Team Factory Tackles the Ringers

Eric's pre-game ritual during the C league was to lug his gear into the locker room as the Zamboni began cutting the ice and dress out in about 8 minutes. It was always fun to watch Greg begin to sweat and fight the urge to call Eric on the cell while he tried to act all calm and kept assuring us, "don't worry, he'll be here." And to their credit, he almost always was. But this season, he gets to the rink early, plugged into his iPod and getting into his happy place. Heck, he's even here before Phil! So what's he listening to? Marty's podcasts?

Well, game 8 was the first time our mighty Ringers met the enigma called Team Factory, and it was a terrific battle for 5th place in the Winter 2006 B/C league. The epic kind of confrontation between titans that sports writers get all giddy about. So let's go to the video tape:

After Team Factory squeaked one in within the first two minutes, the bench was quiet, and it already felt like we were going to lose this one. After a spell of turnovers and blown drives, the hole grew larger, and we were looking at 0 and 2 in the final minute of period 1.

But then Marty stepped up. Yes, Marty Clarke, the legend, the master of blue-line defense, the possessor of a genuine Klingon cloaking device, and the only skater on the ice with pads made in 1974. With ten seconds left on the clock, all 5 of our players had rushed the Factory's net and began pummelling their goalie. The puck was loose somewhere; Joe Eiden popped it, Richard touched it, but then Marty pulled it up over the goalie to put our first score on the board.

Marty tweaked the twine again in the first two minutes of the second period off a pass from Phil [is that right?], and with no penalties in the first period, it looked like we were back on track. But then Joe Saundercook, that goon, found himself in the box for interference, and Team Factory scored their third on a power play. The remainder of the second was scoreless for us, but Richard delivered a glancing blow to their goalie who was trying to play the puck by the Zam door, and got two minutes of his own.

Going into the third, we were back to being down by two, and then Phil decided he'd start scoring for a change. Phil was ready in the neutral zone, and the Factory left him alone too often. Two of his drives (at 15 minutes and 7 minutes) brought us to within one, but the Factory answered. Then, with a little under 3 minutes left, Phil scores his hatrick, and we've got a chance to take this to a shootout. But despite an excellent last-ditch effort, the Ringers come up short, and Team Factory celebrates their victory. When the lead scorers jump in their ride after the game, their Mom is so proud that she takes them out for ice cream.

Geoff Comrie had a hatrick of his own with 6 minutes of penalties. He really showed off his excellent versatility, logging 2 for interference, 2 for slashing, and 2 for roughing.

In other news...
Hey, but the good news is that the Horny Weevils won their first B/C game Tuesday night with a shootout win!! Even more puzzling is that the game winner was sunk by Kenny Rogers!!

So where were the other Ringers tonight?
Pilkington: San Antonio
Murch: New Mexico
Bodie: Turin, Italy, with tickets to the final game between Sweden and Finland
Chauder: Hugging a toilet (with the flu)

Next game: Tuesday, Feb 28 at 8pm against the Rump Rangers of Rocky Mount.

Coming up short (Ringers lose to NDA Crew 5-3)

At 9:30pm, the Ringers took the ice against the second place NDA Brew Crew with 9 skaters. The Holy Grail of exactly two lines (10 skaters) slipped from our grasp with the conspicuous disappearance of Craig Pilkington. Since Craig is betrothed but not yet wedded, we speculated that he might have felt obligated to pitch a little woo on Valentine's Day evening instead of pitching a few pucks into the Crew's net.

Not to lay on the guilt too thick, but...the weezing and gasping Ringers managed to fight back from being down 4 goals; at one point, Phil Snyder had to skip a shift to put back the lung he hacked up. I could mention how tired GM Greg Weiss looked, and how his skating started to slow down, but then, it really wasn't any different from other games.

First period was a little sloppy, and it looked like it would end scoreless, but the Crew managed to fire one goal in. Ringers had no shots on goal. During the second, they secured a few more goals, and it looked like it was headed towards a blowout. Fortunately, Captain Richie struck first blood for the Ringers off of a brilliant pass from Joey Bag O' Donuts, but that only made up for one of the four turnovers he caused playing slap-and-tickle with the puck against the wall.

Goal two was another excellent drive by Joey B O' D, and the momentum started building. Halfway through the third, Phil scored his season-first goal with another gorgeous drive.

We didn't come up short with penalties, though, with Brian Chauder, Greg, Geoff Comrie, and Joey each sitting for 2. The good news: four great penalty kills!

But speaking of coming up short, it's a damn good thing that only 10 players showed up, since Joe Saundercook brought like a 6-pack of beer! We started to wonder when he set one down between Greg and Rob with two straws. It got ugly in the locker room - the team revolted and began pelting Joe with balls of tape. I think I got him in the eye. Anyhoo - let that be a lesson to those of you who are up next on beer duty. Chauder and I alone could polish off a 12 pack...

Next game: Team Factory (with the knobby puckhandling styles of Shrek) at 8:45pm on Tuesday, Feb 21
Beer duty: Bodie

P.S. Hats off to Tennis Kenny in the stands last night supporting us. Good to see him out there!

Ringers Licked by Casalinga 9 to 1

Karin: "Good morning, sweetie. How was hockey?"
Me: "We lost, like 9 to 1"
Karin: "Aw, that's too bad. Did you put out the garbage?"

And with that, the events of last night are neatly closed and put away.

But some images just linger around and refuse to go away, just like the first time you watched Schindler's List. And I'm afraid to report that most of these moments occurred during post-game discussions in the locker room, and had something to do with body hair. More specifically, the removal of male body hair. Hey, I'm not naming names, but let's just say we've got some over-shavers and some under-shavers on the team. And we learned way too much about the chemical properties of Nair.

"Ahh, Rich, did you just compare adult recreational hockey to the holocaust?" No. Well, maybe.

Anyway, the cunning linguists from Casalinga pulled off an exceptional win, with excellent, controlled puck movement and effective positioning around the net to force Eric "Red Light" Petersen to play goal AND defense while Rob "Doberman Pincher" Todd was attacking the opponent's net waiting for a one-timer.

We held them to 2 goals in the first and had high hopes of holding it tight, but a few quick scores by Casalinga in the second had our backs up against the wall, and by midway through the 3rd, we only needed 5 to tie. The second half of the third saw a barrage of shots from the Casalinga show-boaters looking to add to their highlight reels.

Mercifully, Craig was able to deflect a cross-crease pass/shot off the Linguist goalie's skate to prevent a shutout.

Brian Chauder left a little disappointed he didn't have the same penalty-box party from last week. He tried again and again to start the party, but no one else showed up.

Next game: NDA Brew Crew, Tuesday Feb 14 @ 9:30
Let us know as soon as possible if you'll be out for Valentine's day (*cough* sissy *cough*)
Beer cart girl: Bodie

Weevils Keep Trying New Things

Chris Weber (C) and Pat Thomas (A) of the Weevils have just sent me a message to indicate that they have already tired of the B/C league and are ready for new challenges. They said they want to move on to ice dancing and were hoping that we would join them, since they felt that it was more of their "kind of thing."

I told them I'd have to check with the team, but would let them know if we were interested.

Ugh....

That was possibly the worst game the Ringers have ever played.

Well, maybe not.

Oh, sure, we could go on and on about how chippy the "whatever-their-sponsor-is-today,-those-whores" Weevils were, but with over a period's worth of penalties, we can only look to ourselves for what happened. But before we get deep into all the game, let's try to understand why the Weevils have changed sponsors each season. Is it because they're broke? Is their captain skimming a little off the top? Are they trying to ruin the reputation of each and every willing food service establishment in Raleigh? Or is it just a cry for help?


Well, whatever the cause, we figure it's costing a fortune in new sweaters/logos each season, so we're proposing that they stick with a single logo. This one from the Ottawa Gay Hockey club suits them, I think. Don't you?

What should have been a 10-1 game ended up as 3 to 2, with 32 minutes of penalties called on your very own Ringers. It's funny, and then, really, it's not, when you realize that four players were actually sitting in the box at one time. Good news: most of the 3rd period was played as 5 on 3, and still the Ringers held the line on the Weevils' few stars.

Bad news: Next week's game is against the league-leading Cunnilinguists, so it might be a good idea to keep full lines on the ice. Just a suggestion...

Anyhoo - here are the highlights:

Goal 1 was a great drive by #12, Smilin' Joe Eiden
Goal 2 was a one-timer from Joey to Bodie
Goal 3 was a great shot by Marc Lavergne in the fancy Nortel gear, from a pass by Joe Saundercook [correction from earlier version - sorry!].

You want more details? Check out the Weevils' site at We're SO regretting our decision to move up

So far behind...

Sorry, gents. I'm just not updating the website as often as you would like. But then, I'm really just trying to accomodate those folks that think we're geeks for having a website in the first place.

Bottom line: Eiden and Snyder are out coughing up lungs, so Pilkington steps up and delivers a point on all 5 of our goals. Who actually scored? Crap - who knows? We played very well against the Pampered Chefs - lots of terrific passing and creative shot-taking.

The Chiefs are one of the main "franchise" teams in Raleigh, with presences in multiple leagues and many rinks, and the Factory B/C team carried a reputation as the team to beat last season. However, our sources now indicate that they actually split last season. The reason is unknown, but had something to do with Chief's captain, Doug Yale (pictured). A few members of the original B/C Chiefs split off to create their own team, the NDA Brew Crew... (NDA="No Dougs Allowed")

Could be an opportunity to capitalize on the bad joo-joo between the two teams! We're scheduled to play the Brew Crew on Valentine's Day (Feb 14 at 9:30pm)