Fan Appreciation Night A Huge Success
Aviators Gun Down Feuding Strawbs 5-4
Game Report
February 9, 2006


While the Strawbs put in what one observer described as a “limp and fatuous” performance on the ice, the close 5-4 loss was overshadowed by two unprecedented events.

By using that underrated yet highly effective marketing tool called “Doin’Diddley Squat Promotion,” the team ran its first ever Fan Appreciation Night which swelled its 2005-2006 attendance record to 5, its highest cumulative annual attendance since 1992, when a rowdy troupe of disoriented and jet-lagged and wandering Japanese karaoke singers inadvertently mistook Pete Palangio arenas for the Capitol Centre.

Two intrepid and possibly pre-inebriated fans, sisters from the less respectable arm of the Alcorn clan, were in attendance to cheer on the Vice Ice Marshall, Rob “The Torch” Greenfield. While their enthusiasm was much to be admired, their choice of exhortations was, to say the least, explicit and imaginative in its use of terms more befitting an evening at the alternative ballet. To his credit, “The Torch” attempted to ramp up his game to the level of “tepid”, in an effort to impress the assembled soigné crowd. Unfortunately, his efforts fell short and in his own words, uttered with an unsettling hint of pride at the terminal tavren (yes, tavren), appraised his performance as follows: “I played like sh#t…all I did was win a couple of faceoffs”. Although no one could recall any face-offs won by the hapless centre, all agreed with the rest of his self-evaluation (even though some were of the opinion that the scatological term used by the VIM did not go quite go far enough), which brings us to the second unprecedented event.

It is an unusual occurrence for a Strawb to criticize another Strawb. Yet what happened in the team’s dressing room after the game bordered on ugly. Ice Marshall Walpole, just freshly returned from negotiating a peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, attributed the matter to pent up pressure resulting from the team’s overwhelming desire to bring home the Cup this year or to quote him more accurately, “it was a subconscious overtly-revelatory manifestion of innate pre-concurrence distress syndrome, not seen since the 1942 Olympic Hockey Gold run up in Goosergood, Germany.” “It is known be to cured with a cold Guinness served soon after the incident”. The proposed cure was quickly agreed and acted upon. But to get back to the ugly occurrence. Gumby Pettigrew, entirely blameless for the loss (in his own humble estimation) sparked the heated conflagration by noting that The Torch appeared to be content to model his game upon a leisurely stroll on Trout Lake on a sun-speckled winter afternoon. Fortunately, The Torch was not in the room to hear this spurious and outrageous heresy. Freight Train Laronde took up the Torch’s cause by commenting that he thought the use of the expression “sun-speckled” was unjustified and unfair. Pyjama Man, who had just finished lighting a stogey for Smokey Hill by sparking together the blades of his skates, retorted that he believed The Torch reminded him of Cliff Claven of ‘Cheers’ fame, both for The Torch’s physical resemblance to the revered mailman and for the way each of these icons plays the game. Then, someone claimed to hear the whispered phrase “forced retirement”. Luckily, upon seeing that his and Pyjama Man’s comments may have been out of place, Gumby then noted, in his stentorian yet mellifluous voice, that, while the aviators appeared to have had too many goalies plugging up the net, the “Strawbs didn’t have enough.” Magnesium Man, the team’s self-appointed guru of whatever is on his mind, was prescient enough to see where the ugliness was leading and quickly pointed out that the universe was created by Carl Sagan…this from a guy who played with all the finesse of a rain-slicked sidewalk. In any event, MM’s astute observation was enough to derail the insultfest…just in time because Jon Jean John Jawn (Yawn) was ready to lambaste Butcher Brophey for failing to get the puck to him in an important situation that nobody could remember or cared about. Finally, cooler heads prevailed when Freight Train pointed out that time was getting to be short and that the terminal tavren (yes, tavren) would be closing in less than 3 hours.

The Alcorn sisters, using their unparalleled wit, guile and dirty tricks, changed the post game venue to one of their own liking, forcing the team to congregate at their third choice for the evening, prompting one unnamed Strawb to rename the occasion “The Alcorn Sisters Take-Over Night”. By the end of the soiree, all ruffled feathers were smoothed and harmony reigned in Carl Sagan’s universe. Sister Pam Alcorn summed it up best, “It was a great game. It just slipped away from you. Things are always slipping away from me. What colour should I dye my hair this time?”


9 jugs and a lot of chickens were sacrificed in the name of team unity.

Next game is Thursday, February 16 at some time in the evening.

PS Love Glove: We know you missed the game because of your double vasectomy/appendectomy. Hope you can make it next week.

Rusty Report to the Nasty Cupcakes for conditioning asap