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Monday, February 28, 2011

Better Shorthanded

Killer Strawberries 7 Sunnyvale 2

Game report

February 24, 2011


The Killer Strawberries should play all of their games shorthanded, if last evening’s tussle against the swift skating Sunnyvale Chargers is any indication. Bolstered by the absence of Butcher Brophey (lower body injury-member in zipper), the squad held its own in the first period, holding the opposition to under 100 shots.

Early in the second frame, with the score notched at 2-2, the team shifted into its seldom-used but highly effective “Penalty Box” strategy. The idea is to stuff the Sin Bin with its fattest, slowest, dimmest players so that those who can actually play the game above turtle-speed can get more ice time. Since it is a smallish penalty box and goalie equipment is rather bulky, only 10 players could be put on the list of “stuffers”.

With the boys piled on top of each other beside the poor timekeeper who needed four hands to keep wandering paws from using the Braille method to determine the colour and shape of her unmentionables, real heroes like MagBoy, IMW, Shifty and Mayor Maynot potted three beauties in short order. At least this is what the scoresheet said after IMW had a look at it. How IMW scored from the penalty box is anyone’s guess but it may have had something to do with his offer to help out the timekeeper while he awaited his sentence to expire. It is a trick he may have learned from Rob “The Torch” Greenfield, aka The Vice, who always volunteers to set and interpret all rules when games are played at his Compound For Minor Vice, the only dual dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.

The Marquis DeSave was efficient and workmanlike between the pipes, as he used every available millimeter of his equipment to advantage. “You don’t win 2 consecutive NDA championships without good goalie gear” he mused after the game to anyone who would bother to listen.

The line of Slickery, MagBoy and Mayor Maynot was especially dangerous, at both ends of the ice. Pyjama Man continued his scoring funk, having last tallied in a 2010 charity match against a PeeWee C- squad, BLBCBW (Blind Lesbian Biker Chicks in Broken Wheelchairs), a small pickup team from Togo.

Achilles Perron played the match paired with the inimitable Gumby (first name of Gawdawful) and has advised the Executive that, should such a pairing occur again, he would rather Gumby be limited to patrolling the end of the bench while he (Achilles) is on the ice.

For his part, P, Gumbington Pettigrew III lived up to his moniker. The one good play he made (and we are rounding up to call it “good”) had him sending a speeding charger on an aerial mission through the 8 feet of empty space between said player and the net, with the journey concluding rather abruptly against an unforgiving near post. The move got him 3 minutes in the box, and the Strawbs used those 3 minutes to pot another goal.

The final score was 7-2. The Strawbs now face the CCCP Bolsheviks in a best of 2 semi-final. It is expected to be a barn burner, whatever that is. Maybe Rob “The Torch” knows.

After the game, the club reconvened for some sudsy libation at the Terminal Tavren, new home to Shifty and Shiny’s Wings, wings double fried in reprocessed lard, canola oil and salted butter, wrapped in lean bacon and dipped in a light gravy with a cheese curd reduction. As the delicacy was chawed down with vigour, the coaching staff was lavishly praised, the team’s new lucky charm, Shanky VI was lovingly fondled and strategies for squeezing the P out of CCCP were discussed.

15 pounds of Shifty and Shiny’s Wings, 2 jugs of Creemore, 1 Guinness, 2 Keith’s White, 2 Stella and some visions of playoff success were consumed.

NB: Butcher Brophey became the first 2 time winner of the Grip of Shame Award. Odds are 40:1 he’ll make it a threepeat on Monday night.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Killer Strawberry Blonde Ale Tasting

The keg before tasting.

The Butcher in rapt thought of thongs and marketing.

The toasts flowed.

Shiny waits for his.

Updating the blog on the fly.

More photos from the KS blonde tasting

All parties end up in the kitchen.

Yikes!

The Butcher after a sojourn in Buttface, Alaska.

Lies interrupted.

Nice save.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Man at his best

If you are patient enough, you too can catch flies.

Killer Ale Was a Hit

We need more ale, boys.

Tasting in progress...

Must be good, it's refill my glass time!

Killer Strawberry Blonde Ale Tasting

Cheers!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Pointless Again

Killer Strawberries 1 Thrashers 5

Game Report

February 17, 2011


The Strawbs played well, holding the game to 1-1 until last 10 minutes, against a much stronger team. Then stuff went wrong and the game got so chippy on both sides that the Strawbs' asked that the clock be run out for the final 2 minutes.

This was supposed to be a playoff seeding game. Unfortunately, the large foreheads which run the league forgot to think about what was to come next. OOPS! Now all teams find themselves exactly where they started...wherever that was.

After the match, the team reassembled at the Terminal Tavren to do what they do best...only this time they did it better.

5 jugs of liquid chaos were consumed

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Pointless

Killer Strawberries 3 Longshafts 3

Game Report

February 14, 2011


With the Strawbs and the Longshafts tied in the standings, the winner would get 4th place. Unless there was tie. There was a tie. Longshafts got 4th place on some calculation involving goals for and against, despite the Strawbs' better head to head record on the season. Canadore logic...an oxymoron since 1969.

On the plus side, Mayor maynot starred in goal and will start the next game with the Marquis DeSave as waterboy and proud recipient of the second Grip of Shame.

Nothing else to report. Think I'll have a nap.

The End

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Get A Grip

Killer Strawberries 2 Free Agents 4

Game Report

February 10, 2011

The Executive of the Killer Strawberries was, not to put too fine a point on it, fecking pissed. After spending untold dozens of dollars to bolster the club’s run at another championship, it expected more than the flaccid and utterly shameful performance put in last night by a terribly uninterested bunch of Strawberry Jamheads.

Immediately following the game, the Ice Marshal was called up on the carpet, despite his 2 goal and 4 assist outing. This reporter was lucky enough to have caught the IM as he exited the post-game meeting with his inferiors. “I tried to point out to the Executive that, yes, the game was poorly played, yes, rookies mistakes were made by rookies and aging veterans alike, and yes, it was an embarrassment. On the plus side though, the boys were rather nicely dressed and groomed” stated the serene team leader.

According to the Ice Marshal, the brass was clearly looking for a scapegoat. “Although I had to agree with the Executive that there were at least 10 candidates worthy of the dishonor, I decided to take one for the team” he mused philosophically. When further probed, the humble hockey statesman let it be known that he would be the one to fall on his sword and thus become the first ever recipient of the “Grip of Shame”, a battered suitcase that the Executive now wants to bestow upon, in their words “any and all further embarrassments to the Strawberries’ uniform”.

With the Grip comes an automatic, no time–limited one way trip to the Buttface Bottomfeeders for re-conditioning and attitude adjustment. “I plan to use the time constructively” the Ice Marshal noted. “I’ll be checking out the Ovatorium to find out for Shifty who his father really is, and maybe even make a deposit while I’m there. Maybe I’ll shoot some left-wing mosquitoes with Sarah P. and brush up on my Swahili. Maybe make some tie-dye shirts for the church choir. But don’t cry for me Argentina, I’m sure I’ll be back for Monday’s game.”

Below, is a photo of this week’s scapegoat as he started out on his journey to Buttface, Alaska on a mercilessly cold Friday morning. By noon, the IM had already reached the end of his closest neighbour’s driveway. Interested readers can follow the progress of his demotion on his new ButtFaceBook page. If anyone is speaking with him, they might like to suggest that he re-word his hitchhiking sign.



1 glass of scapegoat’s milk was consumed.










Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Buttface Babies

Killer Strawberries 7 ALU Warriors 3

Game Report

February 7, 2011

The absentee list for last night’s matchup with the Warriors was as long as the excuses were dubious. Dr. Butcher Brophey claimed he thought it was February 14 and, consequently, spent the evening pining by the front door in the hopes that his enamoratta, the legendary Miss White Go Go Boots, would show up swaddled in nothing but a lascivious smile. Alas, Miss White Go Go Boots had other fish to fry and our intrepid defenceman once again finished the evening scoreless.

Slickery Mac, on the advice of his marriage counselor, was attending a wiener roast in Punta Cana. No details of his adventures were available at press time. Freight Train 444 was continuing his quest to pee in every country of the world by 2012. His latest location is reported to be somewhere in New Zealand, having left Fiji to evade Cyclone Yasi. Apparently, he wet himself on more than one occasion in Fiji worrying about whether he and Lazily LaMoan would be evacuated in time.

Dr. Thug, who had previously threatened to commute for every game from his new base somehere on Lake Erie, failed to keep his promise and chose rather to stay put so that he could review his lecture notes on the life cycle of the Beddus Buggess Latinium.

The goalie, the Marquis DeSave, was in San Diego, looking for employment at the world famous Zoo. Unfortunately, they already have 3 or 4 shitty goalies working in their baboon exhibit.

Warrin’ Peace was a no show. According to his rarely updated blog, Inertia, he was unable to make it because he was too tired. With his wife, the beautiful Samara Desert, unable to do everything around the house, poor Warrin’ has been asked to help her shovel the driveway when snowfall exceeds 3 feet and, to heap work upon work, to set the table EVERY NIGHT! The Strawbs send their condolences and a snow scoop.

Also absent was Achilles Perron, despite playing on a line with Pyjama man and the Ice Marshal.

Now back to the game. Even though shorthanded, the Strawbs came through with a 7-3 victory. Mayor Maynot, breaking a scoring drought which dates back to September 2010,tallied 2 markers, one of them on purpose. MagBoy came away with a MagBoy hat trick…2 goals, 2 penalties and 2 unconsummated breakaways. He was urged on in his performance by his current wife, Bootsey MagGirl who, when not “knitting 1 and purling 2”, could be heard trying out new names for the baby fermenting in her womb. The odds-on favourite for a baby’s name is MagTot if it turns out to be a boy… MagWag if it’s a puppy.

Speaking of births, it was officially announced after the game that Shiny Shone Brightly and Shifty Drouin are brothers. Shiny apparently found this out while shaking his family tree late one night last week. According to medical records recently unsealed by the Ovatorium Society of Greater Buttface, Shiny and Shifty were born in test tubes on different dates. While the same mother donated a couple extra eggs she had lying around in her Fallopian tubes from which the boys were eventually hatched, their fathers are separate entities. Shiny’s male donor was a former nuclear physicist with a gambling problem, born in Green Bay but who emigrated to Buttface on a lark (or maybe it was a bus). He was known to collect wads of gum from local sidewalks when not lining up at the local Cheap Spirits and PowerBall Emporium. Shifty’s sperm-bound DNA came from either a former Killer Strawberry demoted to the Bottomfeeders or from Keith Richards. It was probably the demoted Strawb (Moses McLean??), as there is no record of Keith Richards ever touching an organ.

After the game, there was the usual caravan of thirsty Strawbs who headed to the Terminal Tavren. While MagGirl continue knitting her “Madame Lafarge Neck Warmer”, the team drank as much as usual, still reeling from the news of the Buttface Brothers.

2 Guinness, 4 Muskoka Cream Ale, 3 Steamwhistle, 1 Stella, 1 water and some insemination speculation were consumed.

Monday, February 07, 2011

A Vesuvius of Wisdom

Game Report

February 3, 2011

Killer Strawberries 10 Turbo Beavers 0

When he used to be chauffeured to his games, P. Gumbington Pettigrew III was never late. This allowed him to position himself upon his dressing room throne well before most of his team mates showed up to play. From this perch, he would dispense his voluminous hockey wisdom whenever he saw fit to whomever should be so lucky as to enter his realm. He almost always saw fit.

Things have changed since P. Gumbington became dissatisfied with his chauffeur’s services. He now drives himself to all Strawberries’ matches secure in the knowledge that, in accordance with the words of his once imaginary lover, the ageless Carole King, “nobody does it better.”

One of the consequences of his newly implemented “Chariot of The Gawd’s” plan is that he rarely gets to a game before the Zamboni has completed its last lick of the ice. This gives him very little time to correct the most recent flaws he has detected in the play of his inferiors. It is a great loss, a shame really, that so much wisdom gets left undispensed by someone who is so full of it.

As his disciples and worshippers know, Sir Gumby is as adept at forward and goaltending as he is at defence. No scale yet exists to properly measure the performances he routinely puts in. Because the coaching staff knows to expect to same level of play from him whether he plays up , back, between the pipes (or is just on the bench for that matter), he has been shuffled about quite a bit since the Christmas break. This peripateticism has been necessary to adjust for team injuries, unforeseen absences and the rare over-subscription. And because Sir Gumby shows up with little pre-game time to spare, he often does not know what role will be expected of him on the evening.

As had been anticipated last night, our pumpkin-socked pontificator did not show up until the last minute. He barged into to the dressing room like a bulldog with a grudge, barely able to contain the volcano of miffed-induced advice needed to be spewed forth. He made his way across the the floor, swept away a couple of stunned rookies besmirching his perch and magisterially demanded of the coaching staff… “What do you want me to play tonight?”…. “Better” was the terse reply.

Well, to his credit, he did elevate his game to “unexpected.” He even got a breakaway while playing defence. He did score because, as he so properly noted “the score was already 10-0 for us. Both the breakaway and the deliberate miss were intended as life lessons for my team mates. Anyone interested in absorbing the philosophy behind my decisions are invited to gather about my person at the Terminal Tavren following the game.”

The game ended 10-0. Hands were shaken, showers taken and compliments in wolves’ clothing were exchanged. It was midnight before P. Gumbington Pettigrew The Third scurried off with all interested parties for post-game cheer and a chance to pick up the kind of hockey wisdom not available elsewhere in the universe.

1 Guinness and the puppy-eyed adoration of a young waitress who didn’t know better were consumed.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Headless Chicken Dance

Killer Strawberries 4 Longshafts 7

Game Report

January 31, 2011

To call last night’s performance by the Strawbs “flabby” would be akin to describing Miss January , 2011 as “okay to look at, if you’re into that sort of thing.” What happened to the promise glimpsed in last week’s tough-fought loss to the CCCP Bolsheviks?

The boys started out well enough and the score was close through the first period. There were flashes of adequacy on both offence and defence, including the goaltending. Unfortunately, the buzzer which sounded after the first 20 minutes must have had some kind of Pavlovian effect upon the whole squad.

Right from the drop of the puck to commence the second period, the team fell into a strange headless chicken dance, an ugly faux-quadrille bereft of rhyme and reason. Dancing, in any form, has never been this inept. The defence forgot how to defend. The offence became offensive even to the opposing Longshafts who felt they deserved a least o modicum of effort and resistance from the Strawbs. And the Strawbs’ goalie, usually reliable, took an unexpected break from competence and quickly regressed to a level which merited him the. “GetOuttaTown Suitcase Award”. This is new award given to the Killer Strawberry most likely to the return soon to the Buttface Bottomfeeders, the team’s farm team’s farm team. “ Our goalie was shittier than the Ice Marshal’s septic system after a weekend invasion by the in-laws”, mused a clearly disturbed Gumby.

On defence, one aging veteran, who pleaded for anonymity, put in a display which prompted the Ministry of Transportation to ask the Executive if he would be available to work as a pylon on Highway 69 this coming summer. Shiny was present only by his remarkable absence. And this reporter will not bother wasting a perfectly good simile on either of the other 2 D.

Up front, there was no shortage of on-ice work deserving of calumny. Let one egregious example suffice as indicative of the whole. This example would be Slickery Mac, a young man with a belly like his dad’s. What good Slickery managed to eke out against the opposition, although no worse than any of his other compatriots, would not have been detectable by the best microscope in the world.

After the debacle, the weakest performers reconvened at the terminal Tavren to drink away the foul-tasting memories of the game just played. Although there is no official report of what or how much was consumed, it can only be guessed that, by the time the Strawbs’ representatives left the building, there was no more humble pie remaining anywhere on the premises.