party to watch video tapes. He was really into Friday night movies and beer if we didn’t have a game. But the night of this party the whole inside of his house had been stripped down. The only shit in the house was in the kitchen where there was still a table and couple of chairs, plus the fridge and stove. I don’t know, but maybe the guys were getting kicked out or leaving soon, but the place was bare. We all had to stand around but it made it better for dancin and shit.
The floor of the kitchen was a light/dark vinyl tile that was slippery when wet. With the keg in giant trash bag with bags of ice around it we were making one hell of a mess. Most of us slipped a couple a times, at least, and one time I saw Damon’s dog, a rowdy shepherd mix, come around the corner a bit too fast and slide out into the far wall. The whole time his nails scrappin like a mile a minute to get traction looking like some fool cartoon character.
Anyway, kudos to Damon for throwing the party. Yeah, guys, he’s walking with wood too.
We’re all shooting the shit and other bullcrap just getting totally krunk. Flirting, dancing, doing a little sqeezin and just generally all having a crazy ass time.
One of our teammate’s, Woody, was as usual having his share of beer. Good guy, always walking with wood. I had coached him when he was a Midget and after Juniors he came and skated with us. He’d been born in Scotland and raised as a young kid in Toronto. Was always fun to listen to his mom yell at him with that strong Scottish accent of hers during games. Woody wasn’t too tall but he’s a hell of good center. I believe he led the league two years in row for scoring. A little fire hydrant full of zip!
Yupper, full zip and that night of the party - full of beer. I’m sure that night in his boisterous lilt he led us in singing “Here’s to Brother Damon, Bother Damon …” and for sure in a round of “Mack the Knife”. Loves to sing that drunken fool!
Like I said he’s full of brewskies and full of shit. I’m standing there talking to him and he starts burping and clutching at his belly. I said to him “Ya alright dude?”
He says back “I think I better go outside for a bit and get some fresh air.”
He disappears for a while and comes back in and acts like he hasn’t missed a beat just looking a shit load better. I quiz him a bit and he tells me he just went out and threw-up so that he could keep drinking. No point in feeling sick, I guess, when there’s cold beer to chug.
After a certain point, Woody, always gets a bit obnoxious. Factual. No denying it - he just does. Hits the wall and he’s beyond shitfaced. That night was no different.
So what you do with a belligerent drunk that’s on the verge of passing out? Well, you take him outside and saran-wrap him to one of those fine shade trees in Damon’s front yard. And that’s zactly what we did. Fool never even knew what happened too him. Eventually someone took him down, yeah, poured him into a vehicle and took him home.
Yes-sirree, nothing like a kick-ass hockey Halloween party. I betcha that none of those “Potter Parties” last night were as good as one of these.
Later, my friends.
Jasper here, krankin from the backwoods telling ya to skate hard.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
California Trip
Hey there all my puckhead, hockey hood and little puckster friends.
Here’s a little shout-out:
WHAT'S HAPPENING????
Good shit, I hope. Ehh? It’s summer and as far as I’m concerned we all ought to be havin a good time.
I sure the shit am. I managed to get a little vacation in this past week and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to write it off as a job search expense on my stinkin income tax.
I’ve been looking for a new job and sending out applications all over the damn world. It seems as though its tough for a short little lopsided puckster like myself to find the appropriately rewarding employment that I seek. Such is life when you’re just a little ole party animal that otherwise likes the reclusive atmosphere of the backwoods, ehh. You guys know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, I set up a few interviews for the week in the Sacramento and San Francisco area or as they say out there “Northern California.” I don’t know why the fuck they call it Northern California. Sheesh, look at a map folks, this is Central California. In my opinion Northern California’s got to be up at the end of the state near Oregon. Shit, I think most of the folks on the west coast have got their heads up their asses anyway. Kinda like most of the ref’s that we have had to deal with over the years, ehh?
I flew into Sacramento and I tell ya that area around the airport could pass for the wheat fields back home. Had an interview in town and hoped maybe I’d catch sight of the Governator. No luck on that. Sacramento’s a fairly big city I came to realize not just some farm-burg like I was expecting. Plus I kinda got lost tying to find my way to the interview on Q Street. Oh well, I was almost late but afterwards it was time to move on.
There was some Major League Baseball Allstar Game activities over in San Francisco that I wanted to see. So I figure out how to get outta town heading west on Interstate 80. It must be ninety to a hundred miles to get to San Francisco but I did have some time for a side trip or two.
There were some ice rinks that I wanted to stop in and see and then my girl back home always says that if we ever get married then we’re going to honeymoon in Napa Valley. She’s a bit of wino you know, so I thought I better check that place out in preparation in case hell ever freezes over, if ya know what I mean.
My first stop was the Vacaville Ice Sports a rink in Vacaville which was right off I-80. But what a pain in the butt trouble I had trying to find it. Damn, whatever happened to having streets organized in a nice square grid? Anyway, I found the rink. It’s a nice double rink but doesn’t have much spectator seating and shares its parking lot with one of those monster size movie theaters. I roamed around a bit outside and chatted with some of the local folks, most of which I came to realize didn’t even know the rink existed.
Californian’s???
I saw one of those Outback Steakhouses across the street and thought I get a late lunch but the place wasn’t opened yet. Kinda figure that chain’s probably going to go out business if it don’t open up for lunch. I settled on a Denny’s, which was OK cuz I figured that they’d have something I was familiar with then got back on my way again.
Checking my map, I see that pretty soon I’ve get off of I-80 and jog a bit north to get to Napa. Damned if in the next town, Fairfield, there isn’t one of those Budweiser breweries just south of the interstate. These places I’m told hold tours with some sampling activities. I got an idea that if me and the sweets ever come out this way, like she talks, then she can do her wine tour one day and I’ll come over here. Not bad thinkin ehh?
So I get through Napa and head over to Santa Rosa to see the rink there. That’s where Charles Schultz of comic strip fame always held his annual Snoopy Tournament. Doesn’t look like they hold it anymore since he passed on to that big rink in the sky. They were showing some announcements for a Woodstock Tournament but it was only going to host eight teams. Not the same I guess. Wished I’d been able to play in one of those earlier tourneys.
From Santa Rosa I head south on US Highway 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge, spectacular, into San Francisco. Here I’m going to hang out with one of Bronzy’s friends, Ricky, for a few days and try to see some Allstar Game shit. Well that didn’t really pan out cuz everything was sold out but I kinda hung around everything and toured about in this humongous city. Fuckin scary with all the skyscrapers and too damn many people. Traffic in this town absolutely sucks too. I don’t know why Ricky likes living here.
There’s a lot to see that’s for sure but I kinda wanted to be by the water so I spend a day walking the Embarcadero and had wanted to see the Sala Burton Maritime Museum again. It’s the only thing I remember from a visit here as a kid with my folks. But that place was fenced off and boarded up as some construction company was fuckin the hell outta the place. Sad.
Like I said I did hang out around AT&T Park for some baseball stuff. My kinda people partying over there. Thought maybe I’d see some stars or famous folks walkin around but was just too blasted to notice, really. I met this dude, Jason, while wandering about. Bumped into him actually and thought that we were going to throw down and go at it at first off. But he said he caught my accent (what accent) and it reminded him of his bud, Bobby. He says to me, “Do you play hockey, stud?” Hell, if we didn’t hit if off from there. He had played baseball and football in high school and college, but I’m tellin ya this tough little shit would a been one hell of a grinder on the ice if he’d had the opportunity that we just seem to take for granted. This dude walks with wood guys. He said that he’d been to the home run event and was going to the big game too. It was a good deal for him, being a Giants fan and all. But, damn, if we didn’t get rowdy drunk and Jason knew some of the honeys where we were at that hung with us (I think the rest of the night????). Don’t know where we were and I don’t know how I found my way back to Ricky’s, but the next morning I woke up in front of his front door. He let me in to crash while he headed off to work. Some good time ehh?
The next day I had a couple of interviews scheduled south of San Francisco. Got my act together and pulled them off OK I think. And from there I went further south to check out the rink in Cupertino. The Cupertino Ice Center is where the California Cougars youth hockey club skates.
I pull into the parking lot off of Wolfe Road to park and go inside and give it a look see. The parking lot was pretty full and I thought it was a little odd to be so packed this time of the afternoon. Most of the ladies’ coffee skates are over by one or two o’clock right? But it just didn’t seem right. I noticed that some of the cars were limos and there were a whole bunch of AT&T vans in the lot too. Curious, it didn’t stop me, so I went inside.
Oh lordy folks. You’ve never seen such a mess. You know how you set the cones out across the redline so that ya can run a half-ice practice for both Squirts and Mites at the same time? Well they had sort of done the same thing here.
What they had going on was on one half of the ice they were testing out the I-Puck and its system requirements, so Apple and the AT&T folks were networked all over the rink connected to Versus Cable Network equipment. Cables, wireless shit, cameras and video systems all over the fuckin place. And all these f’n tech heads with only three or four guys laced up out on the ice. The other half of the rink was being used to simulate the Zambooma ice cleaning/intermission entertainment system. Seems as though Apple and AT&T are married together on this little project too but with the boys at Zamboni. I’m telling you though, there was one hell of a lot of activity going on in this place.
I gotta tell ya that all of this was one big cluster fuck in my opinion. I talked to one of the tech heads a bit and he said that they wanted to see how the Zamboomba and I-Puck system interfaced with each other. You know, were their operating frequencies going to mess each other up and that sort a shit. The cones were out there to delineate the boundaries for the Zamboomba test but as we all know those cones never stop all the pucks from crossing over to the other side of the ice. (Hell, from my experience they don’t even stop Mites from wandering.)
I don’t know what was happening technically but I gotta tell you guys I saw the Zamboombas chew up about six or seven I-Pucks while I was in there for my short visit. Figuring that they’re prototypes, yet, both the Zamboombas and the I-Pucks, their manufacture hadn’t realized any cost economies so they were awfully expensive little units. It was like the Zamboombas chugged and puked and the I-Pucks got spit out as slivers of rubber and crushed electronics. I’m thinking that it’s a good thing I’m not seeing any NHL lawyer types or we would be seeing another lockout season for 2007/2008. Scary again but fuckin hilarious.
Come on guys, lets bring back some old time hockey.
I look at my watch and its coming on to about 5:00 pm and I’ve got a red-eye out of Sacramento later tonight. I gotta hit the road. Get some dinner. Shit, I’ll probably get lost trying to find my way on this crazy freeway system that they have here in California.
Its like that there in California. Too much innovation is making everything so ding-dang complicated. Give me the woods. Give me a frozen pond and a good old wooden hockey stick. Let me enjoy life and walk with wood.
California? A road trip or vacation - it can be OK. They got some good folks, like Jason. But I don’t know if I could work there. Wonder what’s going to happen with those interviews?
Later guys. Jasper here, signing off ‘til next time.
Skate hard!
Here’s a little shout-out:
WHAT'S HAPPENING????
Good shit, I hope. Ehh? It’s summer and as far as I’m concerned we all ought to be havin a good time.
I sure the shit am. I managed to get a little vacation in this past week and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to write it off as a job search expense on my stinkin income tax.
I’ve been looking for a new job and sending out applications all over the damn world. It seems as though its tough for a short little lopsided puckster like myself to find the appropriately rewarding employment that I seek. Such is life when you’re just a little ole party animal that otherwise likes the reclusive atmosphere of the backwoods, ehh. You guys know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, I set up a few interviews for the week in the Sacramento and San Francisco area or as they say out there “Northern California.” I don’t know why the fuck they call it Northern California. Sheesh, look at a map folks, this is Central California. In my opinion Northern California’s got to be up at the end of the state near Oregon. Shit, I think most of the folks on the west coast have got their heads up their asses anyway. Kinda like most of the ref’s that we have had to deal with over the years, ehh?
I flew into Sacramento and I tell ya that area around the airport could pass for the wheat fields back home. Had an interview in town and hoped maybe I’d catch sight of the Governator. No luck on that. Sacramento’s a fairly big city I came to realize not just some farm-burg like I was expecting. Plus I kinda got lost tying to find my way to the interview on Q Street. Oh well, I was almost late but afterwards it was time to move on.
There was some Major League Baseball Allstar Game activities over in San Francisco that I wanted to see. So I figure out how to get outta town heading west on Interstate 80. It must be ninety to a hundred miles to get to San Francisco but I did have some time for a side trip or two.
There were some ice rinks that I wanted to stop in and see and then my girl back home always says that if we ever get married then we’re going to honeymoon in Napa Valley. She’s a bit of wino you know, so I thought I better check that place out in preparation in case hell ever freezes over, if ya know what I mean.
My first stop was the Vacaville Ice Sports a rink in Vacaville which was right off I-80. But what a pain in the butt trouble I had trying to find it. Damn, whatever happened to having streets organized in a nice square grid? Anyway, I found the rink. It’s a nice double rink but doesn’t have much spectator seating and shares its parking lot with one of those monster size movie theaters. I roamed around a bit outside and chatted with some of the local folks, most of which I came to realize didn’t even know the rink existed.
Californian’s???
I saw one of those Outback Steakhouses across the street and thought I get a late lunch but the place wasn’t opened yet. Kinda figure that chain’s probably going to go out business if it don’t open up for lunch. I settled on a Denny’s, which was OK cuz I figured that they’d have something I was familiar with then got back on my way again.
Checking my map, I see that pretty soon I’ve get off of I-80 and jog a bit north to get to Napa. Damned if in the next town, Fairfield, there isn’t one of those Budweiser breweries just south of the interstate. These places I’m told hold tours with some sampling activities. I got an idea that if me and the sweets ever come out this way, like she talks, then she can do her wine tour one day and I’ll come over here. Not bad thinkin ehh?
So I get through Napa and head over to Santa Rosa to see the rink there. That’s where Charles Schultz of comic strip fame always held his annual Snoopy Tournament. Doesn’t look like they hold it anymore since he passed on to that big rink in the sky. They were showing some announcements for a Woodstock Tournament but it was only going to host eight teams. Not the same I guess. Wished I’d been able to play in one of those earlier tourneys.
From Santa Rosa I head south on US Highway 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge, spectacular, into San Francisco. Here I’m going to hang out with one of Bronzy’s friends, Ricky, for a few days and try to see some Allstar Game shit. Well that didn’t really pan out cuz everything was sold out but I kinda hung around everything and toured about in this humongous city. Fuckin scary with all the skyscrapers and too damn many people. Traffic in this town absolutely sucks too. I don’t know why Ricky likes living here.
There’s a lot to see that’s for sure but I kinda wanted to be by the water so I spend a day walking the Embarcadero and had wanted to see the Sala Burton Maritime Museum again. It’s the only thing I remember from a visit here as a kid with my folks. But that place was fenced off and boarded up as some construction company was fuckin the hell outta the place. Sad.
Like I said I did hang out around AT&T Park for some baseball stuff. My kinda people partying over there. Thought maybe I’d see some stars or famous folks walkin around but was just too blasted to notice, really. I met this dude, Jason, while wandering about. Bumped into him actually and thought that we were going to throw down and go at it at first off. But he said he caught my accent (what accent) and it reminded him of his bud, Bobby. He says to me, “Do you play hockey, stud?” Hell, if we didn’t hit if off from there. He had played baseball and football in high school and college, but I’m tellin ya this tough little shit would a been one hell of a grinder on the ice if he’d had the opportunity that we just seem to take for granted. This dude walks with wood guys. He said that he’d been to the home run event and was going to the big game too. It was a good deal for him, being a Giants fan and all. But, damn, if we didn’t get rowdy drunk and Jason knew some of the honeys where we were at that hung with us (I think the rest of the night????). Don’t know where we were and I don’t know how I found my way back to Ricky’s, but the next morning I woke up in front of his front door. He let me in to crash while he headed off to work. Some good time ehh?
The next day I had a couple of interviews scheduled south of San Francisco. Got my act together and pulled them off OK I think. And from there I went further south to check out the rink in Cupertino. The Cupertino Ice Center is where the California Cougars youth hockey club skates.
I pull into the parking lot off of Wolfe Road to park and go inside and give it a look see. The parking lot was pretty full and I thought it was a little odd to be so packed this time of the afternoon. Most of the ladies’ coffee skates are over by one or two o’clock right? But it just didn’t seem right. I noticed that some of the cars were limos and there were a whole bunch of AT&T vans in the lot too. Curious, it didn’t stop me, so I went inside.
Oh lordy folks. You’ve never seen such a mess. You know how you set the cones out across the redline so that ya can run a half-ice practice for both Squirts and Mites at the same time? Well they had sort of done the same thing here.
What they had going on was on one half of the ice they were testing out the I-Puck and its system requirements, so Apple and the AT&T folks were networked all over the rink connected to Versus Cable Network equipment. Cables, wireless shit, cameras and video systems all over the fuckin place. And all these f’n tech heads with only three or four guys laced up out on the ice. The other half of the rink was being used to simulate the Zambooma ice cleaning/intermission entertainment system. Seems as though Apple and AT&T are married together on this little project too but with the boys at Zamboni. I’m telling you though, there was one hell of a lot of activity going on in this place.
I gotta tell ya that all of this was one big cluster fuck in my opinion. I talked to one of the tech heads a bit and he said that they wanted to see how the Zamboomba and I-Puck system interfaced with each other. You know, were their operating frequencies going to mess each other up and that sort a shit. The cones were out there to delineate the boundaries for the Zamboomba test but as we all know those cones never stop all the pucks from crossing over to the other side of the ice. (Hell, from my experience they don’t even stop Mites from wandering.)
I don’t know what was happening technically but I gotta tell you guys I saw the Zamboombas chew up about six or seven I-Pucks while I was in there for my short visit. Figuring that they’re prototypes, yet, both the Zamboombas and the I-Pucks, their manufacture hadn’t realized any cost economies so they were awfully expensive little units. It was like the Zamboombas chugged and puked and the I-Pucks got spit out as slivers of rubber and crushed electronics. I’m thinking that it’s a good thing I’m not seeing any NHL lawyer types or we would be seeing another lockout season for 2007/2008. Scary again but fuckin hilarious.
Come on guys, lets bring back some old time hockey.
I look at my watch and its coming on to about 5:00 pm and I’ve got a red-eye out of Sacramento later tonight. I gotta hit the road. Get some dinner. Shit, I’ll probably get lost trying to find my way on this crazy freeway system that they have here in California.
Its like that there in California. Too much innovation is making everything so ding-dang complicated. Give me the woods. Give me a frozen pond and a good old wooden hockey stick. Let me enjoy life and walk with wood.
California? A road trip or vacation - it can be OK. They got some good folks, like Jason. But I don’t know if I could work there. Wonder what’s going to happen with those interviews?
Later guys. Jasper here, signing off ‘til next time.
Skate hard!
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