'Ralphs Falls, Tamsania

Strawb banished by Devuono found in the land of the convicts'

TAFKATB

PS Have a great Christmas season

T'was the Night Before the Killer Strawberries' Christmas

T’was the break before Christmas,

And all through the league

Teams looked at the standings

And saw the Strawbs, with intrigue

 

“How could they be first?”

The pubescent boys inquired,

“They’ve past the best before date,

And are almost expired!”

 

But in the midst of a rebuild,

The Strawbs came on strong,

With better ideas this year than

Beer cases with thongs.

 

Was it the dropping of Butcher,

from the ol’ chopping block?

Or was there something terribly wrong

With the arena’s score clock?


 

Could it be Ice Marshall Walpole,

An exec from last year,

Who protested the four-heads

And packed up his gear?

 

Perhaps with the divestment

Of a Freight Train we knew

That by 44%

Our chances of winning grew.

 

According to the Strawbs,

Who are toughing it out

They are encouraged by Dr. Thug,

And his infamous shout.

 

And if you ask one Gawdawful Gumby

He’ll say it’s because,

In an exaggerated tone:
“Same as it ever was.”
 

Mark Wagner

Strawbs finish 8-2 the first half of 2013-2014

Strawbs celebrating the end of the first half of 2013-2014.

Slick Trick

Nov. 28 Game Report

Strawberries 6 - Mongeese Flew South (4)

The Slick is back! Not since we played that team without a goalie has Slick recorded a slicktrick.  Hats rained on to the ice. They were great hats too.  Hats like Bombardier, Molson 50, CP Rail, Gawd is Watching (with a picture of Gawd winking).  Someone tossed one of those "Who Farted" hats. You know the one that looks roughed up like it was worn to a Zoo and Wilders washroom fight? The Zebras picked all the hats up but that one. They just left it in the corner all game.  We scored a goal because of it.  The Mayor's goal went in off of the hat. He was awarded the goal despite trying to keep his distance from the on-ice warning message of some possible broken wind.

Magboy netted a TSN replay worthy goal off a high flick pass from the Mayor.  He knocked the puck down with his glove, returned both hands to his stick and notched it in while highfiving the Mayor and texting.

In the net stood our disposable net minder, Dokota DC3, whose flaps were up every time the Mongeeseses rafter daddy shots lifted off. Their attempts to outplay the shorthanded Strawbs were futile especially when Gawd and the Vice can play the entire game. The Vice's beauty goal is another testament to the D's outstanding play. As a matter of fact we saw a lot of out standing the entire game.

After the final whistle the team's defibrillator was used to treat Gawd and The Vice's supra-ventricular tachycardia. On the bench they call it "feeling tachy again".  In the room the Fiss brothers decided to make a jack ass video and jolt each other in their post game masochist ritual.  In the end we were all shocked, especially those showering at the time. [No footage was actually recorded]

Post game a few Veteran Strawbs convened at the Tavren for a post game sip and the awarding of a custom printed hat for The Vice.  "Who Sharted". 

Strawbs Extend Streak to 6-0, Nov. 14, 2013

Under the watchful eye of  Ice Marshall Walpole (Ret.), the Killer Strawberries extended its early season winning streak to six wins and 0 losses.  In typical Strawbs fashion, the team played to the level of its competition, and in this particular case, it was anything but a beauty.  Out chanced, out worked, out muscled, out lucked, but not out scored, the team eeked out a win by one goal.  Suffice to say the Strawbs were not overly happy with their play, but all were quick to note "a win is a win."  They were probably out quoted by the opposing team as well.

Most of the vets retired to the terminal tavren following the game to enjoy anything but re-hashing the game.  As has been the case all season, no rookies were invited to the post game soiree.  The usual lies, drinks and food were consumed.

Strawbs pinch out a BM victory

Game Report

Killer Strawberries 4 Barn Muckers 3 

Nov 11, 2013 (One to remember)

In one of the Strawbs toughest matches of the season, and with only 10 skates this time, the squad was able to notch a 5th straight victory.  Gawd was missing.  A courtesy call indicated that he was tied up in meetings on Church Street, Toronto. In his words, "I've got to go down for a group hug." Good luck with just hugging. Not only did you put us out but you will likely have to put out too.  Clean your equipment before you return to the ice.  Phillter Queen was missing as well.  Until he's plugged in we won't know if he sucks. That may sound like a shot, but its a pretty accurate statement.


Those that did show know how much trouble those Muckers can be.  Marquis de Saviour, filled with honeymoon testosterone, saved many breakaways and countless wristers and whack-at-ers.  Shiny and the Vice watched the BM's pass the puck around like onlookers at a ping pong tournament. They kept their opponents wide by not moving much.  Johnny 2 Good and Devilish had their hands full clearing the puck to whom ever would take it. Sometime they got it back right away.
Despite the lack of clearing attempts and puck control, the forward lines did what they do best, look to their executive to save the day. Magboss opened the scoring due to a beauty pass from Slickery. 
The second marker was again a product of Slickery's charity. This year the executive promises a tax write off each time Slick donates a pass to another teammate. In 2012 Slick had nothing to claim.
The Hanson bros, despite their tin foiled hands, tag teamed a few nifty goals with the Mayor's support.

The executives, past and present, retired to the terminal tavren where the board discussed its IPO positioning. With 5 wins and at least 1 fan per game, it's time to start selling shares.

2 lbs of fragmented gallus domesticus and a small amount of ale were consumed.

Strawberries Quack Mighty Ducks Defense, Win a Thriller

Game Report

Killer Strawberries 5 Mighty Ducks 4 

Nov 7, 2013

They looked and played like pylons for a period and a half, but the Killer Strawberries needed no more than a minute to blow the doors off what was otherwise a dud of a match.

Dr. Thug was in attendance despite his ongoing concussion lawsuit vs. the College, a suit that could see him get paid $1.2 million dollars for every concussion he’s endured since his inception into the league in 1924, totaling $1,036,800,000.
Magboy and Shiny Shawn Brightly had troubles adjusting their balance attempting to get used to the ever-growing ego associated with starting their Executive careers 4-0.

Back from his honeymoon soiree, Marquis de Saviour went from scoring to saving with a flip of a switch, robbing the Mighty Ducks of any hope throughout the game.

As for the others: The Fiss’ fizzled, Johnny was 2 Good, the Mayor Mayored and Slickery slicked. Gawd was Gawd, and the Vice was present.

Reported by Marquis de Saviour

Game Report

Killer Strawberries 3 Fussy Book Club 1  

Oct 31, 2013

We played some hockey. We read some books and reviewed them with the other team during game play. There were many disagreements on the meaning and plot line of various readings.
We look forward to our next book club meeting. 

The end.

Marquis de Slave

Game Report

Killer Strawberries 5 Scrapper 4  

Oct 28, 2013

The team took to the ice with almost a full roster again. "The Fill" was absent while Shiny made his debut with the newly reformed Killer strawberries team.  The most noticeable back-filled absence was none other than the permanently whipped Marquis de Slave who hadn't the balls to arrange for a honeymoon much closer to the arena.  The Ontario North lands repair depot would have been a great spot to honeymoon. It features high ceilings and a wonderful cafeteria.  Or how about Arclin Canada Limited. I hear they have wonderfully decorated 4000 gal holding tanks with competitive prices and free parking. 

While both of those getaway spots are a honeymooners dream, the Marquis needlessly shacked up in some remote expensive sweet spending his time watching NHL hockey and TSN replays while the beautiful Mrs M.D.S surfed the net for thank you cards.

We hope you enjoyed your time off and Congratulations!  

Please Note: The executive has decided that this is your final marriage and or honeymoon. See you Thursday.

A few die-hards convened at the tavern where nothing much was consumed.

Killer Strawberries shed 100 years, win season opener 4-0

With the departure of 5 stalwart Strawbs (Freight Train Laronde, Butcher Brophey, Ice Marshall Walpole, Warren Peace and Pajama Man) this season, the team went after some able replacements.  The result was a lowering of the combined team age by 100 years and a shift to a faster, younger and better weight distributed team.  The new "young guns" add to a new dimension in team speed not seen since the last century.  There are still a few old crumugeons left on the Strawbs, but it is clear the current roster will compete well.  As Dr. Thug noted after the game, "we're gonna go all the way."  Not to throw water on that flame of optimism, but Dr. Thug says that year in and year out.

The Marquis de Save was brilliant as he always says he is and was well deserved of the shutout even as he and his teammates tried to throw the shutout away in the dying minutes.  GAWD was Gawd.  The Vice continues to unimpress, and Dr. Thug was thrilled the opposition had "wimin folk."  Mag Boy was less of a dirvish and more of a scoring machine, wearing the executive mantle with aplum.  Slickery was too much so and left the game with a trick back to some far flung hot tub and Swedish masseuse.  The Mayor in reslendant plastic skates was as always the fastest player on the ice and came close to realizing speed kills.

The shouts of "We Want the Butcher" quickly died away with the more than capable play of Johnny 2 Good.   The Hanson twins, Tyler and Jason, were perfectly rambunctious, while Devon and Phil whipped around the ice like short track skaters on a roller rink.  Game monikers for the new pups will be forthcoming.

Stay tuned for more exciting news than this following the games to come.

Oh yes, the "die hards" and no new guys retired to the treminal tavren (for IMW) to discuss ales.  8 gift certificates for the old guys were aquired and a few Guiness to validate being at the pub.

Post Killer Strawberries Golf

 The gang outside the Moose for the Killer Strawberries Plaid Jacket presentation.

3/4 of the Plaid Jacket winning team, missing Marquis.

Butcher Brophey Replaces Own Knee

In one of the final Strawbs' games of the season, the Butcher left the game early after his 3rd infraction attempting to acquire the last part he needed to re-build his more than wonky knee.  With some spare parts found in his garage behind his hockey equipment and beer stash, he was able to carve up his knee with his trusty Sherwood 5030 and install the new-to-him parts.  Aside from a few minor setbacks due to, among other things, a quick squash game followed by a local pick up game of Roller Derby, the Butcher is on the mend.

The Pain Is Over

Game Report

Killer Strawberries   3    Rams    4  

March 7, 2013

It was a rather fitting end to a season with little passion. The Strawbs were eliminated last night from playoff contention after putting up a good fight against the Rams, a team against which it was well matched.

The Strawbs finished the year with a .500 record, which put them in 6^th place in a 10 team division. It was a season of injuries for a squad with over 600 years of life experience and over 500 years of hockey experience, most of this spottled experience thankfully filed away in memory’s vault of impossible recollection.

This year, if you weren’t injured, you were the exception. For the 10^13th time in his illustrious career,   Dr  Phelonius Thug sustained a season ending concussion. Of course, it was off-ice, he having run into his own car door after too long a session in the company Dr. Laphroaig, his medication of habit. Dr. Bonehead Butcher, who put together an impressive streak of “three penalties and you’re out”, was constantly plagued with bi-shoulder injuries, bad knees and questionable on-ice judgment. The Vice showed up almost every game, beset by rotator cuff woes and, most recently, with an alleged concussion he claims to have picked up from sharing medication with Dr. Thug during some unspecified wellness retreat on his back porch.

The Ice Martian missed half the games with a terrible case of untreated hypertension. IMW attributed his condition to his kids, his dog, his wife, his neighbours, his friends, his financial advisor, his sleep diagnostician and poor goaltending, in that order. Sir Gumbington Pettigrew III, aka Gawdawful Gumby or, more simply, Gawd, was hobbled from November onward with what his psychiatrist described “Anomie Hockeyus Severe-us”. While the symptoms were many and varied, the most noticeable of them was the one where he would pass the puck up the middle through his own end, as he peewee coach screamed in his head “don’t do that, you prepubescent putz!”. On top of that, the Gumster had a never ending head cold, picked up at the Brass Rail over the Christmas holidays. Rumours abound that that was not the only thing he picked up there.

MagBoy was never himself, much to the delight of his main squeeze, the indomitable MagGirl, yet a true disappointment to his team. It was not his fault. He laboured for months with a post-genital hernia which slowed down both his infamous whilybirding and his thought processing.

Shiny Sean Brightly, principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Nagging and a Packers fan, had the best season of all Strawbs, health-wise. He managed to finish out the season in the best shape of his life physically. Mentally, he was a mess. He had to resort to having his son, C., age 5, tie his skates for him before he left home, lest he forget to do them up in the dressing room before each game.

Mayor Maynot, the fastest skater ever to don the Strawbs’ colours, was also plagued with a disease of the mind. As the season progressed, he increasingly hung around the opposition’s blue line, screaming for the puck, and refusing to enter his defensive zone. It got so bad, he started to do this during every pre-game warm up. He did not make a pass since November 22, 2012.

Slickery led the team in goals for and against. Near the end, he physically resembled the bulbous Ice Martian, something he vowed would never happen. His wife has enrolled him in Weight Watchers, Herbal Magic, Yoga and Dr. Oz’s Online Forum For Guys Who Now Look Like Their Fathers.

And what the hell was going on with Warrin’ Peace. Here is a fellow who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, works out 16 times a day and trains others to be Olympic athletes. Early in the season, he must have pulled something in the bathroom or elsewhere in a dark corner. He brought to each game the same amount of energy and elan that a 90 year hooker brings to her old-age home’s Talent Night.

Freight train Laronde missed more than half the season with what he termed “an acute, season-ending, laceratory, hyper-contusionary, fracture of the fifth left-medial metatarsus.” In addition to spending too much time reading his daughter’s medical school texts in search of the juicy parts, wethinks he may have taken one too many pucks to the pre-frontal occipital lobus minimus.

Pyjama Man did even get out the gate in October, the victim of an off-season plumbing repair mishap. The team hopes he will be shooting better next year.

Which brings us to the biggest injury of all, a psychological injury which ensured that the Strawbs would be mired the whole season languishing in a state of unaccustomed mediocrity. When he was drafted in 2010, the Marquis DeSap came highly recommended by his mother. The scouting crew were impressed which his high school hockey credentials and his scathing dressing room wit. His first 2 seasons with the Strawbs were superb. Night after night he stole games away from a frustrated opposition. But in the 2012-2013 season, something happened  to the grey matter ensconced between his rather large ears. The Marquis began to resemble, in MagBoy’s immortal words, “a thin slice of Swiss cheese standing helpless on the goal line”. There were evenings when he couldn’t stop a beach ball with a butterfly net. He began to wear industrial strength sunblock to shade his exposed neck region from the red light behind his net. The quality of his dressing room banter descended to depths frequently seen in the final hours of a Gumbytown soiree. In short, he wrote his own ticket to Buttface, Alaska, home to the Strawbs’ farm team’s farm team, the Nasty Cupcakes. Perhaps, he will show up ready next year.

All in all it was good year. 

Strawbs Win. Goaltending Woes Continue.

Killer Strawberries   8      Scoregasms    5

Game Report

February 13, 2013

Record: unknown yet respectable

What has happened to the cocky goaltender who, for months after being the Strawbs first overall pick in the 2011 draft, was as impenetrable as anything found in an Italian convent? In last night’s game against the Scoregasms, the offence was relentless. MagBoy and The Mayor alone had at least 8 breakaways and 3 goals between them. Every Strawbs forward scored and every defencemen played some version of defence. But in nets, the story is one which continues to send shock waves of consternation up and down the bench, through the press box and right up into the sanctum sanctorum in Aloha Baby Compound, where whiskey and uxorious companionship flow like the Nile in rainy season.

The goaltending has been so atrocious that there is now a very plausible theory circulating among the handsomer Strawbs. This theory holds that Dr. Phelonius Thug’s most recent concussion was caused by the Marquis DeSap’s inability to stop anything moving towards him with any speed greater than that achieved by a retreating glacier. How would this theory be possible, you may ask? If you need to ask, you just don’t know.

In the impartial opinion of this award winning reporter, the Strawbs will be going nowhere in the playoffs until such time as solve their gaping hole behind the blueline.

With Valentine’s looming ominously just past the midnight fast approaching, all Strawbs scurried home after the game  to ensure that the gifts so carefully chosen for the loves-of-their-lives would be properly chilled for the next day. Nothing but perhaps a bottle or two from the chilling inventory was consumed.

A Serendipitous Delight

Killer Strawberries    7    Turbo Pussies    5

Game Report

February 11, 2013

To say that the Turbo Beavers had more overall skill than the Strawbs in last night’s hockey tussle would have the holder of such an opinion of the right side of the truth. But, as all hubristic cocky little pricks know, more skill does not equal victory. Grit and a good dollop of horseshit luck are a helluva lot more effective. And the Strawbs, if anything, know how to manufacture  enough of the former and a surfeit of the latter when the occasion demands.

The Strawbs' equine-excretion-inspired good fortune began with a few well-timed absences. The Marquis DeSad, he of the impertinent lip, impudent attitude and insolent wit, was somewhere in Texas making love to his ego. Dr. Thug was out with concussion 10¹² suffered as result of running into his own car door after too long a roadside debriefing with Ron Bacardi. Freight Train Laronde remains on the injured reserved list, having suffered an undisclosed lower body injury at The Word Lap Dance Championships in Amos, in the Province of Queeebec.

The game started out badly. The Strawbs were down 3-0 in the time it takes a new girl to tell the Gumbomeister to sod off.  But being in the behind position is nothing foreign to any Strawb worth his salt. After taking a collective deep breath, the squad mounted its assault. Slickery showed why he is considered his father’s quasi-legitimate son as he scored almost at will. The Mayor was on fire, cheating repeatedly off every faceoff to scream his way to center ice where Shiny would elegantly feed him a breakaway pass. He scored on 2 of his 10 attempts, a scoring percentage well-above even such luminaries as Phil Kessel and the now deceased Gary Croteau.

The Ice Martian was effectively ineffective, as was his protégé, MagBoy. Warrin’ Peace finally contributed an important tally early in the second period then immediately went into his Idle Some More mode.

The Vice played much better when he demoted himself to defence. He clicked with Shiny and they have decided to get married, in the hockey sense. The other two defenders were a disgrace bordering on ineptitude. Fortunately for them, this writer will not go into any details, since he doesn’t have any. The preceding opinion is based solely on the hearsay provided by the Vice as he was being driven home by said writer. A fuzzy recollection also conjures up the phrases “effing crappy, woeful and time for retirement.”

After the game, everyone went straight home to wake up their spouses with the good news. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was consumed.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Killer Strawberries    5    Rams    5

Game Report

February 7, 2013

Record: ?-?-41

As is customary with every Strawbs’ performance, on and off the ice, there were elements ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous in last night's game against the Rams. Let us start with the ridiculous.

Normally, the Marquis DeSave is as reliable between the pipes as a good quality toilet paper. The paper may give a little around the edges but it can be trusted to clean up any messes it encounters. Not so last night. The Marquis performed like the type of ass-wipe one finds gracing the outhouse of a third world airport. You know the type: paper so flimsy and porous that it crumbles in your hand as you peel it off the roll and then proves difficult to remove from the hirsute guardians of your nether regions.  MagBoy, in his post-game rant at the Terminal Tavren, diplomatically avoided any reference to toilet paper in his description of the cocky DeSave’s outing but did note that a thin slice of Swiss cheese place along the goal line might have served the Strawbs better on the evening.

Out on the other parts of the pond, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Mayor Maynot, fresh from dodging death threats at the Astorville arena where he had just finished his Zebra duties in a Peewee House League grudge match, danced about the rink like needle of a compass at the magnetic North Pole. He was here, there and nowhere at the same time.

The Vice lugged around his extra 30 pounds of winter fat with all the aplomb of Honey BooBoo after her afternoon nap. Dr Thug, nattily attired in his old asbestos, anti-concussion Aurel Joliette 2000 Noggin Protector and some little kid’s hockey gloves, skated circles around himself and almost touched the puck once.

Slickery was pathetic. None of his fourteen rockets hit the net and his passing sucked. Gumbo lowered his team leading 14 passes per game up the middle to a respectable 13.67. Butcher Brophey, whose inamorata has left him for another woman in Saskatchewan, neither butchered nor exhibited the least sign of the vituperative truculence which has made him legendary both in Canada and in every other country where he has been allowed to play more than one game in any sport. Wethinks he is still grieving. As for Shiny Shone Brightly, he was good but not as good as he self-reported in the dressing room following the match.

This brings us to the triumphant return of the team’s spiritual leader, swami, Svengali and psychiatrist. As anyone familiar with the well-known  world of Canadore intramural is aware, Ice Martian Walpole has recently been battling inscrutable cosmic forces just to stay alive. On Christmas Day, 2012, IMW was wheeled into the operatory at the Aloha Baby Compound in Oahu for emergency surgery. Two of his hot tub companions, the Olsen twins, had gone into simultaneous cardiac arrest. The IMW had quickly sized up the situation and summoned the Executive’s doctor to the operatory, where he waited to dole out the orders.

“The lasses have weak hearts. They need to be replaced immediately” remarked the unflappable IMW. “ Dr. Zhivago, take out my heart, slice it down the middle and transplant one half into each of the twins. Don’t worry about me. Just put me on the Machine until we can find a suitable replacement my aching heart”.

The Olsen twins survived their operations and are tickled pink to have some IMW inside them permanently. The Ice Martian faltered a bit on Boxing Day but held on until his new antelope’s heart was able to take over from the Machine three days later. For the month of January and right up to game time last night, he was in rehab under the recuperatory tutelage of a crack team of physioterrorists. The rehab must have taken because his return to the Strawbs’ fold was nothing short of blissful. IMW contributed 2 goals and an assist. “I’m just a journeyman player in the hands of a fickle fate” commented the shy leader. “The boys made a special effort to feed good passes. I was simply the lucky guy who touched the puck last before it crossed the goal line, twice I believe. Even Gumby could have scored on my chances...well at least on one of the chances, assuming he wasn't keeping company with Johnny Walker The Red.”

After the game, the squad reassembled at the Terminal Tavren to toast the continued good health of the Olsen twins and the handiwork of Dr. Zhivago.

1 Crock Top, 6 Guinness, 7 Hot and Hoppy, 16 Garfunkels, 10 pounds of deep fried artery hardener and the stuff of dream-comebacks-come-true were consumed.

  

Barn Muckers 5 - Killer Strawberries 3 
(the briefest of reports)

A short handed Strawbs team, in other words, those players who felt like showing up for the game, mucked it up quite well with the Muckers.  With surprising few squabbles about whose turn it was to sit on the bench, the team sucked it up and made the opposing team a tad nervous.  Down by a goal early twice in the game, the Strawbs fought back to end the 1st half tied 2-2.  With 14 minutes left in the game, the Gentlemen's Club was ahead 3-2.  The final 10 minutes of play were tight and competitive with both teams pressing.  The Muckers were forced to work for their win.
The usual Killer Strawberries post-game ensued ... blah blah blah.