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WEDNESDAYS #5 vs. CRUNCH:

(vol. 2W, no. 5; newsletter by h.s.)
Another dominating offensive show, with little on the board to show for it. We scored first when defenseman Dave Matthews' slow-motion shot from the blueline was tipped in by Wildman. The next score came in the 2nd period on a bizarre play in our end that we won't go into detail about here — let's just say there was a bit of a “defensive mishap” and the Crunch scored to tie it up at 1-1. It looked like we were headed to our second tie in two games, when (with 5:00 minutes remaining) Wildman passed from the behind the net to a wide-open Brian Newcomb in front of the net. Brian slammed dunked the shot to give us the game-winner.

THE PARKING LOT STORY:
EXCLUSIVE TO THE PIRATE NEWSLETTER! We had our best turn-out for a post-game celebration yet as there were nearly ten of us in the far parking lot talking & drinking. After a little while of ragging on Roger, we noticed a fight going on by the soccer bubble. Before we knew it, we saw baseball bats and punches being thrown — it eerily reminded me of the truck-driver beating in L.A. after the Rodney King verdict. A group of us went over there (I checked inside the and the guy at the desk was phoning the police) and witnessed a lot of scuffling. While I was inside, a soccer player limped in saying he was hit with a baseball bat. He looked okay, but was obviously shaken. He was trying to go back out, saying “I can't leave my teammates,” but the guys inside were trying to talk him down. A few minutes later, the group of attackers jumped into three separate cars, one of which intentionally backed-up into an SUV (which belonged to a hockey player inside). It rocked the truck and damaged the white van that hit it. The guys in the cars were yelling as they left and you could hear police sirens. Wildman and I flagged down the first cop at the scene (who did a u-turn across the median) and sent him racing after the dented, white minivan. Moments later, three more cops showed-up. A couple of alert Pirates were able to supply license plate numbers and some details. I spoke to a couple of the guys (looked about 18-20ish to me) while the seen was still fresh and this is their account (roughly quoted) of how the melee occurred: “We were playing this team and it was apparent they came to fight. Right from the beginning they were shoving and kicking and playing very rough. We were a lot better than them so we quickly went up 4-0 on them. Each goal it got rougher, until — after the fourth one — one of their guys just really hit our guy from the back. Our guy stopped playing and told him to stop. He hit him more when play continued, until our guy actually stopped the game and said it had gone too far. At that point, one of their guys ran off their bench and starting fighting him and a fight broke out on the field. Their friends and family who were watching the game and had been encouraging them to fight, then ran onto the field too to get in on it. We finally got it stopped and said, 'that's it, we're done, we're not playing anymore' and we left. They met us out in the parking lot and pulled-out bats and just starting smashing what they thought were our cars with the bats. They even hit one of our guys.”