WEDNESDAYS #9 vs. HOCKY TEEM:

(vol. 26W, no. 9; newsletter by h.s.)
Here's a timeline of events that led to the Pirate loss, shattering a three-game winning streak: 5:19pm Russ calls from the airport in Cleveland saying his flight is delayed two hours and that he won't make the game. 7:37pm Brian (aka #67) officially says he can't play due to coaching his son's terrible Little League team. 7:40pm Mike Farrell, who was on standby to play for Brian, says he has to race this weekend so he doesn't want to play. 7:43pm Kevin says he can only play some of the game because he already has an ice hockey game later that night. 7:45pm Scott LeMatty answers his cell and says he's out of town and can't sub. 8pm Bobby Currao agrees to play. 8:14pm Bobby calls back and leaves a voicemail saying he's going away on Thursday and can't sub. 8:18pm Glenn Farkas doesn't answer cellphone. 8:20pm Dan DiPierro agrees to sub, but says “stall them” so he can get there for the start. As you can see, just attempting to assemble a full squad was quite chaotic, but about 200 cellphone minutes later we all eventually got to the rink.
The Miller Bros. were centered by Dan DiPierro, while starting on defense was Gucci and Joe Baio. The other lines were Craig-Wildman-Scooby, with Kevin and Dave Matthews guarding the blueline.

Things seemed a bit out of whack right from the start. The Hocky Teem only had one sub, but what they lacked in reserves they made up for in youthful vigor. The average height of the group was about 5'6" and that, combined with the fact that they looked dubiously young to be 30-years-old, allowed them to skate like the freakin' wind and appear to be in multiple places at one time. The score remained locked 0-0 well into the 1st period until a Hocky Teem forward shoved Joe Baio which, in turn, launched Gucci into a frenzy and a fairly-accurate impersonation of DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” (“You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who do the f-ck do you think you're talking to?”) — only Gucci was alot more worked-up then the guy in the movie and it resulted in a 5:00-minute major and him getting thrown out of the game. (To his credit, Darren with some help from Scott Miller were able to convince Kev to blow-off his ice hockey game and stay now that the team was a man short.) On the resulting powerplay, the Hocky Teem was able to beat me low, gloveside for the 1-0 lead that carried into the break.

In the final period, the succession of Pirates to march into the box seemed endless; first it was Dan DiPierro and then Dave Matthews. All-in-all, the Pirates spent about a quarter of the game on the penalty kill and when the smoke cleared, not only were our lines completely fouled-up, but we also succeeded in surrendering three powerplay goals. The one bright moment came when Kevin (did i mention he once-again shot on our net again during the 1st period?) went coast-to-coast to make it a 2-1 game. Unfortunately that was as close as it ever got. So our three-game winning streak is snapped as a result of what Scott Miller called “our worst game ever.” Let's just hope we got that out of our system and that Russ isn't traveling next week ...
date of game: 7.19.06