Get A Grip

Butcher Bombs Badly. Buttface Beckons

Killer Strawberries 7 Free Agents 2

Game Report

November 4, 2010


It was something the Executive had been worried about for more than a year. As aficionados of all Things Killer Strawberry know, Dr. Butcher Brophey took a sabbatical from his beloved team in 2009-2010, in order to spread to the world his vast knowledge of the topic “Innovating Innovationary Innovation Techniques Innovatively: An Innovator’s Perspective” . His educational victims included some of the unwashed masses of Europe and a few fascinated Bedouins seeking to expand their markets for camel dung.

The good Doctor lectured to great acclaim at The Milan Academy of Blind Donkey Raisers, held open air brainstorming session with the self-flagellating Sisters of Perpetual Suffering and Bleeding in Padua, and, in an unprecedented audience with the Pope, instructed His Most Holy Bigness on the idea of using Catholic confession as a source of Church revenue. He even met up in Giza with his buddy, the also-sabbaticalled Freight Train 444, who, together, turned 3 of the pyramids into to thriving Tim Horton’s Falafel franchises.

But let’s get back to the worrisome part. For any true hockey player, a year spent away from the frozen pond is an awful lot like diving naked into a humming beehive. It’s eventually gonna hurt a lot and for a long time afterward. For a player of the Butcher’s caliber and mental capacity, the result was sure to be especially bad. Turns out the Executive had much to fear.

At the start of the season, the Butcher was eased back into the lineup by placing him on the wing opposite the Ice Marshal. It was much like Edmonton’s experiment of placing the stone-handed Dave Semenko on a line with Gretzky… a gift really. But noooooooo!. The move was a disaster. Brophey was not only underwhelming, he was below sub-underwhelming. His performance, combined with a sullenness so infantile that his sulky lower lip had to be popped with a safety pin, forced the Executive to retreat from its strategy of slow integration and to put the said sulky sulker back among the blueline pigeons for game 2 of the season.

In his defence, it must be noted that the Butcher was less awful at his old position than anticipated. For the next couple of matches, he struggled mightily to bring his game up to its previous level of mediocrity. Unfortunately, hecould not even hurdle that low bar.

In last night’s game, a fresh nadir of Bropheyesque ineptitude was reached. While his teammates performed magnificently in the 7-2 victory over the Turbo squad, the Butcher was abysmal. The breaking point was reached when, in the early moments of the final period, he carelessly tossed a fat, lazy, ill-timed pass right up the middle onto the surprised stick of Turbo’s best player. As the Strawbs’ bench gasped in disbelief, that best player moved in alone on the Marquis, mesmerized him with dazzling feats of legerdemain and casually popped the biscuit into the net.

Mercifully, the game came to an end, and, after the customary shaking of hands, the Killer Strawberries retired to their dressing room for the first round of ribbing and witty repartee. None of the gentlemen on the team mentioned the gaffe for what seemed to be an eternity. The elephant in the room remained unacknowledged until the moment a meek Butcher asked “Ice Marshal, I feel really bad about tonight. What do you recommend?” “A suitcase oughta come in handy” he tersely volunteered.

For the upcoming weekend, Dr. Bonehead Butcher Brophey will be hand laundering jock straps for the Strawbs’ farm team, the Nasty Cupcakes, as well as getting some valuable ice time with farm team’s farm team, the Buttface Bottom Feeders, a team so awful, that Miss White Go Go Boots, whose concept of morality defies imitation, still refuses to entertain any member of that sorry organization.

Post game, most of the boys and Cuddles McMillan resurfaced at the New Terminal Tavren to quaff some wet stuff and to wish the Butcher well on his short rehabilitation stint.

A free 120 ounce pitcher of Bud, 2 not-so-free Grasshoppers, 10 Steamwhisltles, 3 Keiths Dark, 4 Bud Light, 1 Stella , 17 pounds of chicken wings a little Louis Vuitton Whine were consumed.