Ringers hold their own against Linguists

WAKE FOREST - Reports are coming in from various places about last Tuesday's game between the 6 and 6 Ringers and the 10 and 2 Casalinga Cunnilinguists. Unfortunately, this reporter (as well as Joey Bag O', Bodie, and Pilk) were absent from the proceedings, but in general it seems that our new strategerie helped to hold the game tight until a final minute score to hand us the "L." Final score 5 to 6, with 2 goals by Phil, 2 from Marc, and another closer from Killer. Since I can't speak to the play-by-play, here are the verbatim wire reports...

"You missed a real nail biter. Tied up at 5-5 until about 1:40. I thinkchowder got a penalty and they scored. Sorry you missed it. Make sure you put another goal in my stats. I'm 2 for 2 baby!" - Email from Ken "Killer" Nuebler (#24)

"Your boys played well last night. Y'all would have won if they could stay out of the box" - Phone conversation with Hammer

"Nah, man. It was a great game, but I can't believe we lost - we shoulda beat those guys. I was so close to closing the deal a couple of times. Tried to get a few power shots off, you know? [flexes his bicep and gives it a kiss] Had the guns firing, you know?" - Conversation with Greg Weiss (#26)

"Eric played out of his mind." - Conversation with Joe Saundercook (#13)

"Mon mari a seulement marqué deux buts. C'est terrible. Je suis embarrassé pour lui." Translation: My husband only scored two goals. That's awful. I'm embarrassed for him. - Conversation with Marc Lavergne's wife

"Please update the stats for my goal last week. Thanks." - Second email later in the week from Ken "Killer" Nuebler (#24)

Horny Weevils Spew On Themselves

Hockey is a contact sport. Anyone that has watched it or played it can expect that there will be some pushing and shoving and bumping and grinding. Well, maybe not so much grinding with no chicks in the league any more. Hey! Whatever happened to Andrew Dice Clay anyway? But I digress.

Tonight your beloved home town favorite Ringers delivered a much needed spanking to the ornery and universally-despised Horniblows Weevils. To say it was a chippy game understates the 20 penalties doled out to both teams. All I can say is that there was a lot of pushing and shoving, and it was all about equal until the Weevils freaked out like Somalis hopped up on khat. Apparently, there were some bogus posts on the Weevils website, allegedly by yours truly, that inflamed the Weevils. The Ringers, who are used to their own website being updated less often than the Dead Sea Scrolls, arrived completely unaware of the Weevils malicious intent.

Incidentally, if you don't get the picture reference above, but you can quote any line from Caddyshack or Raising Arizona, you need to go rent Napoleon Dynamite. Seriously. I mean right freaking now.

Lowest moment for the Weevils in our opinion: #9, affectionately referred to as Kenny Rogers, completely undermined his fame as the Weevils' only shootout game winner this season, when he refused to shake hands with the Ringers after the game and went straight to the locker room.

So Joey Bag-O fell short of a hatrick, but tried very hard in the 2nd and 3rd to complete his mission. Marc Lavergne found a few openings with a goal and an assist. Joe Saundercook also delivered goal and assist, and this time no penalties! Apparently the anger management classes are paying off. Brian Chauder returned SOME dignity to the defense with 2 assists and a sweet goal early in the third. And team second-place-points-leader Craig Pilkington was able to offer a goal and at least 2 assists. As the only unmarried-but-betrothed player on the team, we might expect young Pilk to have a groupie or possibly even a posse in attendance, but alas our section of the arena was quiet.

But the game winner was delivered by none other than "Killer" Ken Nuebler with a sneaker through the 5-hole. I think Chuckles (Weevils goalie) was confused by the Bugs Bunny slow pitch. "1-2-3 -You're out!"

Game MVP went to Phil for a change even though he delivered absolutely nothing! By the way, Joe Eiden has $3000 worth of Armadillo Grill nachos coupons in his pocket at all times. Might be a good time to invite him to lunch...

Next week: Cunning Linguists, 8:45pm
Beer: Marc Lavergne, who promised to deliver genuine Canadian beer, and not any cheesy American crap.

Chefs puree Ringers

Chiefs' Captain Doug Yale approached us at the beginning of Tuesday night's game to see if we wouldn't mind if four former Chiefs players (a.k.a. the stars of the Brew Crew team) could play with them. Says he, "without those guys, we really won't have any defense."

Now I flash back [imagine the wiggly lines going down your screen for effect] to a captain's meeting two seasons ago, when Doug was bringing a Chefs team into the C league; our Ringers team at that time was admittedly tearing the division up, routinely delivering world class spankings on teams fresh from the Learn To Play class. A couple of ideas were conceived and agreed upon at this meeting to balance play and keep things fair. One new rule was the 3 goal per game limit - a good idea. Another new rule was the 3 B-player limit per team, which, if enacted, meant we would have to drop either Marty, Eric, Craig, or Joe. Our argument was that to do so would break up our "family" of neighborhood chums that got together just for the love of the game of hockey..[cue the tearjerking music]... Doug was leading the charge to keep the number of B players low, and in the end, we had to acquiesce. (Greg, that means we had to give in.)

[wiggly lines again - back to the present]

Me - "Well, gee, Doug, you're putting me in a tight spot, here. I'm all for everyone having a fun skate, but they're not on your team, are they?"
Doug - "It's up to you."
Me - "Up to me? Well, why aren't they on your team in the first place? Why is it up to me? If you guys want to play together, why don't you rent the ice? Go to a pick-up?"
Doug - "It's up to you."
Me - "Well, ok, then no."

And so, the Chiefs, all hopped up with their righteous indignation, came out with their "short" bench of 10 skaters, and kicked our ass. Maybe if I could have read the non-verbal cues from Doug better, but it was hard to see his eyes behind that freaky tinted visor.

Granted, we didn't have our regular goalie. And granted, yours truly made some hall-of-infamy turnovers. Oh, and don't forget that it was Marty's first night with a full cage.

But still, these guys were mad. Mad enough to start mouthing off to Marty, as if he ever flew off the handle. Oh wait, I forgot - Labatt's. Oh, OK. So, I'm the bad guy.

Insofar as the game goes, what can I say - looked pretty good for a while. Joe had a very nice shot early in the first, and guest goalie Chris made a few good, yet dramatic saves. But the Chiefs wanted it bad, and got what they wanted; final score 2 to 9.

Next week is the Horny Weevils at 9:30pm.

On beer duty is GM Greg Weiss, with leftovers from a keg they used on Saturday night for Susan's 30th. Now, I personally have not had great experiences with 3-day-tapped kegs in the past, so you may want to plan accordingly. Rumors are that it'll be in our penalty box. Not only to keep it chilled, but also because when we play the Weevils, dat's where da party's at!

Ringers Employment Opportunities

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BACK-UP GOALIE
Eric "Red Light" Peterson was out this week, and so we acquired a backup goalie that we had worked with before. Hopes were high late in the first as the Ringers got up by two over the Rebels, and our defenders did a great job of pushing up and keeping it in the Rebels' house. Occasionally, a lone Reb would emerge and take a shot.

Now, in the Ringers Defensive Playbook, our plan A is to let Eric take the shooter, defenders cover bodies on the weak post, and everybody cut off the passes. In the old days, there was a plan B, which involved a lot of our folks diving in front of the net and desperate cries of "just dump it!!" from GM Greg Weiss. But we're used to plan A now. It took us a long time to go from plan B to plan A, but we're there now. We get it.

So, hindsight being 20-20, it turns out this week's goalie was a plan B goalie, and our bravado quickly wore off as they tied it up 2 - 2 with a couple of softies. We had to earn the chance to go to a shootout the old fashioned way; however, to his credit, he shut out both shootout attempts before Brian Chauder sealed the deal with the game winner.

It still felt lonely, though. No one shouting "draw!" (whatever that means) at every faceoff or skating to the bench at intermission to give us like 25 things to work on next period.


STATISTICIAN
The Ringers organization is in urgent need of someone who can reconcile all of the information regarding game events, clean it up, and put it up on the web before we get home from the rink. This information can come from many sources - from your own eyes and notes, from what the Refs tell the scorers, from what the scorers put down on their sheets after it passes through their brains' delusional filters, and from individual players perspectives. Oh, and by the way, not a damn one of these sources will be accurate. Good luck to ya.


PHYSICAL THERAPIST/PERSONAL TRAINER
Chris Fullen will need some groin massages after an uncalled, between-the-legs trip. Bodie Dorrance played great, but probably could have benefitted from a proper warm-up after being off the ice for three weeks. He did, FINALLY, bring the beer though, and in a big way - THANKS! Richard will need someone to spot him in the weight room after having his stick pinned by Rebs captain (and only woman in the B/C league) Angelica DeMont. We're pretty sure she weighs all of 115 lbs, so Richard will have to move up from the two to the five pound dumbells to keep up. You know, the foam-covered kind that you might get in a Body Works gift basket for "Today's Active Woman" along with sea foam workout towels, energizing loofa sponges, and scented candles?


LEFT WING THAT SHOOTS FROM ANYWHERE BUT THE CORNER
GM Greg Weiss was in his favorite happy place, straddling the goal line in the opponent's zone about a stick length from the corner, and under pressure launched one of his mighty wristers towards the goal in the hopes of a redirect. Unfortunately, Phil "Duck" Snyder wasn't able to jump up that high, and so it sailed over and into the glass on the other side of the rink.


DEFENDER THAT WILL OCCASIONALLLY PLAY D
In the second, Rob "Pincher" Todd found himself with the puck on the boards and seized the opportunity to drive it forward. Richard "RichardYouBastard" Tooke, quickly saw that he needed to swing back and cover defense. Sadly, the Ringers charge was foiled, and we retreated to our zone and reset. Control of the puck returned to us, and RichardYouBastard, a Forward, moved up - but alas! Rob was already at the blue line ready to jump in, so again, the winger cycled to D. Like a shark with the scent of blood or Shrek with a package of Ho-Ho's in front of him, Rob couldn't control himself and spent the whole shift looking to add to his plus/minus.


FIRST SHOOTER
After Phil clinched the final shot in regulation to tie it up at 6 all, it was time for our second shootout of the season, and amongst some degree of confusion about the order of shooters, young Craig "Pilk" Pilkington exhibited some much-needed leadership and announced he was going first. Everything looked great until about 20 feet from the crease when the puck got behind Pilk and slowly, painfully, slid, unguided, to the goalie's stick. As if it wasn't bad enough that the puck hit with a gentle tap, their goalie froze for a second (showing great comic pause, by the way) and then flung it away in a dramatic, sprawling, highlight-reel save.


Next game: Tuesday, March 14 at 10:15pm against the Chiefs
Beer: Brian