AMHL Championship Week: Top Twelve Quotes and the Koffey CUPdates

The venerable Koffey Cup (KC) has been stolen, or mayhap last season’s champions have forgotten to return the hardware to Valley Sports Arena, where this week’s championship games have commenced. Where is KC? An inquiry to AMHL Commissioner Mitchell Weiss is in order.

Until we determine KC’s whereabouts, we celebrate another stellar season of morning hockey. I present then, to AMHL fans worldwide, the top twelve quotes (what the hey, I’ll make it a baker’s dozen) from last week’s action.  

Tuesday

May 1, 2012

Leafs vs. Penguins

1.      “Penalty shot!” The Leafs beg referee Matt Bielak to call foul play against the Leafs Kevin McDonald for whacking and hacking at Penguin Rob Mirak as the latter skated toward goalie Leafs goalie Tyler Boudreau. Bielak, his mind already made up, raises his arms, his wrists connected and hands forming a V: penalty shot.

Mirak skates straight toward Boudreau, dekes left to his forehand and then shuffles right. Boudreau thrusts his left leg to meet the puck. No goal.

2.      “I don’t give those away like candy, my friend,” Bielak says as play is about to resume. “You have to earn them.”

3.      “You got your Marco Sturm moment,” the AMHL Photographer says to this reporter.

She’s referring to the ex-Boston Bruin’s OT game-winner against the Flyers, his subsequent power leap at the Plexiglas at the 2010 Winter Classic and Kevin MacDonald, who has just celebrated the Leafs’ 5–2 victory by raising both arms and launching himself at the Plexiglas near center ice.

4.      “You gotta against these guys...Dennis Seidenberg is my hero.” -Leaf defenseman Bill Chioffi, on why he resisted temptations to join the offensive rush and stay at home.

5.      “I know what I’m gonna where to work today.” -Chris “Donut Boy” Howell on the AMHL T-shirts awarded to the victors.

Wednesday

May 2, 2012

Sabres vs. Canadiens

6.      “No media in the locker room,” says Stephen “Whoa Nelli” Antonelli as he leads the victorious (3–0) Sabres into the room.

7.      KC: (think: Lenny Clarke) “It’s all good fellahs. Mitch is finally coughin’ up the dough to replace that broken crown uh mine. I know I’m not in the team pic-shah, but my career ain’t ovah ‘til I say it’s ovah. Not sure when I’ll be back. I cont make it tuh-day. But Denis Leary is taking care of me…so no need to rescue me.”

Thursday

May 3, 2012

Panthers vs. Bruins

8.      KC: “Ah you for real? Boys, yah killin’ me,” he says after learning that, in the team photo, he has been replaced by a pylon topped with Kenny “KISS Fan” Tarr’s mask.

9.      “I just had to be average,” says Kenny “KISS Fan” Tarr after his Panthers beat the Bruins, 4–2. He gave all the credit to his teammates, like Peter “Focused” Kokas, who scored a backhand goal from the non-Euclidian corner.

10.  “I’m going to boycott my nose,” this reporter says as Chris Howell, his pickup truck’s radio tuned to NPR and a story about striking workers, drives through Maynard. “What?” Howell asks? “I’m going to picket” I say. “That’s bad.”

Friday

May 4, 2012

Stars vs. Kings

11.  “It’s back,” The AMHL Photographer says. KC, gleaming in refurbished glory—his new coffee cup emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes and the Maple Leaf—waits for the champions to carry him into the locker room.

12.  “Anyone need a double extra large besides me?” asks the slender Gerry Evans, the Stars’ stand-up comedian.

13.  KC: “Me and Mahshall McLean—you know he scahhed fotty-two goals for the Stahs this season—ah gonna go to New Hampshuh. He’s gonna take me to the top uh Mt. Cahdigan. Can you believe it? Me and Mahshall!

AMHL Thursday: Saddle Up

Image courtesy of Appaloosa at Flickr.com

November 20, 2008
Valley Sports, Rink Two
Concord, MA

“Saddle up your horses. We got a trail to blaze…”
-“The Great Adventure,” Steven Curtis Chapman

The Capitals’ locker room smells like a stable. Stench rarely bothers hockey players, but this morning’s stink is so rancorous that defenseman Erik “Sunday Silence” Domingo is taken aback.

Are the 2–9–0–0 Avalanche, this morning’s opponent, playing a prank on the 9–1–0–1 Caps?

Domingo checks the shower floor for road apples but finds nothing that needs to be removed from the premises. The Caps can overcome the toxic tendrils of unknown source, but will the team—without four key players—falter against the Avalanche?

Netminder Kenny “Northern Dancer” Tarr, Forward “Big Ben” Budds, Rob “Funny Cide” Mirak, and Doug “The Black Stallion” Wight, are all out to pasture—at least this morning.

And they’re off, the Capitals trotting left to right across your imaginary racetrack/rink...

...The Avalanche lead 2–1 on goals by Mike “Giacomo” Gardner and Tim “Tim Tam” Turner, but the Capitals pull even when Tom “Champion” Barrett and Tom “Trigger” Hargrave execute a perfect give-‘n’-go, Barrett roofing a shot over Mitch “Ponyboy” Weiss.

Still in the first period, the Capitals score three more goals before Steve “Quick Draw McGraw” Cook, snaps a wrister past Stephanie, “Rags to Riches” Spunt, who was claimed off waiver wires to replace Kenny Tarr.

After one period, it’s 5–3 Capitals.

“It looks like the Bruins last night,” says Hargrave, referencing the hometown team’s first period against the visiting Buffalo Sabres.

Whoa, Nellie. The Avalanche, even without scoring stud Paul “Seldom Seen” Nelson counter with two goals, including one that ricochets off a loose saddle and then drops behind Spunt.

But Mike “Real Quiet” Hansen lopes past an Av defenseman and then beats Weiss like a dusty saddle blanket. No one-trick pony, Hansen scores again and then watches Brent “Sea Biscuit” Delehey beat Weiss high to the blocker side.

After two periods, the Caps lead, 7–4.

“What are you doing?” Spunt asks the Capitals’ lame bench jockey. “Coaching? Statistician…?”

Gatekeeping. And betting on the Caps.

The Avalanche will not quit. They again pull within two lengths on goals from Rich “the Pinto” Perkins and Cook.

But the Avs don’t have the…uh…horses and can’t catch the Caps. 8–6 is your final, equine enthusiasts.

With one game left in the regular season, the Capitals have blazed a trail to first place and—in the Great Adventure known as the AMHL Play-offs—are the odds-on favorite to win the Koffey Cup.

AMHL Thursday Championship: On a Mission

Thursday May 9, 2008
Concord, MA

Avalanche sharpshooter and co-author of Business Plans that Work, Andrew “Zach” Zacharakis is presumably teaching entrepreneurial theory somewhere—who knows exactly—maybe China, maybe Chile. Teammate Bill Chioffi postulates another theory.

In the locker room before our game against the Capitals, Chioffi jokes that Zach is an assassin posing as a professor.

Regardless of Zach’s true operation, he’ll miss the championship. We’ll miss the way he plays with reckless abandon, but we’re focusing on our own mission: Win the Koffey Cup!

Our goalie, Nova Scotia native and KISS fan extraordinaire, Kenny Tarr tells us to steer clear of his puck-stopping counterpart’s glove.

Skating right to left across the Internet, we Avalanche are rolling. Losier has won the opening face-off back to me. I pass it to left wing Scott Kessler. He pushes it over the blue line. The Caps clear the puck but gift-wrap it to Tom Hargrave. The former Clarkson University player enters the zone, goes around a defenseman, and scores on Steve Scansaroli.

We’re still leading 1–0 midway through the first. A capital forward beats me to the puck in the high slot. He shoots low stick side, but Tarr kicks out his right leg, directing the puck to the near boards.

Avalanche all-purpose man and java aficionado, Mike “Mr. Coffee” DeLeo, is flying today. The mild-mannered defenseman who downs a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts divine brew before every game, is filling in for Zach at forward. DeLeo is all alone and shoots on Scans. "'Roli the Goalie" falls to his knees, trapping the puck in his midsection.

“I’d fire (DeLeo) right now.” Prime time referee and part-time color commentator Peter Bagley says to us on the Avalanche bench.

Five minutes later, DeLeo has a shot at redemption and makes the most of it.

When DeLeo scores his second goal to give us a 3–0 lead, Chioffi says to me, “I believe that’s another blocker-side goal.”

We’re sticking to the scouting report and focusing on the mission, cashing in on our chances and playing solid in all zones. And when the Caps get a rare scoring opportunity, Kenny takes care of business.

Now in the second period, the puck is loose in our zone. Tarr beats Ben “Ear” Budds, the kangaroo quick Cap forward, to it, though.

Back the other way—skating right to left now across your Internet Explorer—we lose the puck in the offensive zone. The Caps attempt to clear it past the right point, where I’m cemented. I keep it in the zone once…twice…the puck is in the right corner. The diminutive Scott Harvey settles the puck and then centers a big-time pass to DeLeo. Bing, bang, boom.

“Mikey,” Bagley says, “That’s a hat trick you know, baby. (Go back) on D!

No need. Doug Wight, Scott Keith, Chioffi and I are all set.

Cap power forward and former Bowdoin College defenseman “Polar” Paul Nelson charges over the blue line. Between the face-off circles, the tall and talented forward winds up and then blasts the puck into my thigh pad. A blocked shot is as good as a goal for me.

But the Caps keep coming. Mirak scores with 5:30 left in the second stanza. Down 4–1, Bagley is hopeful Mirak and his minions can mount a comeback.

“It’s just the beginning,” Bags says as he records the goal. “I tell ya.”

“Beginning of the end,” an anonymous Avalanche corrects the affable arbiter.

In the third, period, the mission is all but complete. We’re up 6–1, and DeLeo breaks free with the puck. He ignores the scouting report and shoots glove side. The puck hits the top of Scansaroli’s catching mitt and then falls behind the forlorn netminder.

The Caps counter with a late goal, but 7–2 is as close as they’ll get.

Somewhere on one of the seven continents, Zach—his own mission perhaps accomplished—may be wondering if we’ve won without him.

Front row, left to right: Scott Kessler, Scott Harvey, Kenny Tarr, Mike DeLeo, Dave Losier

Middle Row: KC (Koffey Cup)

Back Row, left to right: Scott Keith, Jimmy Dwyer, Chad Mikkelson, Doug Wight, Bill Chioffi, Tom Hargrave

Muscial Montage

Saturday, February 16, 2008

I’ve missed the Dunkin’ Donuts Musical Montage—the between-period, set-to-music Bruins’ highlight reel—tonight but won’t miss the final frame, when I expect the Bs to sustain or increase their 2–1 lead over the Leafs in Toronto.

While I wait for the third period to commence, I present a soundtrack for the last few days. Rewind to Thursday morning: As my Avalanche teammates prepared for the third period against the Capitals, my defensive partner pounded the metal support column, painted white, to his right.

“Bodies on the floor. Bodies on the floor,” Bill Chioffi chanted in his best monster truck rally voice, repeating the lines from some heavy metal song (he thinks it’s Metallica, but I can't verify that. Anyone?) as he pounded out the beat.

I don’t know if Chioffi’s charades pumped up Andy “Zach” Zacharakis, but the goggled warrior scored a late goal to give us a 5–4 victory. This pleased our goalie, Kenny “KISS Fan” Tarr because if the game had gone into OT and the Panthers had scored, Kenny’s GAA would have taken a hit.

Kenny and his wife sat in Section L at Conte Forum at Boston College on Friday night. My wife and I sat a few rows back. The Eagles struggled against the underdog UMass Lowell River Hawks, but BC’s pep band tried to jack up the home team and its fans with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the Sport Chant Remix in Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400”. Neither the band nor the person who selects music for the PA system chose KISS, but Kenny was content with AC/DC.

And I was happy to tap my toes to a tune by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine as Baldwin the Eagle (or was it Baldwin Jr. ?) skated around the rink, chucking sponge pucks into the crowds of kids gathered behind the Plexiglas. The youngsters were ultimately disappointed because the Eagles succumbed to the River Hawks, 1–3.

Saturday morning, I opened the CD my wife had bought for me, Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends. I read the inserted booklet containing the stories behind the songs—from “Danny’s Song” to “Si Jamais Je Te Revois” (If I Ever See You Again), sung with the likes of Martina McBride and Isabelle Boulay —all the while thinking about Glen Murray, who like Anne, is from Nova Scotia. What’s his favorite song by Anne Murray? “Daydream Believer” or “Snowbird”?

Muzz scored a goal against the Leafs, but the Bs bungle a 2–1 lead in third and then lose in OT. My quick-thinking wife changes the channel before the last Bruin exits the ice. We watch the last half of Miracle, and I enjoy the goose pimples I get when Eruzione scores his goal and then does his dance. After the victory over Finland and then the gold medal ceremony, I read the where-are-they-now updates flashing on the tube as Aerosmith’s “Dream On” stokes my core.

If You Could Read My Mind

Image provided courtesy of www.lightfoot.ca


“If you could read my mind,” as the Gordon Lightfoot song title goes…

…you could tell that Canada has been on my brain this week. I’ve been reading Vinyl Café Diaries by Stuart McLean, whom some might claim is the Canadian equivalent of Garrison Keillor. McLean accentuates his bust-a-gut funny stories about Dave, who owns and operates a record shop in Toronto, and his family, with references to hockey.

On Rink Two on Thursday morning, I was five feet in front of my goalie, Nova Scotia native Kenny “KISS Fan” Tarr (hello Lower Sackville readers) when Chris “Tower of” Power, from Toronto, wound up for a slap shot at the top of the circle to my right Get out of the way? Skate out to meet the Al Iafrate of the AMHL? I froze like Northern Saskatchewan in early January as the puck whistled past me and then past my screened goalie.

Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs were probably sound asleep in a Boston hotel, resting for Thursday night’s game against the Bruins. The Bs belted the Buds as the AMHL Photographer and I cheered from our TV room.

The high-def TVs at the 99 Restaurant on Friday night offered customers sight but no sound. Bellied up to the bar and waiting for dinner, I watched ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption; toward the end of one segment, Tony Kornheiser waved a Canadian flag. Why? I knew that he isn’t Canadian, so I’d have to investigate this weekend.

On Saturday morning at Dunkin’ Donuts, while my wife read the sports section in The Boston Globe, I opened the paper’s “Sidekick” section to learn that Canada was assigned dishonorable mention in “Punch Lines” and that “This Day in History” indicated that Gordon Lightfoot, the iconoclastic singer whom the Maple Leafs named honorary captain in 1992, was born in 1938.

Back at home in Maynard, I hopped on the Internet to solve the mystery of Mr. Kornheiser’s gesticulation of the Maple Leaf. Pardon the Interruption is aptly named for Canadians: The show that airs on Canada’s TSN abruptly ends for viewers north of the 49th parallel—they’re transferred to TSN’s SportsCentre—while American viewers watch, if not hear, "The Big Finish" on ESPN.

Later on Saturday morning, I tuned in to ESPN 890 for the New England Hockey Journal Radio Show with Kevin Paul Dupont and Mick Colageo. After discussing Glen Murray’s goal- scoring drought, and then the induction of Mark Messier and Ron Francis to the Hall of Fame, Mick and Dupes bantered with the Toronto Star’s Damien Cox. What about the Leafs… How about Doug Armstrong losing his GM job in Dallas…What about the possibility of the Toronto Argonauts playing the New England Patriots?

“Woo!” I said when it was my turn to chime in. “That’s what I’ll say when Murray scores two goals in first period tonight.” I then told the guys they forgot to mention Al MacInnis in their Hall of Fame discussion. Murray and MacInnis, I said, are both from Nova Scotia. I signed off by telling them I’d call from Newfoundland next Saturday.

The AMHL Photographer and I leave on Thursday, so that doesn’t give me much time to update my iPod with a Gordon Lightfoot tune or two.

AMHL Week Four: The Inside Scoop

On Tuesday, Dana Salvo scored his first goal of the season—then added two more. Wooo!

A day later, in Inter-league play, Panther defenseman and Monster.com CFO North America Chris Power scored his 30th career AMHL goal.

On Thursday, the Bruins won their third straight game. Aaron Sherman’s three points in the victory gave him 666 career points. Adam Berger didn’t score any goals for his Stars, but the Interim Donut Boy made his contributions to the league off the ice. This week, he brought bagels for the first time and kept the donut box lid closed, sealing in the freshness during games.

Chris Howell, recovering from rotator cuff surgery and on leave from donut duty, would have been proud. The self-proclaimed "director of donut procurement" made his unofficial return to AMHL ice as part of my 8th annual birthday skate on Saturday night. Howell hadn’t worn his equipment since he went on leave almost a year ago, but his daughter did wear the stinky gear for Halloween.

Goalie Ken Tarr unveiled his KISS mask at the event honoring my 42nd birthday. The other netminder, Heather Wright, shut down her husband, Norman, on a breakaway. Mrs. Wright couldn’t stop Dana Salvo from scoring his first ever one-timer goal, however.

“Did you get it? Did you get it?” he asked league photographer, birthday skate organizer, and commemorative T-shirt designer.

“No. Do it again,” she said.

Salvo is eight goals away from career goal 600 and 22 points away from career point 1500. When he reaches those milestones later this season, he’ll be the first one to tell you via the AMHL ticker at AMHL.