Jet Rangers Shot Down By Surging Strawberries

Game report

October 22, 2009

Killer Strawberries 3 Jet Rangers 1

As I write this report quite early on Friday morning shortly after the Strawbs’ victory last night, I am struck by a very penetrating question posed to me by Svetlana as she alternately strokes, kneads and drills into my screaming hamstring. Svetlana is no ordinary, run of the mill masseuse. She recently escaped from the former Soviet Union where she was the chief masseuse and team psychotherapist for the Red Army hockey team. She has set up in North Bay where she has restricted her practice to elite athletes and handsome hockey players. If you are, as is the Ice Marshal, qualified under both rubrics, you are indeed a lucky man.
As she teased another spasm of blissful delight from my aching musculature, she asked: “Monsieur Hice Marechal, hiz eet a plaisir playing wis de Killer Fruits?” Still intoxicated by her lilting, French infused voice and the hypnotic rhythm of her able fingertips, I replied: “Ma Cherie, less talk, more pain please.”
Still her probing question haunted me right up to the time of this writing. Certainly, there is a pleasure in beating a band of testosterone fueled hooligans such as the Jet Rangers, especially when they attempt to taunt you at the opening face off with juvenile quips along the lines of “Didn’t you coach my Grampa?” or “Keep your head up old man” or “Didn’t you play on the same line as Moses McLean when he was in peewee?”. Obviously, this rationale would be insufficient. In reality, the true pleasure lies in executing the crisp pass, ringing one off the crossbar, recovering the rebound and burying it in the mesh just above the glass; it is watching Freight Train Laronde get derailed by the tiny edge of paint on the blueline causing him to take a header on a breakaway. It is laughing as Archilles Perron, a once proud man, throws up in the opposition’s faceoff circle while the puck is being passed around in his own end. It is watching Warrin Peace swoop aimlessly about the frozen surface, scrawling indecipherable runes into the virgin ice, oblivious to time and space. But most of all, the pleasure is most intense as the scabs of on ice errors are delicately picked at, post game, by the merciless wits in the dressing room.
I will certainly give my considered answer to Svetlana at our next encounter which will inevitably follow our match this Thursday. As a trained psychologist, I am sure that upon reflection, she will have some interesting insights into what or more precisely, who, is giving me such a big pain in the gluteus maximus. Even if she does not, my gluteus will nevertheless be in good hands.