A Turkish Pissoir

Game Report

Killer Strawberries 9 Those Guys 4

January 24, 2011


If the Killer Strawberries have any pretensions to a fourth championship title in 5 years, they will have to dramatically improve their on-ice performance, which of late, has been as inspiring as an unplanned visit to a public Turkish pissoir in the seedier part of Istanbul.

There has certainly been no problem with the team’s off-ice demeaner. They still close down the Terminal Tavren on a regular basis, floss at a professional level and continue to cause women to swoon by using nothing more than a suggestively arched eyebrow. One Strawb has even been nominated for another Nobel Peace prize for his undertakings with orphaned Thai street workers.

Alas, the hockey side of the business has been deteriorating since the loss of the irreplaceable Dr. Thug to the seductive world of academia. Deep in the heart of Scarberia, the beloved goal scoring howler and chick checker is now spending his waking hours initiating unsuspecting foreign students into the dark mysteries of transactional RNA recombination, lipase catalisticism, T-cell zygotes and Scotch imbibation. The Strawbs miss his “Je ne sais quoi”, Je ne sais how” and Je ne sais why”.

The squad has also been adversely affected by the inability of Warrin’ Peace to extricate his fat ass from his fridge-enhanced BarcoLounger now firmly ensconced in the womb of the Garage of Bad Ideas. He has left the team longing for his over-the-top extroversion and pithy philosophical ejaculations.

Still, these are not very good excuses for the Stawbs’ in-game shenanigans since the the schedule resumed just after New Year’s. What was Slickery Mac thinking last night as he taunted a posse of Those Guys alone in his own end by dangling the puck deftly and brazenly among frustrated sticks and wobbly legs, until, exhausted, he lost the biscuit to 3 of them who then took the liberated puck toward the Strawbs’ net and proceeded to pepper the baffled Marquis DeSave with 37 shots. The barrage finally ended when that rarest of breed, the back-checking forward, put a decisive end to the tomfoolery.

Who did the Vice think he was by pinching in at every opportunity? Sure, he was successful in 51.26% of the time, but what of the remaining 76.34% of the time when he played as befuddedly as a neophyte mathematician trying to multiply, unaided by an abacus, three digit Roman numerals converted to base 3.

Moreover, what was with the performance put in by Shiny Shone Less Brightly, a performance which could only be described as “abysmal” since there does not exist a term in the English language capable of moving that pejorative any further down the Scale of Awfulness? ( In the coming months, some time will certainly be spent at Aloha Baby Compound manufacturing a new descriptor for such a level of ineptitude.)

Fortunately, there was one bright spot on defence, if only for the briefest of moments. It was when (it hurts to say) P. Gumbington The Third, disgusted beyond disgust with the play of his team mates, took matters into his own hands with the score at 5-4 in favour of the Strawberries. He glided magisterially into the opposition slot, his voluminous mane flowing like Guy Lafleur’s in a wind of his own making, and proceeded to slam a beautiful feed past a clearly stunned enemy goaler. It was the turning point in a sloppy match, eventually won by the Strawbs 9-4.

Save for Slickery’s too-realistic imitation of a deer caught in the headlights, the Strawbs’ play at forward was banal yet oddly productive. Goals were scored in bunches, but sadly they were scored with all the enthusiasm reserved for shoveling the driveway for the fourth time in 24 hours. And the enthusiasm had a flaccid panache to match.

Oh, and by the way, the goaltending sucked…. sucked like a new Hoover on steroids.

After the match, most of the Killer Strawberries slunk home to lie about the game to their spouses and dogs. The Vice, the Ice and the Gumbatorial Device, did not duck out. Rather they screamed off to the Terminal Tavren to efface any lingering memories of the crappy play of the Others. They were successful.

1 Keith’s Red, II.XIV (base 3) SteamWhistles, 1 glass of water, 2 Hockstaeder Pale Ales and several happily acknowledged come-on winks from an inebriated bridal party were consumed.