The Joy of Socks

Urban Outlaws 4 Killer Strawberries 2

Game Report

November 14, 2008


Once again, a shorthanded Strawbs squad came up against a benchful of screaming meemies so high on a toxic brew of raging male hormones that the meemies could barely restrain their hockey libidos long enough take a second breath. It was like playing against the hockey equivalent of a relentless and immoral hard-on. The Strawbs got a pretty good idea what it must be like today to be an unsuspecting teenage boy in a cougar bar.

Things were much different in Strawberryland where the team was so tired by the 2 minute mark that distress signals were being sent out in rudimentary sign language for anyone, anyone, to fire up and deliver the emergency defibrillator conveniently located somewhere in the dark recesses of the Zamboni room. The defibrillator never did arrive yet the Strawberries carried on as best they could under the circumstances.

And why were the Strawbs so shorthanded? Because the Vice and Sir Gawdawful, rather than showing up to the game, decided to venture to Sudbury to attend a Bob Dylan mumblefest. Such is the modern face of loyalty.

Despite the handicap, the Strawbs were able to partially subdue the priapetic beast. Pyjama Man was steady but his stick proved, on numerous occasions, to be six inches short of the goal. Freight Train used his hulking size to diplomatically chop down more than a few Outlaws buzzing about his besieged netminder. Archilles Perron got a shot on net. Dr. Thug, unable to find a young lady to mug, sulked briefly and then exploded in an impressive display of geriatric pique, elbowing his way to the game’s third star. Shiny did his best Zamboni impression, sliding to block a charging Outlaw, only to miss his target and wind up causing a small snow blizzard at the far end of the rink.

The real stars of the game were Jesse The Leak and the irrepressible MagBoy, recently affianced. Facing swarm after swarm of relentless Urban Outlaws, our goalie stood tall, making save after impossible save while carefully reminding his opponents (by less than gently applying the business end of his goalie stick to the seats of their sovereignty) to not take any unnecessary liberties with his august personage. MagBoy was magnificent. He played like a nine-armed octopus: left leg kicking, right leg flying, middle left leg jabbing, left handed arm on his right side flaying, tongue wagging, head nodding, both skatelaces undone, the team’s first star.

At game’s end, an exhausted (and did I mention shorthanded) Killer Strawberries squad congratulated its tormentors and repaired, barely breathing, to their sanctuary to lick their wounds and suffer private heart attacks. Unfortunately, it was not only an evening of torment on the ice. The cruelty of the universe reared its ugly head again in the dressing room.

Ice Marshal Walpole, six times voted “Best Undressed Strawb” by the growing Strawberry fan base, swore that he had shown up to the game wearing a matching pair of Brigadoon argyle socks, knitted especially for him by an adoring fan. While dressing for his late night, post game, tomcattery, he discovered that one of the socks had mysteriously disappeared sometime between game start and game finish. After ascertaining that no one had brought a portable clothes dryer to the game ( a known gateway for escaping socks), he scanned about the room for clues. It did not take him long to apprehend the culprit. As everyone should know by now, Dr. Butcher Brophey (no goals, no assists, 24 minutes in the Sin Bin on the evening) never washes his own equipment: says it gives him an edge…yes, that and a constant fungal infection to his nether regions. Never-washed equipment is an unsupervised,
impulsive, delinquent: a modern day Fagin. It is always on the lookout for recruits. And it is an easy recruiting job because equipment, like cats, hates to be washed. Any chance to find asylum in a friendly bag is irresistible to well cared for (but ultimately ungrateful) equipment. Such was the case here. The Ice Marshal was faced with a dilemma: repatriate the wayward Argyle or grant it the freedom it so evidently desired. The choice was rendered simple when the Ice Marshal realized that an emancipated sock is a happy sock. He quickly tossed the unescaped hosiery mate into Brophey’s travelling cesspool of stinky armour, stating ruefully “Be gone and good riddance, feckless Fruit Of The Loom.”

After scrubbing all body parts and culling their own equipment for suitable ejectees, the Strawbs reconvened at the Terminal Tavren to brainstorm ways to get back at the benedict Arnolds who chose the incomprehensible Dylan over a satisfying hockey beating. The only good idea came from MagBoy who suggested that next game, the absent Sudbury-loving reprobates be bound and tossed into Brophey’s hockey bag so that their filthy disloyalty could be mixed happily with the stench of unwashed anarchy.

4 Stella, 7 Guinness, 5 Blue, 3 pounds of chicken wings, 1 basket of dead potatoes and a sickening side dish of betrayal strained through dirty socks were consumed.