In their latest game, the Aces HC took a short break from their relentless march to glory to hand the Wyse Guys a false-confidence-boosting victory.
The Blackshirts were down to 2 lines and 4 D, a couple of bodies short of the opposition, who had pretty much a full bench. Not that that was the difference though, as the Aces have proved in the past that they are capable of delivering a whuppin‘ to any other team in the COTHL with or without a full lineup.
Was it a team-wide power failure? A lack of cohesion amongst a normally tight-knit group of dedicated and talented players? No, this was more a case of midseason ennui than a case of being outplayed. These are the dog days of winter, after all, when even highly trained athletes like Maurice Le VanVeghel find it tough to get motivated.
“I am zees way ev-ery Janvier” said a nonchalent Le VV apres le contest, casually smoking a Gitane and clutching a dogeared copy of Camus’ L’Etranger in the team dressing room. “Viss ze ‘oliday saison ovair, I cannot care so much about life. I do not care if ze ozair team zey skate by me, or if zey can score. Meh. My heart she is as black as zees Aces jersey, and ze rats zey have infested my soul.”
No-show Swervin Barry Pervin was even more laid back, deciding to skip the game altogether in favour of catching a TMZ marathon on the Bio channel. “I was going to go to the game, dude, seriously.” said the normally pugilistic Pervin from his Lazyboy armchair. “But I just couldn’t get it together, not with all this vital celebrity news to watch on tv. Did we win? Oh who am I kidding? I couldn’t care less. Never mind. ”
The game was actually a reasonably close affair given the almost complete lack of interest shown by the Aces crew. Down 3-2 with a couple of minutes to go, the team pulled their goalie and did mount a sustained attack, keeping the puck in the Wyse Guys’ end for a good 15 seconds and narrowly missing the tying goal on a shot by Art “I’m going on holiday again next week, so screw this action” Wogrinetz. The Wyse Guys stormed back to fire one into the empty cage, triggering a huge celebration on the red team’s bench. League officials are said to be unhappy with the extent of that celebration, as it involved some over-exuberant firearm use, which of course is strictly limited in the league charter to one (registered) handgun per team.
Another last minute goal by the Wyse Guys made the final score 5-2, but by the time the final puck went into the net most of the Aces were already checking their blackberrys, including goaltender and exciting puck-handler Raj Chockalingam. Raj still thinks the final score was 4-2.
Goal scorers for the Aces: Art with a nice deke in close on the again suspiciously solid WGs keeper, and your humble narrator with a shot from the point that somehow found its way through traffic to the back of the net.
Aces players can expect a friendly phonecall from team sports psychologist Bruce Harbinson, just as soon as his spleen grows back.
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