(vol.
28W, no. 8; newsletter by h.s.)
The Pirates must have been inspired by the events of Super Bowl Sunday when they took to the ice the following night. It wasn't the football game that inspired the ten Pirates, but more the guinea pig who pounded the hell out of the mouse during the Blockbuster™ commercial. At the final buzzer, the Pirates had blanked the Ducks 7-0 — “A football score,” as Gucci appropriately called it.
In the line-up for the Men In White were: Craig, Wildman, Brooks, The Miller Bros., and Tony up front; manning the blueline were Russ, Gucci, #67, and Mike (who wears #21, but will not hesitate to tell you why he should have gotten #23 that was claimed by Jimmy Ferraro years before Mike even joined us). Notable absentees were blueliners Scooby and Dave “Yeah, the Chief of Police was at my house before he got pulled-over” Matthews.
The game began as even as you could have imagined. Both teams were aggressive and shots were fast and furious (as were breakaways). In fact, during the course of the 1st period a steady stream of Pirates skated past the net and apologized for giving-up the odd-man rush ... no harm done though! Halfway through the period, Evan (assist Tony) was finally able to get us on the board in what (ironically) would be the game-winning goal. To keep the irony going for another sentence, Brooks took his “mandatory” penalty with 2:00-minutes remaining and — during his stay in the box (here's the irony, by the way) — the Pirates scored two more times. Those tallies (Gucci unassisted, and Wildman from Craig) put us up by a field goal at the half.
The proverbial “floodgates” (a term we've been fortunate to use in several of these recent newsletters) were now open. The Pirates found the twine four more times in the final period — all courtesy of the newly-formed J.E.T. line (John-Evan-Tony). In order of puck disappearance into the net: Evan (assist Tony), Tony (assis Mike), Wildman (assist Tony) and Evan (assist Tony). Incidentally, Tony's five-point game raised his Wednesday totals to 12-points — that's a 4 points-per-game average. Just as impressive was Evan's hattrick and the fact that three Wednesday Pirates have broke double-digits for scoring ... and we still have two games remaining. Oh, and I ended-up with a shutout to boot. (Special thanks to Tony who took the loose puck with :30 seconds left and meandered around the rink so we wouldn't give up the late goal.)
Perhaps the only thing that could tarnish the fact that we have outscored our opponents 17-2 in the last two weeks, was this email #67 sent me while I was waiting for him to file the newsletter:
“I hereby take a leave of absence from writing the newsletter ...
unfortunately,
I can't do it anymore.”
So the question we now face as a team is not can we win the Championship, but who will be the heir to the Brian Newcomb newsletter-writing throne?
date of game: 2.06.07
SUPER LUCKY?
They say Gucci knows just about everyone, but who'd thought he would have the pull to get Adam Vinatieri to miss an extra point so that Debbie (aka “Gucci's Girl”) could win both the 1st and 2nd quarter boxes in the Super Bowl pool. Gucci probably offered Tony Dungy a comp room at the Trop in exchange for the favor.
