Solid Effort Assures Victory

Game Report

February 5, 2009

Killer Strawberries 4 Jet Rangers 2


Last night’s matchup was a workmanlike affair for the Strawbs as they systematically dismantled the Jet Rangers offence and defence on their way to a 4-2 victory.

The Strawberries’ pipes were ably defended by fill-in, Cat Thomas, a shy philately enthusiast and small gauge train aficionado who was picked up to replace the mysteriously absent Jesse The Leak. Based on his performance, Mr. Cat was invited to be the team’s backup for the rest of the season. He diplomatically declined, citing his aversion to something he termed “low standards”. We presume he was speaking of the opposition.

The incredible rubber man, Dr. Thelonius Thug, returned from his nth hundredth head smacking to lead the team in cheerleading and on-ice fancy footwork. Although advised against suiting up by his online support group, the Dizzy Dinosaur Greats of Hockey, he did play well. Unfortunately, there were disturbing signs of his advanced dementia different from the old signs of his advanced dementia to which the team has become accustomed. Among the signs: Dr.Thug dressed and undressed 3 times before the game actually started because he was confused whether the Strawbs were the home team, the visiting team or the home team. On the plus side, The Vice extracted $50 bucks from the notorious tight wad by convincing him that he had not yet paid his entry fee to the team. The money will be put to a good cause at the Terminal Tavren or other such fine charitable organizations.

Freight Train 444 continued his inspired play as he was moved back and forth between centre and defence as the situation required. “I felt like a yo-yo out there” he reported after the game. “I don’t usually swing from both sides of the plate like that but it sure was fun.”

Slickery Mac was the game’s biggest offensive threat, scoring 2 beauties and constantly setting up the Ice Marshall, to no avail. (In his defence, the Ice Marshal was playing in a full body cast and was still reeling from his starter wife’s declaration that their 50 year old kitchen was going to be redone come hell or high water.) One of Slickery’s goals was an absolute beauty. He struck the puck with such force that it snapped the net’s back bar, ripped through the boards and struck a surprised Zamboni driver busily engaged in some kind of lurid ménage with a siren in white go go boots and her niece/aunt from a previous marriage.

Once again, the Strawbs were afflicted with an ugly case of absenteeism. The Leak, poor student by day, hot and cold goaltender by night, took it upon himself to attempt an unauthorized try-out with the Drinkin Thinkin Stinkins of the renegade Continental Recovering Alcoholic Poets (C.R.A.P.) League. According to Shelley Keats-Yeats, the Stinkins’ manager, coach, bus driver and muse:

We took a peek
At Jesse The Leak
And unfortunately found him wanting.
Best take him back
Cause he’s on track
For some ugly merciless taunting.

In front of a puck
He really does suck.
His skills they are so yucky.
Dump him now
He’s lost his wow
And then consider yourselves lucky.

Mr. Leak is expected to start the Strawbs’ next game, conditional upon a written apology to the Strawbs and a note from his psychiatrist.

Dr. Bonehead Butcher Brophey was also unable to make the match. Apparently, the North Bay Parry Sound Health Unit condemned his equipment, minutes before his departure for the game. The Health Unit was particularly appalled by the state of his undergarments (both the ones he was wearing and those he uses for hockey). The official report reported, as official reports are wont to do, that “the Butcher’s undershirt had the aroma, consistency and appearance of a moldy Limburger left to rot for 23 days on the floor of some backwoods Amazonian forest.” The rest of the report was not nearly as complimentary. After the game, the Executive admonished Brophey for being a danger to himself, to his team and to all the communities within a 50 mile radius of his ramshackle home in Corbeil, Ontario. (The town motto: We may not be big, but we’re small.) A disposal team from the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta has confiscated the offending equipment for further analysis and quarantine.

The last absentee,the once proud Warrin Peace, has been a problem all year. He seems impervious to the team’s encouragement and lavish incentice system. Since his marriage/bondage to the mesmerizing Samarra Dessert, he is no longer the same man he was before his misguided foray into matrimonial bliss. And the humiliations just keep piling on. For example,the absentee was, as of last Tuesday, officially installed as the head eunuch at the Garage Of Bad Ideas. Under the terms of his “promotion”, he was allowed to not participate in last night’s match because his boss needed her delicate feet rubbed after an exhausting retail therapy marathon in NYC, with a bevy of her like-minded girlfriends. The team hopes he finds his balls soon.

Warmed by the victory and despite the plethora of unauthorized absences, the Killer Strawberries reconvened at the Terminal Tavern to go over the high points of the game.

Feats were feted
And Yeats requited
For giving the Strawbs back their Leak.
Brophey was slagged
And Warrin’, debagged,
Was ridiculed as worthless and weak.

5 Bud, 3 Blue, 4 Guinness, 7 Steamwhistle, 1 Black and tan and 2 chicken’s balls were consumed.