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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Wrestling With Smoke

Game Report

October 29, 2007

Strawberries 0

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Recent Soiree A Wild Success





Cher woos an unsuspecting Ice Marshall at The Hugh Hefner Cottage located on the grounds of the infamous Aloha Baby Compound

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pre-Season Perfection

Strawbs 12 Tequila Thrashers 5

Game Report
October 25, 2007


The Strawbs would never make claims to perfection, personal, professional or otherwise. There are just too many flaws to go around, some egregious and many others actively withheld from public consumption. Moreover, the team has been burned on a regular basis as the result of that destroyer of mortals, otherwise known as hubris. If experience has taught us anything, it is that today’s victories are but wisps in the wind, the slow receding echoes of vainglory. That being said, we kicked the shit out of the Thrashers last night and they deserved it.

Inspired by Freight Train’s fabulous offensive performance of the Monday, previous, Warrin’ Peace stumbled and scrapped and scurried to put in the best game he has ever played, including the imaginary ones forever forged in his own fertile yet deluded mind. The man was on fire. Cheered on by the team’s new #1 fan, the sultry and dangerously deceiving Samara Desert, Warrin’ laid a personal beating upon the demoralized Thrashers, scoring three goals of such exquisite beauty that Venus herself blushed in her celestial aerie. “Now I know how Gretzky felt night after night” quoth the second year man. “It was like the game was slowed down and I was playing in slow motion.” Nobody had the bad taste to let Warrin’ know that the whole game WAS played in slow motion, what with the Thrashers having to play in street shoes after their manager made off with most of their hockey equipment just before game time.

Even though they may not have been shod properly for a tilt on ice, the Thrashers, manned mostly by women of Amazonian extraction, they did bring their sticks and sharpened elbows to the game. And use them they did, much to the exasperation of a team raised on Ghandi and Martin Luther King. There was more hooking on the ice last night than there ever was on a Yonge Street Saturday night. At one point during the game, there were so many broken Thrashers sticks on the ice festooned with pieces of Strawbs’ helmets, shin pads and genital protection gear that a crack team from Columbia Forests Products was called in to collect the discarded wood for use in the next four shifts at the Rutherglen strandboard plant. The opponent’s poor gamesmanship only served to rile up the perpetually riled up Dr. Thug, who, as all amateur historians know, earned his moniker in 1999 by putting through the back wall of Pete Palangio Arenas a 72 lb waif of the female persuasion who had had the temerity to suggest earlier to him that he was a wimp. Unfortunately, she learned the hard way that Dr. Thug does not take kindly to aspersions upon his manhood. Well it must have a trying day at home, because the good Doctor showed up to the match touchier that a bull in rutting season. Disgusted by the unnecessary liberty taking on ice, he promptly put an end to the one sided carnage by chopping off the punching hand of the Thrashers’ biggest offender. From then on, the game settled down into a low level grudge match complete with shoddy goaltending on both sides.

Jesse The Leak did not have his best game of the year. On four successive occasions, one of the male Thrashers beat him on the left side with the same move, a move so obvious that neophyte hockey aficionado, Samara Desert, knew the correct name for it: deke. One hopes this display was nothing more than one of those brief mind farts which occasionally afflicts the otherwise solid goaler.

To the grave concern of management, Archilles Perron still not has ramped up his game to 2004-2005 levels. When queried about his slow start to the season, Archilles lamented that he is recovering from an injury sustained this summer during a severe storm while playing the 4th hole at Osprey Links in the company of Glasgow Glamour, one of the only two good things ever to be exported from Scotland. “What injury is that?” inquired the insatiably interested Shiny Shone Brightly, the squad’s leading candidate for Rookie of The Year. “Well I thought it was a good idea at the time but I guess I was wrong. My advice to all of you is: don’t mix Viagra and iron pills. It’s deadly when lightning is around.” Ouch.

The Strawbs would like to thank all members of the standing room only crowd who cheered their team on to victory on this night: Madame Lachaise, unopinionated carrot-topped companion of the redoubtable Vice Marshall, ponderous Pamdaemonia, president of the Global Dithering Club, Samara Desert, nurse, bonne vivante and quiet troublemaker, and Orillia Denis The Dealer, hockey and drinking mentor to Warrin’ Peace. Without your support, our team’s liquid refreshment bill at the Terminal Tavren would not be anywhere near record levels.

7 Stellas, 14 Guinnnesses, 6 Keith’s Red, 4 Bud Light, a blueberry tea (what the …?) and some errant wood chips from the battering clubs of untamed Amazons were consumed.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Freight Train 444 Lets His Stick Do The Talkin’

Strawbs 7 Traumatized Titans 3

Game Report
October 22, 2007

The normally taciturn and enigmatic Freight Train 444 finally got his act together on the ice, scoring the first hat trick of his sputtering 49 year old hockey career. Video tape of two of his goals were sent by the Executive to the Aloha Baby Compound in Oahu for review by the team’s Compensation Committee chaired by the asset-rich and underexposed Pamela Anderson of Baywatch fame. Miss Anderson was an off-season acquisition negotiated by the Ice Marshall to replace the non-recovering Olsen twin. Miss Anderson, an expert in rewarding men for doing the things she likes, is reportedly recommending a 72.76% increase in Freight Train’s base compensation package. “He has a nice package now, but I’m a believer in fostering bigger packages” she said.

Dr. Thug was also a big contributor on the night. He shook off the effects on 5 weeks of self-administered reality-relief medication and set up 4 goals. “I could have scored as many as Freight Train” he confided, “but I could not really see the net through the haze of my new health regimen. I just slapped at the puck all night and it ended up on the right sticks. Karma I guess.” More like horseshit luck.

Jesse The Leak, currently flunking a Diplomacy For Dummies course at his new alma mater, Degrees To Go U., continued his strong work between the pipes, making several key saves down low in the early going. “I’m seeing the puck better now that the Butcher has slimmed down to a svelte 380 kilos. Now if only Gumby’s head were not so inflated by his delusions of adequacy, I’d be stopping even more shots”. Well, having dissed the irascible Gumby with his less than diplomatic musings, he should expect a lot more shots next game, maybe even one from the barrel of a shotgun.

And things got worse for Gumby from there. As he was leaving the ice surface after the match and making his mumbling way down the stairs to the dressing room, one of the team’s newest fans, the Impudent Insolent Impertinent Lip, middle spawn of the Ice Marshall himself, baited the poor pumpkin-socked picaroon with words of derision. “You’re worse than my dad said you were” blurted the badly behaved bezonian, thus crushing any dignity which may have been left in the barely beating bosom of our bedraggled bustard. One hopes he will recover.

After the game, Freight Train invited all his teammates to join him at the Terminal Tavren (yes, tavren) to congratulate him on his outstanding performance. Those who cared, showed up and heaped adulation upon him. He has set a new bar for himself, one the Executive hopes he can continue to clear.

Liquid tar-like substances and various other libations were consumed between frequent pats to the back of the evening’s hero.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Strawbs Kick Off Birthday Week in Grand Style



Strawberries 5 Mighty Piglets 1

Game Report
October 18, 2007

The annual self-administered and self-promoted “Rob the Torch’s Birthday Week” celebrations began with great fanfare last Thursday night at the beautiful Pete Palangio Arenas. To mark the kickoff, the Strawbs donned, for the first time ever, a full set of matching team socks, save for Gawdawful Gumby who, in his usual truculent style, refused to include himself in another “juvenile, conformist and frankly quite communistic undertaking”. Just imagine this kind of behaviour from a man who soils his own bed because it helps him to get up in the morning.

The new socks were not your mundane, run of the mill, plain Jane and vanilla socks. No sirree. The new hosiery was, by Executive Fiat, specially made by a local haberdashery, Socks to Be You, to honour those breathtaking red fishnet stockings favoured by the team’s most demanding fan, the wistful Miss White Go Go Boots. It is not often a professional sporting team honours inanimate objects (the stockings, not Miss WGGB) but, given the surreal motivating effect of Miss White Go Go Boots’ clothing choices upon the hormonal outputs of those fortunate enough to bask occasionally in her reflected glory, the honouring is fully understandable.

And honour the socks they did. Pyjama Man, in his first game of the season, single-handedly emasculated the Mighty Piglets, turning them into a million freeze dried bacon bits with four unanswered goals of a quality befitting both his new socks and the Birthday Week celebrations. Dr. Thug sprung himself from the clutches of his own moving phlegm pile to complete the team’s scoring…well almost. There was another goal scored. Shiny Shone McCabe, disoriented by the lights and intoxicated with the thrill of playing with his first real hockey team in 34 years, took it upon himself to ruin a fabulous outing by the rejuvenated Jesse The Leak, by brazenly depositing the puck into his own net. At his post-game debriefing in the Zamboni Room, Shiny Shone admitted he had always found that goaltenders are prone to become complacent when they record shutouts. All he was trying to do was ensure that that The Leak’s burgeoning ego did not impede his future performance. The Executive promptly excoriated the new boy for thinking thoughts not approved by management. The Executive also believes that the threat of a prolonged rehabilitation stint with the Bottom Feeding Blowfish (or worse, the bumbling Nasty Cupcakes) has cured Shiny of any further unauthorized actions.

There was one other disappointment, normally overlooked. On the basis of his rigorous summer training regimen, Archilles Perron, long suffering betrothed of Ms.Glasgow Glamour, was elevated to the first line alongside the team’s leaders in all departments which count. Buffed to a svelte 168 pounds by a diet of non-alcoholic beverages, tofu, seaweed and sugar-free gum, Archilles ought to have shone. He did not. In fact, he was a black hole of shininess, a dim shadow of amorphous inefficiency lost in a sea of ineptitude. One hopes he gets better soon.

Fortunately, nothing could take the shine off the end result. A big win is a big win, even more so when accomplished with the sartorial splendour afforded by new socks.

The celebrations surrounding Rob the Torch’s Birthday Week continued to the wee hours of the morning, with massive quantities of subsidized beverages being quaffed at Leo’s, Freight Train 444’s frequent pre-class imbibery. The festivities will end around next Wednesday when the Torch’s frail liver finally screams surrender.

21 jugs of liquid swill, most of it strained through a pair of red fishnet stockings found discarded on the floor of the Zamboni Room, were consumed.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Strawbs Wing Aviators

Strawberries 3 Aviators 2

Game Report
October 15, 2007


The tension in the dressing room before the first game of the new season was palpable yet subdued. From among the reserved susurrations, there could be detected an aura of high expectation for the coming season, tinged with an unspoken concern surrounding the level of play to be expected from a team, which quite frankly, had let itself go to seed in the off-season.

Seated against the far wall, while casually dusting the dead moths and desiccated mouse droppings from his disheveled equipment, Whoahorny Richardson calmly applied a light layer of nitro to his ailing chest in the hope that tonight would not be the night he croaked at his own blue line as a swarm of testosterone infused jackanapes descended upon his donkless goaltender. Butcher Brophey, recently elevated to that rare air of academia known to us lesser mortals as the “Doctorate”, a Doctorate conferred upon him by the Laxative Institute of Higher Business Studies of Bath-and-Spa, England, nervously tugged at a hockey undergarment best described as “beyond recognition”. The smell which emanated from said undergarment was causing much nausea all around until the proud Doctor acted upon the unanimous suggestion that he dispose of the offending article by using one the trash cans located in the arena parking lot. “I’ve had the best sex of my life in this thing” he protested. “Well you shoulda wiped yourself off on the curtains instead” growled unsympathetic Gumby, no stranger himself to the benefits of a handy set of drapes.

The new kid (aged 30 something), Shiny Shone Brightly did not know what to make of the pre-game proceedings but did show the Executive that he was worthy of his promotion to the big team by keeping his thoughts unuttered until he had actually made some kind of useful contribution to his new team.

With the determination of Dick Cheney on a duck hunt and with a Championship to defend, the Strawbs ascended the long stairway from the dressing room to the ice surface, encouraged by the screams of delight and admiration emanating from its solid fan base. Mag Girl, atwitter with lust at the sight of her man and men in uniform, and Samara Desert, lost in a gossamer reverie recounting her recent honeymoon with Warrin’ Peace, stomped their feet in appreciation, hopeful that their support might lead to victory on the ice and later at home. Both fans were resplendent in their blue-rinsed squirrel coats, gifts from the Executive last year at the end of season celebration.

The game started off at a very high pace. Mag Boy scrolled about the ice like a piece of overstretched barbed wire finally released from its imprisonment between the cedar posts of an ancient field fence. While there was much to admire in his enthusiasm, his direction and purpose left something to be desired. In his defence, he did score 2 of the team’s 3 goals, one of which certainly looked intended.

Jesse The Leak, recent graduate of the College and unfortunate student of the newly minted Doctor Butcher, turned in a first period performance worthy of Bambi’s mother after she took the bullet to the skull. The two first shots he faced, with a combined velocity of point 2 metres per day, found the back of the net with ease. Fresh from a dressing down between periods, he regained the form expected of him, blanking the pesky Aviators over the final 22 minutes.

Gumby gumbied gumbyesquely and was plus 4 on the night according to his own suspect calculations. He termed his performance “a granular one” and was quickly correctly by the ever sharp Freight Train 444 who noted that the performance was more glandular than granular, the gland in question being located at the end of his lower colon. “What’s grammar gotta do with it?” cried an exasperated Gumby, clearly hurt by the remark.

Although they chose not to score on this occasion, the versatile Vice Marshall and the laconic Ice Marshall ensured that the grit necessary for a repeat championship was present in spades. “By going to the box so frequently, we were trying to accomplish 2 things” announced the Ice Marshall at game’s end. "Firstly, by sitting in the box, we made it highly unlikely that we would take another penalty for at least the next 3 minutes. And secondly, this group of chronic underachievers and humility deficient aficionados of women’s fine lingerie needs to feel a little adversity to get their games to the level needed for success." As the sagacity of the proffered tactics slowly seeped into the barely conscious recesses of the team’s collective psyche, a suggestion was made that there existed a location where the beer was cold and the chicks even colder. “We’re not going to your place again, Brophey,” screamed all in unison, warmed by the prospect of free booze but even more frightened of running into a Miss White Go Go Boots not known for welcoming any male attention which she herself had not initiated.

The victors and their fans congregated post-tussle at the Bull. The game was duly reviewed and aspersions cast upon those pusillanimous Strawbs who failed to show for the match (Archilles, Pyjama Man and the self-concussed Dr. Thug).

8 Guinness, 3 Stella Artois, 2 Bud Light, 2 Red Keiths, one Sissy Singapore Sling and some parsimonious praise were consumed.