JCC Floor Hockey

 

Juranka's Corner

Oct 18, 2004

So the stick discussion was a passionate success
with more opinions than we had ever imagined

with all sticks coming under intense scrutiny...

one player saw the danger of the golf-shot short black plastic another felt that heavy white plastic was the killer the Lantz stick raised its own suspicions and three saw a rigid fibreglass ones as the greatest potential danger

those who can strip you of the ball will try that
those who can run you down will try that

those that resort to hacking
tend to underestimate its potential damage

its usually the clumsy move
at the end of a shift

and although it is almost always an accident
it hurts whether they use plastic or fibreglass

over-competitiveness becomes dangerous
because the ends begin justifying the means
and hacking creeps in

apologies are always good
even if you don't think you hacked someone
that badly
because apologizing helps humble
your fierce ego

it slows you down
and tames your over-competitiveness

plus by apologizing you actually
get closer to your victim
so its great for community building

on that note
i fear that everyone will start hacking me
so we can bond
with my pain and your apologies

hacking is rampant according to some
but not such a problem according to most

its a tough call for Josh to make because
its hard to see
when blade meets flesh
at legal knee level

some players reach out for the ball
to bat it away with their hands
while others do the batting with their stick
so a lot of low level hand-balls
result in blade meets flesh collisions

on the issue of whether or not we buy fibreglass sticks
we had, on the one hand,
a desire to help this league evolve
and that meant offering more choice to each player

a lot of the JCC-stick users
have never even tried fribreglass

pitted against this great pro-fibreglass-choice evolutionary zeal was the prudent caution of the anti-fibreglass movement

those who were not opposed to fibreglass outnumber
the anti-fibreglass group by a long shot so went with mob rule

we had 11 good sticks up until now
4 were small black and 7 were spaghetti white

7 sticks (1 black and 6 white) can be fixed
with replacement blades bringing the number of good sticks
up to 5 black and 13 white, all plastic

the 13 white plastic blades are resilient and
the shafts will continue to last a long time
so we opted not to buy any more of them

i suggested to Kim that we buy 5 more black sticks
and 6 to 8 white fibreglass ones

she countered with an offer to purchase
10 black and 10 fibreglass

she drives a hard bargain,
thanks Kim

i'll be cutting the sticks so that
there will be different lengths available

the large number of sticks will ensure that
there are enough so that the left hooks
won't need to be switched to right hooks
between games

enough about sticks
on with the games...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

i was totally relaxed
having accidently smoked
before my game

when i realised that
two or three emails had
warned about the nets'
pathetic condition

i had told Kim earlier that week
that i was going to get the
screws to fix the wobbly crossbars

and now it was quarter to 7
and i was nowhere near
a hardware store

i called aron who
gave me a guilt trip

i left my Shangi-la (opium den like) refuge
jumped into my car and set off
in search of a hardware store

by the time i arrived
Grey had taken a 5-0 lead
into the half
but everything would seem Greener
on the other side

i hung out at the Grey bench
and must have jinxed them
because Green scored four
quick unanswered goals
to bring the game within one

everything that green touched
was magically hitting the corners

Greener Pastures were bustling with energy

the Grey Eminence was disturbed
and they wisely called a time-out
to stem the tide

after some soul searching and
realising that they were still
(marginally) in the lead
the grey eminence managed
to pull it together with two fast goals
putting them comfortably ahead by three

their timeout was crucial

when you see too much green
it can drive you crazy

the game ended 8-5

Tanner scored 4 times

Green played without Andrea
who will be missing two months of games
because of she had to take a course
that was only offered on Monday nights

She'll be back around Christmas

Skip classes Andrea
Play hookey and hockey at the same time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Game two was
between the league's top two teams
namely, the Black Donnellys vs.
Rebel Yell-oh

the first period ended in an intense
3-3 tie and everyone knew this
was going down to the wire

listen to the line-up

last years Batman-Robin award winners
Adam and Jamie combined with
with Silver and Shane

that's way more firepower
than any other team has

but if anyone could give them a run
it would be the rebels and

at no point was one team more than
two goals away from the other

it ended
Donnellys 6, Rebels 5

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Orange is suffering without Davey
and it really showed last monday
as the team fell into slide
right off the bat

it was the worst blow-out of the season

i don't even want to talk about it
(except to mention that Steve scored
6 times and had 2 assists)

it also turned out to be
shiney's last game

another player lost to higher education

pity

we welcome Noah Lander to the league

he will be replacing Shiney on Orange

its hard to really get a sense of Orange's
capability because for starters,
the Orange shirts have their own mystique
having been to the finals twice
in the last two years

and Davey has won the championship
twice in the last two years
and most recently alongside
his orange shirt wearing brother

so come playoff time
we've seen what the lantz's are capable of
so with that in mind
Orange's woes may change dramatically
with Davey's return

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

the Firkin rocked
with a crucial Boston Red Sox - Yankees game
which went deep into overtime

and we all celebrated the Yankees loss

Red Zep tied Greener Pastures 4 all
for the power-ranking

trade talk was the main buzz

i left early to return to Shangri-la


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