Hockey Nomad's World

2009-03-11T01:05:00.002-05:00

Shit I read this again and I'm thinking....WHERE DID THE LAST 3 MONTHES GO??? Winter blurs by for me.

Crap.

BTW...the AK Bars are hanging in there. Crappy record. Great attitude.

-Kai #10

2008-12-16T04:41:00.003-06:00

Holy Crap---NICE JOB AK BARS!!!!!!

Fuckin-heimer I wish I'd been there to be a part of THAT one! And Garrett being the big hero to boot! That's two overtime goals he's put in for the Big Dub-U in the last what? Two seasons?? Way to go Garrett! Looks like Trevor had a good game too. Way to go guys. I cannot WAIT to play this weekend you guys have NO fucking idea!! :)

Well, it's about 4:45pm India time and I'm off to the Mumbai airport in about one and a half hours. I gotta say...I'm really happy to be heading back to the Great White North, no matter how much ya'll are trying to warn me about how cold it's been! I can't wait for the crunch of snow and the chainsaw bite of that wind. . This trip has been great and interesting and everything I'd hoped it too be, but it's more complicated than that. The Beijing/Shanghai trip in 2005 was more "fun" in the typical sense--and still my favourite trip so far. But India was--well--way more difficult to wrap my mind around. I've got nearly 16 hours starting in about 6 hours to muse on that until the laptop battery gives out, so I'll not get into in right now.

Mike and are are gonna hit the pool for a bit of a swim (it's like--85 here) before Vishnu the Driver picks us up for the trip to the airport. I'll probably have a few beers down there for good measure as well. Where's Adam and Dean when I need him 'eh? Be nice to have a little exercise before being cooped up in the plane for all that time tho.

Mike really is living in the lap of luxury here tho man. His "room" is really a one bedroom apartment overlooking this lake with these monster picture windows in both bedroom and living room overlooking this lake, then these high rise apartments on the opposite bank with a hill behind that. The haze isn't as bad here as Delhi so you can actually sorta see.

We actually checked out his work too, and since the training crew hadn't shown up, we fired up the 737 simulater and I got to "fly" it around Mumbai! It's really cool....a complete mockup of the cockpit and the thing tilts and everything to simulate acceleration and turbulence and all that. I even took it on a super tight turns--like 45 plus degree bank and working the rudder pedals while the alarm goes "Bank angle! Bank angle! Bank angle!" which means that the plane is fine but the "passengers" may not be liking it back there; not even in Business class. It was suprisingly easy to fly tho, and in real life the pilots do VERY little...just set the knobs and info on the autopilot and the plane can fly itself from gate A in wherever-ovia to gate B at wherever-else-istan. And I mean it can literally do that. For real. Fucking amazing. And rather comfirting being I'm gonna spend the better part of a whole 24 day up in a few of these newfangled contraptions!

Okay. Off to the pool. I'll see many of you soon and put a few more posts in when I'm back in Minnesota.

See everyone soon

-Kai #10

2008-12-12T04:33:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone

Thanks for the nice comments, nice to know that this is being read!

Well, we are still in Kerela, in a town called Aleppey, which is about 30 kilometers south of Kochi, where we flew into this state. It is very hot here, although in the shade and under fans it's not too bad. And there are mosquitos, which is a forst for me in December. I've got the bug bites to prove it. But the people here are the friendliest by far. ALL the little kids wave and say "hello" and we get stared at and waved to constantly. After we headed down to the beach yesterday, we were strolling up this alley and came across these guys making rope. THe stood about 40 yards away from each other with these geared hand cranked twisty things and first twist four smaller ropes individually and then spin them toether to make a single strong rope. The guy who waves us over even had us do a few. I forgot his name but he was easily the friendliest person on this whole trip. He's actually studying to be a doctor and makes rope as a part time job. Another thing the same the world over I guess. In the USA he'd wait tables, in Kerela, you make rope. He was really cool tho and I took a pile of photos.

We are staying in a place called The Vrindhavanam Heritage Home. It's off a quieter alley and looks to be pretty old. You walk in and immediatly are in a little courtyard which these rooms arrayed around it with these little verandas. There is a second larger courtyard through the back where they put up plastic tables and that is the restaurant. These tropical plants grow everywhere and you sometimes see little lizards run up the walls and such. The rooms are pretty spartan, buyt the place is seriously old; the doors are hinged at both sides and open in the middle and are super thick. You lock them from the insides with two wooden little beam thingies. Tyhe kids that work here seem to use it as thier hang out for their buddies, as there are always a bunch here but only one or two seem to be actually working!

The neat thing is that they do have a houseboat that you can charter. We booked it for two nites, and leave tomorrow am. It's like a large wide wooden canoe or viking ship with a roof and and sitting areas up front and on top. Kerela has these extensive areas of backwaters, so the idea is to just sorta cruise along, stopping at villages and looking around, and watching for wildlife like guars and cranes and such. We'll bring along beers and the idea is to just be lazy for a bit before we wrap this thing and head up to Mumbai and for me, back home.

Before we left Amristar tho, we had kind of had a cool day. We ran into this couple from California and we ended up splitting a cab to head out the Pakastani border for the border closing ceremony. It's the wierdest thing. Basicly, at around sunset, the guards from both sides have this ritualized ceremony where they call out to each other, then do these super high leg kicks--Monty Python stuff--seriously--and glare at each other though the gate. Meanwhile there is this DJ guy on each side who gets the crowd all riled up and chanting "PAKISTAN!" or "HINDUSTAN!" like it's a sporting event. It actually has a bit of that too. From where we were sitting you could see the soldiers on the Indian side litterally limbering up and practicing those leg kicks and huge arm swings. You'd have to see video to truly appreciate it. It's odd for me. not having a dog in their fight, so to speak. But it made me wonder, "geez...no wonder these countries never go anywhere when they're having pep rallies at the border every night!

After thet, we joined the Californians for dinner, then proceeded out in a futile attempt to procure a gin and tonic--the signature cocktail of British India. Impossible to find, I couildn't believe it. However, as we were leaving this hotel is when the wedding rolled up.

If you didn't already know, weddings are HUGE here. They go on for days and they're a big part of the social scene you could say. So we were trapped by this throng of people, and up through the crowd is the groom slowly making his way on a donkey and wearing this huge vest thing made out of 10 rupee bills. In front of him are clearly the bachelors, pretty drunk already and singing and dancing to these two drum guys wailing away on them. The drums not the bachelors. Then women are off to the other side, in these amazing bright colored saris, and the older men are off and back behind them. We cannot understand a thing of what was being said, but we noticed as usual, and before you knew it we were in the crowd and I was being accosted by a lot of the women, which was odd being they never talked to me before here. They were asking the usual questions and being very gracious when I asked questions. Finally, this big guy approached me and asked me where I was from in this weird accent. Turns out he was Indian but lived in Toronto (doesn't play hockey) and he was able to fill me in on some of the mechanics of this thing. Turns out we were invited, and down to the banquet hall we went. Mostly, lots of drinking goes on, and the bachelor guys all dance toegher to those wacky Indian pop songs. Then they'd have these dancing girls come out and sort of do a number, but it was a very gender segregated thing. They kept me in drinks (mostly vodka and pepsi---ugh), and the children were probably the best, all grins and questions, you know? We lost the californians along the way, and we got a Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel at around 4:00am. No sleep was had and we missed the express train back to Delhi (5:10am departure), but we caught the next one and got to the airport in plenty of time, although I lost my favourite hoodie at the hotel in Amristar :(

It's actually kinda funny tho. I was asleep, but Mike started chatting to these 5 or so guys in the train with us. Turns out they were from Amristar, but were heading down to Delhi for some....shall we say....companionship. Some shit never changes the world over 'eh?

I hope I get a chance to write something from Mumbai before I get on my plane on the 16th, as the boat thing should be a major highlight. But there really is so much more to say about this trip. A lot will probably come to me after I get back. This part of the world is just so WIERD you know? But I am looking forward to some snpow and ice. I miss my skates. I miss all you people too :)

Okay, more when I can

-Kai #10

2008-12-11T09:46:00.002-06:00

Wow...okay, I only have a few minutes becuse I guess the power here gets cut off at 9:30pm for an hour or so!

We are in Kerala, which is sorta like the Florida of India.....hot and humid and crappy. No I'm kidding, it's not really crappy. The other stuff is true tho wow!

We're gonna blow some real money on a luxury backwater tour of these inlad waterways on a houseboat with a crew that basicly feeds us and we get to drink and take the sites in. The boat is really neat lookin too.

I have some adventure reports from up In Armitsar. We ended up getting invited to an Indian wedding and earlier that day we saw this weird border crossing ceremony at the Indian/Pakistani border. That one is famous and you can probably get info in the Internet

The border thing not the wedding obviously. :)

I'll try to get on here with a real post tomorrow!

-Kai #10

2008-12-09T02:01:00.004-06:00

Dispatch from India!

Okay, first a correction--The town Tiger is from is Hamirpur, not Hamirapuhl like I said, in case anyone is looking at a map.

Secondly, nice job against the Thunder Chickens boys. 3-5 is a loss but could be a lot worse! Congrats on your goal Larry, but I want my linemates back when I get home!

Thirdly, be sure to link me here with the new website Schultzie :)

Well, we are in Amritsar, which is about 30km from the Pakastani border (forgot what that is in miles, hopefully around 2000). No...it's not that bad, although do check the papers because with what happened in Mumbai, tensions are higher and I am sure there are the usual hardliners that wand to spark a military conflict. If that happens, I'm probably gonna see if I can get an earlier plane! I'm not too worried, really. They nabbed a bigshot in the group over in Pakistan yesterday I guess, which is probably good. Some things you just can't control.

Anyhow, like I said before, there is the holiest temple in the Sikh religion here. Sihkism is an interesting sort of combo between Hindu and Islam and is very inclusive. You've probably seen Sikhs aand not really realized it; they're the ones with the distinctive turbans that they pretty much wear all the time, as well as these really sweet long beards. Some of them are so long that they have these little mesh deals they wear under their chins to sort of gather them up so they don't hang so low. We had a little visit with a distinguished looking guy on the street today, and I was trying to to check out all this stuff and be all impolite.

Actually, people have been pretty nice, but it's always a judgement call when they ask where I'm from. It's probably silly, but sometimes I say,

"Me??...I'm Canadian"

"Really...what city sir?"

"Winnepeg. You know, kind of in the middle"

"Ah yes. Cold"

"Yep"

So far nobody has really asked much past that but I do have a bit more of a cover story ready just in case. Let's say the guy continues the above and then says;

"My name is [insert indian name], and I live near the main bazaar. What is your name?"

"Me?. Oh my name is Chris. Chris Boyko."

(Nobody besides the AK Bars will get that one, but trust me on this one)

Anyway, it's miday now, and we have a pretty nice hotel accross the street from the train station, which is good being we have to catch a 5:00am train tommorrow back to Delhi. From there it's pretty much right to the airport and onto a plane and we're heading down to Kerela, which is near the southern tip on the western coast. Yep....it's almost beach time baby! I even brought my hammock just for that leg of the trip. Today we're just kinda being mellow, all that road travel is exhausting here. It was kind of a funny Indianism last nite too

The main roads here in Punjab are actually really good by Indian standards, but Tiger, like a lot of people here, seem really literal. Let me explain. Imagine an upside down triangle, pretty much an equalateral one. Label the points A on the left, B on the bottom, and C on the right. A is Armristar, where we were going, and C is where we were after about 5 hours of driving. B is just another city. Now, the road from C to B then A is really nice, but twice as far. C to A is closer but a horrible road and a bunch of slow moving overfilled horse carts hauling crops. Guess which route we took? Fastest way is the shortest route, right? I'm gonna need new dental fillings after this trip, I'm tellin' ya. It would have been much faster if we'd taken C to B then A, but Tiger didn't see it and there you are. It was sad to send him on his way tho. We gave him a monster tip of 1000 rupees, but that's what happens if your customers like you I guess. I wish him well in his life and let us know when he's getting married to at least one of those women. Weddings are crazy here but that's a story for another time.

Okay, that's good for now.

From the Far East

-Kai #10

2008-12-08T00:15:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone!
Writing to you from a dingy Internet cafe in this town. He really needs to upgrade his video and Internet browser (Explorer 6??). Right now the font size looks about like this to me right now! It's awesome!

Well, we are in the town of Hamirapul, which is located in the southwest corner of Himachel Pradesh, which is one of the northern states in India; it actually does border with Nepal on the northeast. Bordering Nepal. Wow….it’s really weird; just writing that makes me step back and recall where in the hell I am—India—in the south of freaking Asia! But its weirder even than that because trust me, you never forget for a second that you are NOT…as they say…in Kansas anymore. Oh, and Pakistan has a border with this state too, which sorta makes me wish I didn’t follow the news so much. But let me catch up some travel nuts and bolts.

The last I left off, we were leaving Delhi with our hired driver guy to head into the Himalayas (just the foothills actually but holy crap!). The guy told us that he is called “Tiger” and I don’t care if it’s not true because, well, he’s a cool guy and says he has 3 girlfriends, and his cell phone does ring a lot. We headed north through the dust and diesel and smoke for about 2 hours until we finally got on a road that you could sorta drive on cruise control with. In India that means you only brake hard and wail on your horn once every 5 minutes; as opposed to seconds. This is as good a time as any to really bring up what seems to be the central “India Thing” that everyone talks about and sure as shit seems true to me. That “thing” is actually more subtle than one thing really—as usual—but it could be summed up as “Fucking Contradictory”. Let me explain.

Ok take the driving. It’s like having a baby screech in one ear and a chalkboard fingernail screech in the other (or a basketball game on the radio), while having toxic waste fumes and burnt hair and nail clipping smoke pumped out of the dash vents at full blast. That really is what city driving, at least in New Dehli is like. I am so not kidding nor exaggerating. Ask anyone who’s been there. It’s remarkable.

As we got out of the city tho it sorta turned into what I kind of imagined pre interstate highway travel circa about 1930 might have been like. They set up these ubiquitous molded plastic chairs out and roadside food stations with tiny little outdoor shops (seriously--think State Fair) and have these open flame burners and huge woks and pots of simmering curries and such. So you just pull off, like we did, and sit down, and Tiger orderss this plate of curried rice and beans—super simple food—and Mike and me order some 7-Ups because, you know, we were just over getting sick and were not so sure we trusted our own bowels just yet. So the food and drinks come and dang it that after no food for over 24 hours his food looks pretty good. So we have a bite and its great and, well, we order some. Rice, beans, curry spices, that’s it. And it all cost about 4 bucks. And that’s with another pair of 7-Ups. See what I mean? Fucking contradictory.

So we got into the mountains at nite on the 5th and wound our way up to the Himachel Pradesh state capital, Shimla. We got a room at a place called Spar’s Lodge (recommended by Lonely Planet) and pretty much just knocked ‘er off for the nite.

The next morning we wake up and hear the amazing sound of—nothing. We open the windows and in rushes—clean mountain air. I’d forgotten how much I liked air. We had been unable of course to see the terrain and its immediately obvious that we are really up there. Not above tree line or anything, but way way higher than I was used too.

Shimla is basicly a town on the top of a mountain ridge that was originally just a hamlet until discovered by the British in the 19th century. By “discovered” I meant they figured out it was gorgeous and a fucking hell of a lot cooler in the summer than down south. They decided to come up there to get away from the heat in Delhi, take holidays, blah blah, the usual stuff, but because of it there are a lot of old British colonial style buildings which were taken over by the Indian government after independence. The thing about the town is that it’s small enough to really take in, even over just one or two days. The whole town is layed out with that ridge as it’s defining feature. Most of the streets highest up are pedestrian only—a WONDERFUL change from everywhere else. And they are narrow and gloriously random. Imagine about 7-10 parallel lines on a page. Okay, not sorta randomly break and overlap a bunch of those lines so they overlap and intersect and the reconnect. Mold that around a ridgetop and you have Shimla. Pretty much all the pedestrian streets are bazaars that date back centuries. The stores are newer of course. Our hotel was at the extreme west end of town with pretty much the main ped street—the Mall—ending up right at it. Walking east from it, we’d go past all this cool historical stuff, and up into the shops and the like, but every now and then, hey…where does that go? And every walk into town was different and new, but ended up more or less where you knew where you were. It’s hard to explain in words so I’ll stop so I’ll get your attention back with this—there are monkeys running around wild everywhere. Yep—wild monkeys hanging from the trees and running up poles sitting around on stuff and all that. Totally amazing. And the scenery from all sides was amazing as you’d expect, given the fact it’s in the freaking Himalayan foothills. I’ll post photos when I can. But the very very best thing about Shimla was the least expected of all and the most coolest. The have an ice rink.

Yep. And they play hockey there too. I pinched myself so hard I drew blood, man. Can you believe it?? I fucking came 8000 miles and a 15 hour bumpy car ride and I randomly run into the oldest skating club in south asia, the Shimla Ice Skating Club. And did I mention that they actually fucking play HOCKEY there?? We wandered down there at around 6pm in the evening to look at the ice and it looked like crap of course, being that it was warm all day. But it’s cool because the nestled this rink right in the shadow of the Ridge so it rarely gets direct sun. Amazingly, there was some ice there, but not skateable. So we go into the office and get to talking to this guy who's the director of the club. Next thing I know he's giving me his email and some Shimla Ice Club pins. Global brotherhood and sisterhood of hockey baby! I think I'm gonna send some old sticks and stuff out to him. If we'd been a week later, I'd been invited to have a game with them. Unbelieveable as this all is, get this. We chat a bit then Mike and me leave and start heading through the bus depot and start up the hill. Just then we hear a voice behind us, "Sir....SIR!....SIR!!" We turn around and its the Ice Club guy he's got my wallet in his hand!
"You forgot your wallet in my office sir!" he says as he gets up to us. I practicly had a heart attack as I've got about 4000 rupees (about 100 bucks) plus $150USD and all the other usual wallet stuff. The money alone could probably fund his club for a few years and I'm not kidding at all. All this trip people are hawking and begging and trying to get mone from us and this guy passes up a chance at about a half years salary. Say it with me folks:

Fucking Contradictory

It was a really great little place to visit, and I was sad to see it go, but we had to move on yesterday. All day we drove though the mountains, which was breathtaking in the beauty and the terrifying versions (crappy narrow roads, no guardrails, I'm afraid of heights). We got here about 5 and had a dinner date with Tiger's family at 7:30. It was really nice, his sister and mother were the first women we've spoken to here that we weren't buying something from, were western, or under the age of 12 (the kids are like kids everywhere....giggly and curious and awesome). I'll probably write more about that aspect of India later but not now. They made us a simple little meal, veg and non-veg, as they say here, and we had a few big Kingfisher's for liquid courage....eating in homes can be a bit unnerving sometimes in the third world. But they are so sweet and have so little but they are willing--no, insistant--on sharing what they have. "Guests are God" Tiger said and it's hard to know how to feel when you hear something like that. When we left his wrinkly old father presented us each with a gorgeous pink flower and I pressed it into my Lonely Travel guide and intend to keep it forever.

We are stopping by there today for lunch before we start heading up to Amritsar, which is more west and unnervingly close to Pakistan. But it's the sight of the Sikh Golden Temple in the state of Punjab, which is supposed to be cool, although I'm getting a bit templed out. Then on from there we sadly say goodbye to Tiger and take an express train back to Delhi. Anyway, it should be fun over at his place because the said the neighbors have pretty much never seen westerners before so they want to meet us. It's really a village--they farm weat, corn, and have a cow and calf--so these are honest, simple, decent people. Again, coming from the west, it's hard to know how to feel. Let's just say that in the USA we have a LOT less actual poverty than we think. And we make a hell of a lot less with what we DO have than we could. Once again India makes me feel

Fucking Contradictory

Well, I'll keep trying to figure out some pics on here, but for now I hope you enjoyed my "word picture:)"

I'm thinking of everyone

-Kai 10

2008-12-04T23:32:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone! Well, I've been here for 5 days and was sick for two. Very exciting eh? We went to Agra, which is about 150 miles southeast of Delhi to see the Taj Mahal, and on the way I started to feel sick. Then really sick. We decided, what the hell, lets stay at the Oberoi 5 star hotel overnite and see how I feel in the morning. Its kind of an expensive hotel, but hell, cheaper than a hospital bed fight. Well, the bad news is they were all full up. And the really bad news was yours truly vomited hits guts out on their polished marble entranceway. I 've got the photo to prove it. But I was a lot better the next day, but then my friend got sick. Ah...the joys of third world travel. The Taj was great, and I got photos in my AK Bars jersey, and the best thing is this guy approached us and points and goes..."Kazan...this is my home. Tatarstan." Got photos of him too.

Today we're heading up to the Himalayas in our hired car. Driving here is crazy. Stop and go and constant honking and unbelevable polluting vehicles. I swear to god we went by a truck that actually looked homemade! The people are constantly trying to hawk stuff and they're frankly not as friendly as china was. Oh well.

I also see from online that the Mighty AK Bars were not so mighty vs the fucking Aces. 5-0 isn't catastrophic tho. I mean, we're missing the star player right? I really miss hockey tho, I've had dreams that I'm pretty much every nite. It's rather warm here...7os during the day and about 40 at nite, but I miss the 0-20 degree range baby! Up north will be colder I guess.

I'm also feeling pretty safe. There's more tension with Pakistan right now with what's going on, but nothing's happened. I told my friend tho; if they start a shooting war I'm going home early man!

Okay. we gotta meet our car. Be good out there and I really miss everyone.

-Kai #10

2008-12-01T22:21:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone. Well....I'm in India baby! New Delhi to be exact. Got in last nite, got only 4 hours of sleep, but thats the best way to get over jet lag. The city is pretty polluted, but our place last nite was pretty good, although the room was only about 8 x 8. Gonna go poke around the city today. The guy at the hostel liked my Leafs jersey so wait till I throw on the old red white and green 'eh? The flight was really good; the new Boeing 777 has a little touch screen tv in every seat so I watched three movies. No more free beer on flights tho...proof that civilization is continuing it's decay unabated.

I was able to catch the guys right before they hit the ice while I was layed over in Chicago. I hope they wailed on the Aces like I told 'em to. It's KILLLING me to miss three fucking AK Bars games!

Okay, I'll write more as I have more to tell. This is really interesting so far. I mean, it's so weird to get on a plane delayed by snow, sit in a bouncy room for 15 hours. Vicerally, you could be anywhere. But as soon as they open the plane's door, you know something is up because it has just this new, different smell, you know? Not bad neccesarily, but it hits the lizard part of your brain and you just say to yourself--I am a LOOONG way from home.

Okay, more later as I have more to say.

-Kai #10

2008-11-11T18:56:00.003-06:00

We Won!!!!

Wow. What a game!

Whew. Only 3 games into the season and we pull off the very first AK Bars C2 victory, a 5-3 win over the Maroons C2 club, captained by the man everyone knows and loves, M Bustad.

Actually he's not such a bad guy :)

It's always fun to play the Maroons, as like us, and what used to be the Spiders, and a few other teams all consist of people who all started off in adult hockey around the same time, and many of them through Barb Garn's growing like a tumor organization, JMS. (See jmshockey.org for more). A great gal by the name of Ann Mortenson plays for them, as well as her brother. So I knew it should be a pretty fun game.

The Maroon's are also taking a beating this season up in C2 and this was a battle for last place, which, congrats to the Maroons, they now have!

The team came out skating hard and well. If we hadn't faded a tad in the third, it would have been a near perfect game I think. Anton "Crazy Legs" Petsan made the observation after a shift or two that we were going at a good, fast pace out there, which I think he meant himself and the Ah-Nye-Hilator. I actually felt pretty good too tho. But holy crap it's fun being out there with those guys. Petsan is everywhere out there--I describe his skating style as "wiggly"--and the Ah-Nye-Hilator, well that guy is as smooth as a gravy sandwich on his skates, thats for sure. I guess my job is to stay in the play and absorb abuse! But if the season ended today we'd already have had a great season (and only 1 game below .500).

The AK Bars scoring started out with the return of Jeren "Sweet Hands" Anderson, and a nifty little deke that confused everyone, including himself! But the puck was on a nice angle and coasted happily to the left side of the net. The AK Bars had it's first lead of the 2008-2009 season. One we held onto the whole damn game I might add. It's always nice to see Jeren shoot at all, so hey, may as well make it a goal, yeah?

After an interference penalty, geez, Crazy Legs and the Ah-Nye-Hilator basicly just sort of yawn and go, "Ok. Power play. How about an AK Bars goal? Yeah? Yeah? That okay with you? Okay then..."

Nye wins the face off, gets it over to Crazy Legs, he skates 'er in on the left, I'm trailing behind (gotta make the Triangle!), passes back to the Ah-Nye-Hilator, who's like, "Yeah..I'm gonna score now...okay? Hows the right upper corner? Yep. right THERE"

Total time on power play for the AK Bars? Six seconds. That's a lot more like it lads.

The third goal was total vintage Trevor Tjelmeland. He's in the high slot, gets a hold of it, and sends in his money making shot....hard and low, mostly on the ice. It really is more of a super hard pass..on the goal...than anything else, but dang it if he doesn't score ALL the time that way!

Then for me, taking a page from that playbook, well, I got me my first goal of the young season. Basicly, Nye either took a shot or sent it into the slot, where I was suprisingly being left unmauled, and I got a hold of it on my right side opposite the goal. I put the thing on my forehand and took FOREVER to get that puck around about 90 degrees before getting a good Trevor style shot away and before I know it the Ah-Nye-Hilator and Petsan are going crazy and I'm feeling the best fucking feeling the whole world. A Goal Scored.

It only lasts about 17 seconds but all you all know EXACTLY what I'm talking about yeah?

The guys were cool, "Dude...way to take your time and pick your shot man!" But truth is...I just didn't want to send the thing wide of the net, you know! It did feel like that moment, which in real life probably was about 2-3 seconds tops, seemed like it took about 10 times that long! Oh man I didn't think I'd score all season, so this was a big big accomplishment for me, and this is my blog, so we shall all revel and partake in my total and complete awesomeness!

I forgot to go celebrate with Trey again tho. Sorry about that Trey.

The final goal tho, is a real doozy, and I didn't see it very well from where I was at the bench. From what I could tell, Chris "Backhand" Boyko came charging out of the defense (something I love it when they do and we cycle to cover...very tricky) Boyko makes it down the left side, battles thru thier slot, gets into the right hand corner BEHIND the red line, turns around, fires a shot (probably off his backhand) and scores. Somehow. I mean, he's behind the freaking goal? How did he do that? Geez!

Canadian Magic I guess. It was seriously Awesome.

We (meaning I) also missed (hit the post? goalie made a save?) on a three on zero after Petsan totally got around their pinching defense guy. But I don't want to talk about it. I'll just score it next time I promise.

And interestingly, Pavel the (fill in name here) didn't get a penalty...the big pussy! :)

This week's game was a shining example of why we play this game, and why--I think--this team is such a special one. Which in turn makes us all want to play more and more and keep getting better. I mean, it always feels good to win, that's true. But, to win ones like this, in a new and harder division, with a bunch of guys--to quote Herb Brooks "of such differing backgrounds"--Is so fantastic. To win it clean and have so many of us contribute. It's really pretty awesome.

On top of that most of us have been playing together as AK Bars for 4 plus years now which for me is my whole hockey career! And the new guys have fitted in and added to it as if they'd been here the whole damn time. Again...totally freaking awesome. To paraphrase Chris "Bear" Schultz....it's not only about what goes on on the ice. Well said Schutlzie.

And that--all 5 of my readers out there who don't play hockey--is why we play this game, pay the huge sums of cash, and when we are not playing, we're thinking about playing. And Game Day is...well, it's Game Day. From the minute we wake up, it's going to be a great day because it's Game Day. And it sure as hell seems like it's the gift that keeps on giving 'eh?

Am I right? Who's with me? Is anybody fuckin' tired? Because the Piranhas are breathing though their mouths guys. Do not give these guys too much respect! :)

(points will go to anyone who can name the movie and the scene)

Okay i'm outta here. See you at the rink

-Kai #10

2008-11-05T15:25:00.003-06:00

Ok now, where are those nickname suggestions? Come on people!

Before hockey, lets give a shout out to the new president, even if he is a basketball guy (nobody's perfect). Like him or no, it will be an improvement over the last few years I say. Although I'm not sure it matters because like, what...half maybe?....the AK Bars are not native born citizens, so between the Canadians and Russians I'm not sure we need to be on the lookout for Immigration before and after games! I'm sure they are all legal...don't worry. Besides, Ah-Nye-Hilator just married a US gal (I think) so he should be okay. He never told anyone he was getting married of course, so Nye, you're not gonna get a toaster oven or a dining set from me now!

But it was historic and I think it will be good for the country overall.

As far as here in Minnesota, we're gettin' a recount, being that Norm and Al are separated by something like 500 votes, and that triggers an automatic one when it's that close. So national media will descend on us and what they'll see is; nothing much. Minnesota has probably the squeakiest of the squeaky when comes to clean elections, so the rest of the county will see it done right (for once). We're not a bunch of corrupt morons up here like you see down in places like Florida. But then again...I hate Florida. They certainly are no place for TWO pro HOCKEY teams, that's for damn sure.

As far as hockey, well we did lose again, but only by the relatively not so bad score of 1-6. According to Kirk (who in his role as a scorekeeper for the AHA is in a great position to be our head scout) the Rack Attack are a vastly superior team than the Spartans are, who beat us by a lot more (see below).

The team actually really played well. As did Trey who whilst giving up 6 goals, still was subjected to 53 shots to our 16 (if I recall correctly). Pavel got a penalty for well, pretty much for just being Pavel, from what I could tell. And Libby put in a nifty goal off a nice rebound from a low shot by Larry. Everyone seems to be getting used to--as I like to put it--a smaller rink. Our pace was quicker and everything just seemed a lot better. And all this without Sweet Hands. We still ned a bunch of work on our shift changes, but that will fall into place soon enough I think. All in all; a good game.

This weekend should be great also. We're playing the Maroons C2, who we've played in some form for a few years now, and even scrimmaged a bit this summer. They've actually scored less this season than us (2 vs 3) so it wil likely be a pretty good game! I may aven get a shot on goal, but lets not mortgage the farm just yet. I cannot wait

So that's the latest AK Bars fans, and lets keep those nicknames coming in!

-Kai #10

2008-10-29T15:37:00.003-05:00

Okay...on advice from our very own Jaren "Sweet Hands" Anderson, let's open up the nickname suggestions for our very own special goon, Pavel Zakharov! He suggested

Splitter

Not too bad, that one. I'll throw a few out,

The Chopper

Tomahawk

Karl "Marks the back of the guy's head"

Pavel the Terrible

Send your suggestions and we'll get this figured out!

-Kai #10

2008-10-29T14:33:00.002-05:00

Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

This C2 thing is gonna be...well...it's gonna be something, that's for sure. The opening game of the 2008-2009 season was at the lovely St Louis Park Rec center vs a team we'd never played; The Spartans. I was worried they'd eschew the usual jersey and hockey gear for just a helmet and a loincloth a la 300, but they seemed a little old and out of shape for it.

What they could do was play some hockey. Whew. Let's start at the ending

2-10 loss for the AK Bars.

In all truth it started out pretty well. Through the first period and part of the second, we actually were sort of hanging in there. We were only behind 2-3 until about the halfway mark in the game, when they just opened the gates and piled it on. Both our goals were scored by the Ah-Nye-Hilator, who for his first, managed to just skate in alone, deke a few guys and take a nifty little shot, all while Anton and I were getting over the boards. Let's just say the line changes for the forwards were less than polished this particular game. My personal observation is that they don't really have better teams up in C2, they just have smaller rinks! It seemed like everything was going at a fast forward speed. This is, of course, one of the neat things about hockey, the blinding speed, but holy cats it will take some getting used to.

The Ah-Nye-Hilator got another nice little goal after some gritty play by the freshly back from the East, Anton "Crazy Legs" Petsan, who is rapidly getting his old form back. Those lads comprise my linemates and I couldn't be happier about it, although it forces me to REALLY need to step up MY game. I mean, the Ah-Nye-Hilator is starting to get passes over to me, but he must think I skate as fast as he does because I seem to be always behind them! But I figure that a bit of practice will help there, and I should start shedding some of this excess weight I've picked up this summer as we go along.

On the penalty front, as all you regular readers will expect, our resident goon, Pavel, got a penalty,as did Trevor and so did I. It was a tripping call on a 2 on 1 right in the low slot. Seemed like the thing to do, although they scored with about 20 seconds left on my time on the box, damn it all to hell.

C2 is going to be....it seems...a LOT rougher than we've been used to. I was boarded and sent to the ice (but I got the guy's stick away!), and had a guy sorta check me before a faceoff. And our playmaker Jaren "Sweet Hands" Anderson reported no less than a guy PUNCHING him in the chest near their net. None of this was called by the two blind mice they called refs that night.

But mostly they just scrored. Five goals in the third no less. It was rather demoralizing. One was this sloppy shot from the high slot that Trey had tracked all the way, but it hit the ice and took a perfect bounce over his pads. He did see 34 shots (to our measly 14), but the quality of shooting is much better.

Around the League:

I was looking at the website, and to my astonishment, the Nemesis (whom we've played in D1) managed to rack up 25 penalty minutes in their first game. One guy--forgot his name--got a 10 minute game misconduct and a fighting major. What the fuck is up with that? I thought that fighting got you kicked out of the league--I guess we'll see. But it looks like we're going to have to add a few tools to the box to play here. Personally, I don't mind the rough stuff; it can be very motivating and exhilerating once you get going. I just never really expect it so I rarely start off with a dirty mindset. But once it gets going I do okay I think. Maybe I'll just have to channel my inner Dave Bannister to get a tad more furious about it.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to saturday when we meet the Rack Attack; whom I already give points for originality as far as their team's name. But I heard they are pretty good. Kirk told me,

"Well...if you guys play hard and Trey is REALLY on his game you should only lose 12-0."

Fuck you too Kirk.

Well....I guess if it was easy then everyone'd be doing it, right?

See you all soon

-Kai #10

2008-09-24T16:10:00.003-05:00

Incidently...I forgot to mention that in the after celebration in the snack area (and free beer courtesy of the AHA) I got to chatting to a gal I know from the Yellow Team. It was she that informed me that Number 42 guy led their league in penalty minutes. And he has himself a nickname too;

"Hack Saw"

Nice.

Kai #10

2008-09-23T17:00:00.004-05:00

Okay, here's the story, so pay attention.

The Championship Game:

--cue tympanies--

***Bum, bum, da-bum, bum bum***

What a game this game was. Wow. First of all, it was the earliest I think we've ever played a game of consequence; 10:35am. Personally, I felt pretty fresh. Remembering how the playoffs last spring took their toll on me last spring, I made sure to take care of myself. It was a sacrifice, let me tell you--I went out with Alison on saturday after the game and had a nice steak and a glass or two of shiraz. Actually, I did read somewhere that it's important to replenish protein for muscles after hard exertion, and the shiraz is a nice bold red with, you know, tannins and anti-oxidents and all that good stuff.

Anyway, I digress.

What a great game. With a whole cast of characters and a bunch of crazy twists and turns, all stuffed into the short 12 minute a period format. The Yellow Team was the one we played on friday, and the managed a spectacular comeback in the third to tie that one up. Just like kissing your sister, as they say. So we were looking for payback and payback we did.

The first two periods were just a back and forth battle. Neither side scored. They played a pretty tight defense and had plenty of chances on offense, just peppering Trey with shots, 22 in total by the end of the game. And as I mentioned a second ago, they played tight on the defense and were noticebly quicker to pounce on us like vultures. We managed only 11 shots the whole damn game, and I don't think I had more than one of those, if that. But it's a unanimous consensus that Trey is the Tournement MVP. I mean, three goals in four games? Gotta love that. But those first two periods were noted only by penalties on both teams. And by teams I mean Pavel, and this chippy knucklehead on the Yellow Team that we knew as "Number 42 guy". He was constantly doing instigator crap; making runs at Trey on dead pucks, calling out "coming to get'cha!!" in the corners, other dipshit stuff like that. And since we can't get a Boogaard out to beat the crap out of him, I guess we have---Pavel. Anyway, those two were ramping up the intensity, and I guess you could say were starting thier own little 1 on 1 game. But we were spending time killing penalties which what with 12 minute periods, can be momentum killers.

The fun really got going in the third period. Still knotted up at 0-0, about a half minute into the third period, they put in a goal to take a lead of 0-1. Crap! But if they get that many shots, even an MVP goalie won't be perfect. No worries tho, plenty of time. The whole game we had been playing hard, and staying pretty fresh, on account of the fact we were taking really good, short shirts. It's amazing how that helps, especially late in the game. (The truth is, I think pick-up hockey encourages bad habits; my last JMS this guy with a pony-tail skated like he was 80 years old, and till took--I timed him--an EIGHT minute shift)

Anyway, we had plenty of time, but they were pretty much shutting us down. Then with about 7 minutes left to play, the Pavel, Number 42 Guy rivalry boiled over. 42 had been, quite frankly, getting away with shit all game and the refs were not calling it very tightly. I mean, earlier, those two were getting rough with each other in the neutral zone and the refs stop play--can't remember if it was offsides or some such. Pavel and 42 Guy are jawing and all that and the refs line up a face off between the two of them. Brilliant call refs. Not exactly MENSA members are you?? We were on the bench going, "Is that a good idea?? I bet they just ignore the puck and just skate into each other, a la football linemen. Jaren "Sweet Hands" Anderson is screaming "Get him the hell out of there!! But when the game is not called smart, things can get out of hand. Like this. It started off with those two getting into it in the Yellow Team zones right corner. Some roughing ensues. Whistle gets blown....offsetting penalties. Okay, that's not so bad. But then Pavel---and there's no way to sugarcoat this--makes a supreme bonehead move. As they are skating to the box, he takes his stick and does a twohanded mock swing at 42's head. Not really swing or anything, just sort of do the motion. The refs jump ALL over this....and Pavel gets himself a 5 minute roughing major to boot. Grant has to sit in the box for the two minute and Pavel get's the five. I guess they should have been consecutive or something, Coach Wally was saying the refs screwed THAT up too, but I cannot recall what it was, so feel free to tell me and I'll post it later.

So to recap at this point. We have about 7 minutes to play, all of it on penalty kill, and are trailing 0-1 in a game where we are getting out shot 2-1. We're fucked, right? Well, we were still playing pretty hard, and the bench is going nuts. Someone yells, "Get the puck out of there! Ice it..ICE IT!!!!" and someone else goes "We do gotta score a fucking goal too you know!!" with a scant 2 minutes to play, in a scrum in their slot, "Backhand" Boyko gets the puck over to Sweet Hands (not sure if it was a backhand pass; it probably was), who decided at a VERY good time to actually take a shot on goal.

You've all heard it a billion times, on TV, in movies, on the radio. Or even out loud when you're a little kid skating with your pals, or even as a grown up kid in your mind when you're shooting at rickety net at the park. It's okay, I do it too. But what you hear are those immortal, glorious, timeless words

He shoots........HE SCORES!!!!

The AK Bars go crazy. Jaren skates to the bench, looking weary, as if he had just turned the whole game around all by himself or something. We've got two minutes to go before overtime. The game was the Yellow Team's to lose, but the Comeback Gods giveth, and the Comeback Gods taketh away. Neither team is able to score in the overtime, and in championship games, well, you need a champion, so we went to the shootout. The dreaded, stomach churning, high stakes contest that decides the whole effing thing. Even our best and most loyal fan up in the seats, Karen Boyko, was covering her face with her hands....she couldn't watch! It's really really stressful, let me tell you.

Larry decided to go with Brett, Sweet Hands, and Pavel (for the opportunity for redemption perhaps?) As the home team, we get to decide to go first or not. Larry decided for not. The first Yellow comes in, shoots.....save by Trey. Libby goes in, fakes left, goes right, and their goalie makes a great stick save on the ice, totally anticipating the fake. Still zero zero. Second Yellow guy, comes in, outside attempt at the corner....SAVE by Trey! second up, our clutch guy Jaren. He goes in, fakes left, goes right, (and remembering Libby's shot), fakes THAT, and goes back left and plunks it in on the WIDE open left side. AK Bars up 1-0. It comes down to thier third guy. Trey makes the save, we win this game. The guy skates in...does something then probably something else, shoots....and well, what else? Trey makes the save, we pile over the boards screaming our asses off and throwing the gloves in the air and pile on the guy. We are the 2008 AHA Fall Invitational Level 4 Champions.

It was a seriously kick ass moment. I highly recommend it. The trophy is pretty awesome too. :)

Until next time....

-Kai #10

2008-09-23T16:44:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gents, check out the new link to the Neighborhood Bandy Club blog and view the video. This "Bandy" game is great--I've played indoors, and must be a blast outside on that monster sized rink! I'm gonna get a few extra sticks if any of you hockey players out here want to give it a try; and I STRONGLY suggest you do. We'll keep you posted!

2008-09-16T17:44:00.002-05:00

Ladies and Gents, the AK Bars are back And we are....to put it mildly, the Champs! Yeppers, we continued our fall tournament domination by winning the 2008 AHA Fall Invitational up at the Blaine Super (duper) Rink. It was a hell of a weekend of hockey, lemme tell you. We had a game Friday night, two on Saturday and the Championship game early on Sunday morning. I was beat, let me tell you. Totally and completely drained. And I've got a HUGE bruise on my right arm. Ahh...battle scars....

Anyway, we did not get off to a great start on Friday as we managed to let a 2-0 lead evaporate into a very unsatisfying 2-2 tie against the Yellow Team. Everyone pretty much played rusty and it showed. They were a good team tho, very defensive, and we only had a few opportunities. I scored an UGLY one and Drew "The Big Swede" tipped in a nice crossing pass from Jaren "Sweet Hands" Anderson. But a tie is a bit of a dissappointment, and we were not happy about it.

Saturday was a different story, however. Between the Wildcats and the hapless Buccaneers, we went 3-0 and 7-0 respectively. The Bucs game was noted by the oddest thing we'd seen in a long time. Late in the game, with a 4-0 lead, our very own supermodel, Grant "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Olson, apparently did something to offend one of them against the boards in their zone. The guy puffs his chest out and literally starts CHASING him around the rink, while meanwhile Grant himself seemed oblivious to it. But the guy was completely out of the play, wasn't following the puck at all! It was hilarious, even when he checks him into the boards, with one of his numbskull buddies piling on for good measure. They both get sent into the box of course and we had a 5 on 3 power play. This all went down about halfway through the 3rd period, so we added three more goals for their trouble on the remaning 5 minutes or so.

This all qualified us for the big champoinship game, and a rematch with the Yellow Team. More on that later.....

2008-04-11T17:45:00.003-05:00

Well folks, it's over. The 2007-2008 AK Bars season ended with a thud with a 0-1 loss to the Renegades last Saturday.

It's taken that long to really mull it over.

We were not at our best. Truly. I mean Drop Pass and Libby were league level point leaders. The Ah-Nye-Hilator has a cannon AND a wrister. We can score. We can score a lot. We were never shut out this season once. In 22 games.

Until game 23.

Jesus it was not pretty. I don't really know if it was the Olympic sized ice, the fact we played the night before or what. We came out flat. I was late, which is unusual-no matter what shit they give me (Twins day game that afternoon got out as I was trying to head south on I-35W and no bridge....not that it really matters now). It was if we had totally used all our hockey mojo on friday nite. Friday was a great nite, but I'll talk about that later, as I want to wrap this season on the high note.

Larry blames himself for not being inspiring, or having a bad attitude, or something, but that's not really it. Larry tried and tries his hardest and then some. And like everyone who tries his damn hardest...well sometimes it doesn't matter. Or maybe you "tried too hard". Or maybe shit really does just happen. Our bench became unglued during this game. Guys who usually get stuff done, didn't. The pressures of the playoff situation, both mental (we MADE it!!) and more physical (holy crap this is a LOT of hockey for just 5 days!) were tougher than everyoine anticipated I think. Either way, I think Larry blames himself more that is really called for. When I reflect on this painful loss, even after a TON of analysis and the seeking of "causes", on a fundamental level, I really think that it was simply time for the 2007-2008 season to be over. Every season for every team in every sport ends--in perhaps the truest, most real way, exactly when it should. Because otherwise, by definition, it would not have. Hockey really does, "lay bare the realities of life in platonic form" as put by one philosopher. We had our season, and then it was over. Just like every season. And just like Life.

I could'a skated better. I had a sweet crossing pass from the Ah-Nye-Hilator that was either tipped--or more likely I just did not catch and fire right in. Give it to me again and it's a highlight reel goal. Maybe. Maybe I felt the strain of back to back games. Maybe I just suck and should quit hockey and find a new passion in life. Even tho I had a sweet end to our season, including the playoffs. Even tho I scored more goals in 6 or so games than the last 15 or so, I'll still remember that crossing pass as the one I didn't at least tie the score up when we really needed it.

But truth be told I will think of that moment that way, but as the inverse as well. Because the memory of failre is what makes success feel so sweet. I relish my own goals so sweetly because I score so few of them. And this is why I do take nothing but positives from this painful loss.

More later.....

-Kai #10 AK Bars

2008-04-03T18:53:00.003-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen. Boys and Girls.

It. Has. Begun.

(I love the whole. ....Grammatical. Rule. Breaking. Thing. Okay, back to the dramatic blog entry)

It. Has. Begun.

Well, I read the Diablos blog and I gotta say, it's hack "journalism". Yeah, you heard me right, I said it. It's quite obvious they lack journalistic impartiality. I mean, they ALWAYS downplay our awesomeness and exaggerate theirs. And Kirk didn't score from the blue line, it was the riight circle! You all can check out the link that should be somewhere below. Let's get back to the facts here.

The fact is they can play a good game of hockey, those Diablos. We managed to tie them, which was frustrating as we held a 2-1 lead for pretty much the whole freaking game. To paraphrase thier blog, a tie is like "kissing your sister."

I'm more of a "glass half FULL guy" myself. It's better than not getting kissed at all. And who knows....maybe your sister is pretty hot. I don't have a sister so that means, well...someone line me up their sister?

The point?? I think we pretty much outplayed them the whole game. Not by a lot. Not a domination nor even anything resembling an overpowering. But I think we had the edge most of the time but I'll give those guys this:

A) Opportunistic with some great shooters.

B) Got two opportunity and took....well....two great shots.

Oh yeah and C) They're fun to play. Really. Hard games, always close, a bit dirty and rough but nothing intentially injurious. We are playing hockey when we play the Diablos. It's really really fun.

It was a back and forth game without a lot given up either way. They scored first on a low shot that came quick that the Tree didn't see. Gotta watch those quick shots---so, so, so deadly.

Fortunately, our own freshly minted All-Star, Davey B took one of his patented knucklesque wrist shots from the point. From what they told me, Jeren "Drop Pass' Anderson, being the heads up, team playing, and molder of young minds that he is, managed to screen the Diablo's keeper at just the right second, and Davey's shot fluttered onto the goal.

Much celebration ensued. We had to as we were under orders from Larry "El Trituradora".

Now to add my wee little moment of glory here. Scultzie (All-Star) took a puck behind our net to the right side, dekes a guy and gets a pass to me on the right boards (skate flush against them--thanks Ah-Nye-Hilator). I manage a backhand SLLOOWWW pass that Krazy Kirk picks up and takes into the enemy zone along the right boards. I recover and start heading to the middle, forming a triangle with the Ah-Nye-Hilator as he's flanking left and angling into the slot. Krazy Kirk lays a great centering pass to him from about the middle of the right circle--a Diablo, or an act of God? The Universe continuing a running joke?--the pass goes into the net. Kirk scores more on passes than anyone else. It's scary. So within less than a minute we are up 2-1.

And 2-1 we stay for most of the game. We had plenty of chances. Drop-pass Anderson gets a dead puck on the Diablo goal line but just, can't, quite, get it.

Shit

The Ah-Nye-Hilator dekes the GOALIE about 15 feet out of their goal (gutsy move that nearly cost them) and has a clear open net and cannot, quite, just, get there for the easy goal.

SHIT SHIT!

We had a lot of opportunities. I had more legit shots than usual myself. But after a scoreless 2nd and about 1/3 of the 3rd, they put one in. And it was pretty. I cannot deny that one. But I gotta say I like my line. The Ah-Nye-Hilator is such a scoring threat all the time, and Kirk likes to buzz all over the place. I just try to do the same and of course use my tremendous intuitive faculties and stupendously high IQ--being that my physical skills are still in development--to contribute to the betterment of my team, you know? It's not about me. It's about my line and my teammates. Really!

We ended the game throwing everything we could at them but to no avail. In pool play in these playoffs there are no overtimes or shootouts. 2-2 tie.

We hung out afterwords with a few of the Diablos to watch the Pirranhas and the Renegades play to get a bit of a scouting impression. My personal impression?

We can take both those guys. The Diablos are better too.

We watched the first period and left with a score of 1-1.

They ended up tying 4-4.

Yep.

Folks....the 2008, AHA D1 pool 2 has all four teams winless after the first round. Therefore they are also lossless (is that a word?). That means the pressure is, as I like to say, been taken Up A Notch. Just like I like it :) We still have a blank slate and two games to go.

It's the coolest frakking thing ever!

BTW, there are plenty of tickets available for this weekend's games, so be sure to e-mail me if you need a few :)

-Kai

2008-03-27T18:50:00.011-05:00

Okay, what to say this time? All right then, lets get right into it.

Doomsday Clock for the Diablos--6 days 0 hours 20 minutes

That's gametime BTW. I want the result of that game to be a foregone conclusion from the Very. First. Faceoff.

Okay....so hockeywise....not so much going on. I am looking foreward to our scrimmage saturday against the Moose. Or I guess their full name is the Big Gay Moose. For all you out there not involved in HockeyWorld, we have here in the great Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota, the quiet little phenomenon of the TCGHA.

Anyone want to take a guess on what that stands for? Anyone? Bueller??

No?

Okay...Its the Twin Cities Gay Hockey Association. How great is that? I mean, first of all, Only in Minnesota for starters. I mean....tolerant and artsy urban core? The undisputed State of Hockey?

"Hey!......You got your apple martini in my 23oz Budweiser!!!"

Actually I don't want to stir up ugly stereotypes, but when I tell people (my brother for one) they usually say "no way!" But the thing is, when you think about it, it's a no-brainer. I mean, if I'm permitted to stereotype a teensy bit; most gay men are not at all the swishy type. But a lot of them are well....pretty freaking fit. Canadian author Dave Bidini--Tropic of Hockey is a MUST read for anyone who likes this game and likes books (in other words--not a crazy person) Well, he describes playing all gay male teams as (if I can recall it right) "facing tough, sculpted, hard bodied men with a legitmate axe to grind. An axe they grounded into my face!" Of course, the AHA (our league) is no check so nothings that rough. Anyway from what I heard, the last time we played these guys (I missed it) was really cool. They actually announced everyone's name's and positions before the game (yep...they brought an announcer. Can you believe that? I think that's awesome)

But the real issue--and why, in a way, makes even this little blog entry feel a bit like paleosociology--is that as far I can see, NOBODY GIVES A CRAP. Show up at Ridder, wear our white uniforms. Play some freaking hockey.

That’s the important thing is this. We're all hockey players. That's what makes that famous scene in Miracle so powerful. You know, the "Bruise on the Leg is a Long Way From The Heart" scene. (Krazy Kirk's fav).

Locker room. Lake Placid. 1980 Olympics:

Herb Brooks: *under breath*......candy ass.....

Rob MacClannahan: What did you call me??

Brooks: You heard me...

Mac: You want me to play on one leg? Is that what you want??

Brooks: I want to be a hockey player!!

Mac: I AM A HOCKEY PLAYER!!!!

Let me tell you all something out there--even if it is, you know, all you guys on the team mostly :)--. Being a hockey player is really really cool thing to be. Admit it or not, it seeps into your identity and pretty soon it's just part of who you are. That's what that scene is all about there. Don't just play the game. Be who you are. And don't you fucking tell me that I'm not who I the fuck am.

BTW, in real life MacClanahan never really forgave Brooks for that insult. All the way to Herb's death. He understood rationally what Herb was trying to do, but was so hurtful that he never got a chance to resolve it 100%.

One of the many costs of reaching greatness I guess.....

Keep the blades sharp out there,

-Kai #10

2008-03-21T18:20:00.002-05:00

Ok..I need comments, so I can track who's reading. Anyway, the weekend is here. Before I forget;

Doomsday Clock for the Diablos--12 days 0 hours 35 minutes.

Okay...we had a pretty good scrimmage vs. a pretty good C2 team, the Blizzard. They were, of course, better than we were, but I thought we actually held our own pretty well. I myself played mediocre, but that's okay, I'd rather work thru a slump when it doesn't count. It looks like I'm up front with The Ah-Nye-Hilator and Krazy Kirk, which should actually be pretty awesome, being that The Ah-Nye-Hilator can score, and Kirk and I can hustle okay and occasionally score when the opportunity presents itself. And we'll be taking short shifts which maximize our energy for forechecks, which can REALLY create opportunites. The formula works great if your lines sub off correctly, and we do have a guy that really seems to like 3 minute shifts. He knows who he is. I wonder when the inevitable anger meltdown happens from our fearless leader, Kapitan "El Trituratoro" Larry. We gotta come at the Diablos like frakking wildmen and then bring it up a notch against the Piranhas (an old foe from last year) and these Renegades (I hear they have a good keeper.

It's a funny thing, hockey. When you're not playing, you want to be, and even when you're playing the game, you're watching it from the bench for more time than you actually play. The cumulative effect is that you are almost always wanting MORE. But like drugs, it never seems quite enough (or so I've heard) I'd wonder if other hockey players would agree, but in a very real way, the way hockey makes you feel, is that it makes you feel like playing more hockey. Maybe that's why outdoor pick-up is so great, because--at least for me--I actually feel hockeyed out. After about 2-3 hours of it!

So anyway, the Blizzard seemed like a bunch of cool guys, and I wish them the best of luck in their playoffs.

Okay...lets try to get back to some game summaries, the last one being the poor Buccaneers. We managed to play them to a tight score of 10-1. I managed a goal and 2 assists. An amazing assist, being that the goal was "scored" by Grant.....who wasn't at the game. Actually, it was scored by the Ah-Nye-Hilator, who had a hat trick. As did Libby. Here's me being happy that I scored 4 times ALL SEASON and what, both those guys have at least two hat trick games.

Uh oh....battery is below critical.....better log before it goes out

more later

-Kai #10

2008-03-16T20:14:00.002-05:00

Ok, so it seems that people actually DO read this thing. I am very touched. This afternoon at our practice I was scolded by the team for ot keeping up with "content". Okay, it was the other 9 guys who showed up and YES...I was late I'm sorry. But it seems that people are reading it and maybe it will lead to future writing fame and fortune, like it did for Diablo Cody. Okay...hockey doesn't have the mass appeal/titilative factor, but hey...I could get Grant to take his shirt off and post a pic if that helps! Actually, Diablo Cody still refuses to attend any AK Bars games so I think I have to call it off with her. As if making movies is SOOOO important. Haha.....

OKay, per request, here is a summary of late of our battles, most importantly the latest disappointment vs. the Diablo's, who are fast becoming the team we most want to beat the crap out of. Here is their summary of our game:

http://diablohockey.blogspot.com/2008/03/diablos-4-ak-bars-2.html

Okay, what they fail to mention, which I admit is of course a pyrrhic victory, being we were unable to secure an actual victory, was Captain Larry El Trituratoro's gutsy call to pull Trey the Tree with a whopping 4:07 left with a 1-4 game. Well, holy gads if we didn't even manage a score in the meantime by scrappy little Nikolai, and they only came close ONCE to getting one in our net the whole time. Where is that in your sports page style blog Diablo's?? It was a meaningless thing and the goal changed nothing of course, but come on! I mean, I don't even try to emulate a journalistic style. I know what team I play for and, being way to self centered to even try to fake it!

Truth be told, we gotta scrap like that a hell of a lot more, as in the rest of the game. Play like the net is empty behind you maybe? The goal of the game came on such a bit of scrappy play. Kirk, playing the role of scrapper in our penalty kill managed to battle into the zone, split two guys at the left circle, and as he goes over the slot puts a gopher killer to the left side when the goalie was sliding right. Nice! I myself was playing forward again with Kirk and none other than our old pal Chad Johnson, who was subbing in being we were a bit short. Sadly, we were without our superstar, Jeren "Drop Pass" Anderson. His C0-Superstar Libby had shot after shot that night, but they have a pretty freaking good goalie. Brett had a rare no-goal evening.

Another dig on the Diablo's blog--They said they put up 36 shots to our 18. The official score sheet showed only 23 to our 18. This jives pretty well with what I recall, it seemed more even than that. So they have an imaginary 13 more shots that I am sure our stoic and stingy defense will beg to differ with. Not that I'm 100% confidant on the accuracy of the scorers (Where's Ms. Boyko when ya need her?), but hey, the official score card is...you know...official. More on THAT topic later....

The rest of the play by play of this game is predictable. We played a good game. Davey got an interference penalty. And I do love playing the Diablo's. And they seem to like playing us too. Before a face off, I mention to the guy across from me,

"I always enjoy playing you guys, good lively games"

"Yep", he says, "We like playing you guys too. Always a good game."

then he continues, " Its good to have a good clean, fun, clean, hard played, clean, exciting clean game"

***some author's embelishment present in previous line to illustrate a point. See also "dramatic license"***

"That's odd", I thought. "They have tons more penalties than WE do. I mean, except for Pavel."

And then the puck dropped and the Super squeaky clean game was back on. I would have fouled that guy somehow--I mean, I'd foul the guy as cleanly and Kum-Bye-Yah as I could, I'm not a monster (or Chris Pronger)--But I didn't get his number. The thing is, the best thing about the Diablo's is they play nice and rough and all that.

And the very best thing? The thing most chock full of awesomnessicity?? The Thing That Is Greater Than Other Things???

The surging Ice Gators beat them yesterday, putting us into 4th place overall (grrrrrrr on that but keep reading), with puts us in to play the Diablo's in the first round of playoffs on April 2nd at 7:15pm.

"Knock....knock......"

"Who's there??...."

"The AK Bars"

"AK Bars who??"

PAYBACK'S a BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**cue explosions and flashing lights, loud orchestral music and slo-mo effects"

And that's just the FIRST round :)

see you soon,

-Kai #10

2008-03-11T18:35:00.002-05:00

End of AHA 2007-2008 season Part One--

Ladies and gents we are nearing the end of the season. Okay, the bloggy thing has been a bit spare but hey...didn't get this blogspot thing going until pretty late. Pretty neat tho. And as Tree Cain says.....

Blog! Blog!! Blog!!!

Good to have a fan :)

Okay, the season is at an end and the last regular game is tomorrow vs the Buccaneers. Apparently, Capitan Larry El Trituradoro wants Schultzie to pick the lines, being the game is now unimportant regarding the playoffs. More on that later. That means--drum roll please--I think he, me and Davey are gonna be a line. The Soccer Line. The Defense Soccer Line! How cool will that be? Poor Dave hasn't played up all season. What if we score like 5 goals....will we stay together for the playoffs? I myself have been up on forward lately and it's been pretty fun. More on THAT later. It's gonna be great....finally put my old soccer theory to the test. As in we've played so many games together over the last 10 years, its gotta help, right? Okay, gotta wrap for now. More coming.....

-Kai

2008-02-20T11:44:00.003-06:00

Oops.....we played the Buzz and not the Bruins last week. We play the Bruins this saturday. Thanks for the pickup Larry!

-Kai #10

2008-02-17T22:33:00.007-06:00

Holy Crap what a fantastic weekend of hockey. We played outside for what may be the last time this year being that they stop flooding and maintaining the rinks after this weekend, which is crazy being that we have a month of cold weather at least. But there you have it. My gods we had a huge snowstorm in what...April last year? And March is always good for a storm or two. I love winter, I really do. But it's like anything else. I mean, I love a good scotch, but even I'd be lying if I did not admit that 3 of them or so are pretty awesome. But say....15 of them? Not so much. Thats kind of the way I feel about the entire month of March; to much of the winter I love so much. I guess that's what drinking is very helpful regarding.

Our AK Bars game was an 8-0 drubbing of the poor Bruins. We outshot them 37-8 and pretty much everyone scored a goal, including me. Actually it was a pretty good shot; hit the keep in the left shoulder and sort of fluttered up and over him and into the goal. I was getting rather irked with a teammate but it really didn't bother me much, figured that he's just denying himself the immense enjoyment of team comradarie by being--shall we say--not costructively critical. I'll give a more play by play account in a later post because, well, I kind of need the byline from the AHA to get the facts straight and they've not yet posted our game yet the bastards. BUT....I have to include this link because it's pretty funny and should make Trevor pissed but it's pretty good read.

http://diablohockey.blogspot.com/2008/01/diablos-4-ak-bars-2.html

Lets just say that it's an interesting--and different--take on our game with them :) And I swear to god to read it before we play them the last game of the season.

What else is going on here in my little world that nobody is going to read about? (It's funny, being that even as I tend to sadly trend in this direction, how breathtakingly self absorbed this "blog" phenomenon is).

I had another one of those fantastic well rounded days. After our skate this am...where I played shitty being that I was SPENT after our game last nite. Discovered a new thing tho. If I have a Chipotle burrito for lunch on game day I've got way more energy. They are about 1200 calories but they must be really bioavailable.(the rice probably) because I felt pretty good. However, I was dying this morning and could barely skate. Must be why the pros get on stationary bikes after games to work out the lactic acid. It was great tho, really, really great.

Then tonite was Book Club Nite. These are pretty new people to me, but I really like them. I facilitated our discussion of the book A Short History of Nearly Everything and even tho half the people read half the book it was still lively discussion-wise. Like I've said in RL a bunch of times (to parahrase) One Cannot Live On Hockey Alone. So this has been great for me so far and I encourage everyone out there to read more and find a group to get together with. Plus...it's nice to be hanging around nice smelling women for a change. The locker room stink has a certain manly authenticity but, well...you know. I'm sure there's a few hockey fans in the book club, maybe I should invite them. Never can have too many fans and I think Madame Boyko and the Ah-Nye-Hilator's gal are getting lonely up there. Schultzie's gal comes sometimes too, but as we keep saying, he's gone way too soft with all this feminine attention, so it's best she probably skip our games :)

Keep hitting the corners!

-Kai #10

2008-02-15T15:48:00.002-06:00

This is a PG-13 blog so I'm not going to say it, but fill in the blanks with your favourite curse words

__________, __________, we lose _____-ing 2-3 against the _______-ing Ice Gators in my favourite _______-ing venue and we're now three (THREE!!!???) _______-ing, ________ games from the stupid ______, ______ Nemesis. _____! _____!!!

**breathe Kai.....breeeeeaathe.........**

Ok we lost a heartbreaker an extend our losing streak to 3 games. I think Libby said it really well actually,

"We had a lot of bounces go our way early in the season and now we're just not getting 'em"

The guy's short on words but not on acuity of observation. The salient point? We've not really been playing that bad. That being said, they are the three games in a row that I was playing forward, and as we all know my tendency towards self absorption...I'm sure that's the difference maker.

Highlights of the game include a beauty of a goal by Jahr on a cross-crease pass from the Drop-Pass Anderson. Dude absolutely buried it. Fact is, those close in "easy" shots are sometimes remarkably hard (Right Larry?? hehe). Let yourself get one little thought trickle into your frontal cortex and BAM you miss the easy goal. Literally everyone has done it. Like a lot. Later in the period Trevor got another close in one as well. How he gets all our scrum goals I cannot figure out. It's a gift really.

But apparently, we have, according to the Ah-Nye-Hilator, decided that we only score goals in the 2nd period. It's really crazy. We had a good game, he, Backhand and I, lot's of battling behind the net, pretty good play, but between us and the rest of the team we only put 12 shots up (as did the Ice Gators). I managed to get a weak hooking penalty. Again, what do I have to do to get an authentically goon-y penalty? I do all sorts of stuff ("Dude....watch the stick ...it's rec league"----yeah whatever.....) but I lift a guy's stick, he gets tangled and falls, I go to the box to feel shame. Either way however, we're in a slump, and it's pissing us all off.

A special thanks to our backup goalie, whom I think was called Susan. Wish we could'a given her a "W" but alas, we did not.

On a happier note, Grant "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!!" Olson has acquired the more appropriately effeminate "Goldilocks" moniker, which is more (but not a lot really) enjoyably insulting to his manhood, which is of course, a selling point in locker room banter as you all may (or maybe don't?) know.

Tomorrow we play the Buzz, and I hope we unleash the same sort of fury on them as we did in the Bucs a few weeks ago. AND we have what may be the last outdoor game on Sunday, as the stop maintaining the rinks in mid February (grrr).

And on a final note, I am now officially Diablo Cody's friend. Or maybe I should say "friend". As in MySpace "friend". Yep....myself and...are you ready?

........9199 other people. As of 33 minutes ago.

YEAH BABY!!!!!

Keep skating hard :)

-Kai #10

2008-02-04T15:14:00.000-06:00

Remember that Movie "Babe"? They had these chapter cuts with the little mice and a title card? Well;

***cut to title card and cue the mice***

"A Terrible Day"

They beat us. The frakking Nemesis beat us. Not "We lost" but "Got Beat". The score was 1-5, which in hockey is quite a shellacking. Truth is we actually played pretty hard for the whole game, but sometimes that simply is not enough. This will put us into third (THIRD!!!???) place 2 points behind the Nemesis but a crucial 2 wins behind them. Those ties are gonna come back to bite us standing-wise. But we still have 6 games to go. Plenty can happen.

I myself played forward this time. Back on the left wing with the Canadians, "Backhand" Boyko and of course, The "Ah-Nye-Hilator". Unfortunatly, the night had an ominous start; the "Ah-Nye-Hilator" had forgotten---of all things---his helmet. Now this sort of thing does happen. I myself forgot my Cup once, which is a rather vital item you might say. Fortunately, Pavel was able to loan me his (extremely, extremely tiny) spare. As luck would have it, I also didn't come down with the clap or anything, knowing Pavel's social life :) Anyway, the Ah-Nye-Hilator took off for home to get his noggin armour, wearing his full kit otherwise, excepting the skates. Glad he didn't get pulled over on the way being that would be an odd thing to explain to a lawman. He got back in time for the second period.

The first period was a real battle. Back and forth we went and nobody could seem to get an advantage. The Nemesis really came to play, and I think they had it for us, especially being we scored the game winner against them last time with less than a minute left on a spectacular shot by Garrett from the left point. This was turning into a very physical game as well, just as I like it really. They would end up with 20 minutes in penalties to our 4, although we couldn't seem to leverage the five-fold difference into any freaking goals.

Just as the period ended, the Ah-Nye-Hilator" arrived and Captain Curtis moved back to the "D". Again, the battle was joined and again we held on. But about 5 minutes in they score off a scrap in front of the Tree (that's Trey "The Tree" Cain--our goalie. He's 6-6 and about 300 lbs BTW). Then less than a minute later, Garrett gets a nice little bounce pass from his point off the wall to me, I manage to get it to the Ah-Nye-Hilator, and he does a splendid little deke from left to right in front of their goalie and puts a nice little backhand right in. We're in this baby!! Sadly, less than 40 seconds later, they respond again and we're down 1-2. I started to get a bad feeling about this. about three minutes later, it got worse. They took a shot from about 4 inches off our redline and somehow it threads the needle and goes in without touching a damn thing. (For those not familiar with hockey, the redline is basicly the goal line extended outside the actual goal. To score from there is almost impossible even without a goalie in the way. It's like throwing a football through a hula hoop---lying on it's side. It was a great shot)So the AK Bars was down 1-3 and we're heading the third.

By this time the game was getting really fiesty. Pavel elbowed a guy in full view of our bench and the guy goes down; no penalty but howls of protest from the other bench resulting in unsportsmanike conduct calls and much bedlam. I myself had a guy clamp is elbow over my right hand and hang on like a drowning man, a clear holding penalty; left uncalled, alas. But even on a 5-3 power play we couldn't score. Things were not going our way at all. On a shift of ours about midway thru, one of their guys comes in down the middle, I was covering Davey's point, and Backhand and the Ah-Nye-Hilator converge on the guy mid-ice. He gets thru and past us, but only just. He's about 2 strides into our slot and I'm trying to maul this guy from his right side. I've got my stick inverted with the blade down and I'm hacking at first is stick, then his legs, and by about his 4th stride I'm actively trying to hook this guy below his knees to get him freaking fall the hell down. Meanwhile Backhand and the Ah-Nye-Hilator are wailing away from the other side but somehow; SOMEHOW...he puts it over the Tree's right shoulder. We battled to the end but they put one more in for good measure. We lost. We're in third place. I wanted to kill something.

But pretty quick I got over that. I try to take things philosophically, and I guess the thing I try to remember is that the fact is everybody loses from time to time. The trick is to not act like a loser. And the thing is, you really do have to lose to realize how amazing and sublime and awesome winning really is. Otherwise, you think that winning is your birthright, something you're owed and deserve, when in fact it is not. Winning, at hockey and in life really, is about a lot more interesting stuff. Stuff like effort, and heart, and comradarie, and ab out a zillion other things that matter so much more. But it's not free, that's for sure.

I'm not being blase about it. I HATE losing and it really really sucks and pisses me off. But I have confidence in myself and probably more importantly--my AK Bars teammates. We've got a tough opponent coming up; the surging Ice Gators. We beat them 6-1 on Opening Night and I think they will be coming at us looking for payback. But we're playing at the Colliseum. I love playing at the Colliseum. And our ever growing fan base (ok; mostly wives and girlfriends that I affectionately refer to as the AK Bars Hottie Corp) look awesome in that huge space! So next week will come soon enough and I think we're gonna be ready to take it back at them.

I'll end this one with this little funny bit. I skated over to the goal after the handshake line to chat with the Tree and just, you know, say the stuff you say at that time and one of the refs was standing there getting ready to move the goal out of the way for the Zamboni. I say to him,

"Man those guys REALLY play DIRTY over there"

and he laughs and goes,

"That's what they were saying about YOU guys"

to which I say with as straight a face as I can muster up,

"Well...I know that we play dirty--or at least I try to, thats the best part! I'm just saying is they are. What WE do doesn't matter to me! I mean what do I have to do to get a penalty from you guys??

We laughed.

See you all soon

-Kai #10 AK Bars

2008-01-31T14:52:00.000-06:00

We had a pretty good practice last nite but HOLY CRAP why do ya have them so late Larry? Serously, we started at 10:45 and I was really sluggish. But it was a good practice, worked a bit on breakouts. Pretty good stuff.

Countdown to the Nemesis game---2 days 5 hours

And I forgot a REALLY important part of the Buccaneers game. Our superstud Brett Libby did have a spectacular hat trick in the 8-1 victory. Way to go Brett!

2008-01-29T13:34:00.000-06:00

Ok, here we go. Gonna be a bit of a grab bag this time so hang on.

First off, any of you guys who were NOT there on sunday ya missed a great time. 37 degrees, ok ice and one sub per side. In other words, sublime. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more fun than an actual hockey game outdoors. The only improvement would be a pair of goalies, but I am so not complaining. The sun was bright, the skating was pretty quick--considering the lack of subs--truly reminds me how I got into this in the first place.

***News Flash***

I have a new celebrity crush (highly rare for me). A one miss Diablo Cody. Now she is a major babe but after that Letterman segment I was like,

"Huh. Wow." (I think Dave felt the same way)

Saw her movie "Juno" and realized that if that script came out of her brain then that is totally the kind of brain this guy likes. The body it it lives in is pretty darn cute too. Anyhow, I bought her memoir and read it in one sitting the same day and I was again;

"Huh. Wow"

You see even though the content was very very very not something i could imagine actually doing, well the writing style and tone was. Maybe I can/could actually write. And it motivated me to restart this thing. Now she has had the meteoric rise of all meteoric rises (odd metaphor tho--meteors fall from the sky, not rise up into it) but she started out blogging very early on. Obviously, her blogspot "The Pussy Ranch", offers a degree of implied lasciviousness that I, alas, cannot match in any way shape or form. But she's got a great written voice, and according to a guy I know who worked with her at City Pages, she's an A-#1 gal. So good for her on her major career upgrade.

Okay, so here's a bit about the Team:

After the heartbreaker of a loss last sunday (I'm gonna try to work backwards and forwards with the game reports) the AK Bars were pissed and unfortunately, were took it out two days later on the Buccanneers. Those guys won the D-2 championship last year and their team must have split into d-1 and c-2 levels. The poor bucs are 1-11 this season so far and we really laid into them last wednesday. Jeren "Drop Pass" Anderson said he wanted to beat the 9-0, unfortunatly, the score was only 8-1, but he's an upbeat guy. I played forward again, had a few chances but didn't score, but it was fun to be out there again with my old linemates from last year, the Ah-Nye-Hilator, and of course "Backhand" Boyko. Even tho the score was high, the game wasn't as memorable as it could be, my personal fav part being my fairly obvious elbow to a bucs chest while we were battling right in front of their bench. Their howls of protest just out another smile on my face as I think about it. I'm really not a goon tempermentally, but it really is starting to grow on me it's so fun.

We have a practice wednesday, and a major major matchup against the Nemesis on Saturday. It really is one that we HAVE to win or we are sliding farther back into 2nd/3rd place. Playoffs or no, I want to win the division.

So get out there folks and play some hockey Or go see "Juno" Or send me a check for $1000 (preferably with Mdm Cody's number in the "notes" section)

later

-Kai

2008-01-25T14:34:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the Blog is back. Short post for now.

The season so far:

AK Bars stands at 8-2-2 with 8 more games too go. Sadly, we are technically down to third place with 18 points to the league leading Nemesis's 20. However, they have played one game more and the next opponent they face is....US! An AK Bars victory will create at least a two way tie, and probably a three way tie, being the formiddable (and enjoyably physical) Diablo's will likely win their 13th game as well. Folks, it's a fantastic season so far and we're gonna be battling to the very end.

More to come

-K