Burnaby Burn

Dec 10th and the Burn play an earlier game against the Saints in Rink 4. GM Geoff Gauthier’s prayers to his dark lord have been answered and there is a full compliment of regulars for this game, 13 skaters + Cory. Truth be told, the Burn have some cash to spend at the Penguin upstairs after the game so the promise of a free Xmas wind-up may be the motivating factor. Players brought kids like never before and Gord’s daughter contributed this inspiring banner.Gord’s daughter will get used to sports related disappointment I hope.

The game was a tight one, no score in the first. Awesome chance by Ohashi (Japanese not Irish, just try to think who would win in a dual between a Ninja and a Leprechaun) but he was denied. Second period brought me a breakaway attempt, but I was gunned down from behind and left without a shot. And I think I know why.

Geoff brought his new helmet to the game tonight and I compared his vs mine. Remembering that I wear a full face shield and he a visor, the difference between the two in weight was huge. I tried it on and even though it was set for Geoff, it was loose on me. Geoff is at least 2 inches taller and gotta be 50 lbs heavier yet it’s me that is pulling a dolphin sized cranium. No wonder that dude caught me from behind, I’m pulling 80 lbs of head weight!  Bobbleheads built in my image will not be embellished at all, I”m a human bobblehead on skates – you would think I would be doing astro-physics instead of wasting time writing hockey reviews.

Pre-game banter was pretty good as talk of ordering a round of nuttybuddy jocks came up. Geoff described the test that was done on Sport Science where the creator takes a 90 mph fastball off the kitangas straight away, unfettered.  Human testing is now necessary since we aren’t allowed to test this stuff on animals anymore. I don’t think it’s feasible anyway because even though the 300 lb guerilla could take a 90 mph fastball, that cup would never fit a human let alone me. All the cool sizing names on the website – Mongo, the Hog, the Boss yet no ‘the Budgee’ for the diminutive players who still like to run with the bulls.

How to choose stars for a game like this?  Our consistent players were on par, but guys like Duncan O’hashi and myself had chances but did not convert. T’chak continues to work himself back into shape and UyouNilla is always exciting, no one breaks out faster. Screw you team, this one is for the kids.

★ Maxine – for her banner ad and cheering support

★★ The Twins – for doling out the bevies, post game

★★★ The Winters Clan – ’cause they were there and got see another consistent performance by their ol’ man.

Nutty Buddy Experiments.
This redneck decides to take pitching machine shots to his cup without zoning in properly. He gets nailed everywhere but the cup at first and then fine tunes it as the speed goes up. See if you can find the spot where Jason says “Science first Man” while wincing in pain.

Game Notes: Blue helment is a dick, #4 I think.  Goalie is not particularly strong, get shots (yes, I see things others don’t).  Do not have a pile of leaves leading to the house from the turkey deep fryer.

J-Lo has been into beers for a while. I don’t mind trying out some new beers myself but wouldn’t say I’m a connoisseur, I just know what I like.  But seeing as our Burn hockey has become uninteresting in our new, higher division, maybe we should put the beer back in beer league hockey.

The devastating loss to another uber-divisional rival had J fishing in his tackle bag of beer.  Out came Steam Donkey Lager by Surgenor.

J is usually pretty quick to reference any of his internet joke/stories or beer findings and did not disappoint as a link to where to find this beer was sitting in my inbox by morning.  This was sent because I like this beer. J was not as enthralled as me (or so it seemed) but he knows my beer profile and sent me home a little more accepting of our hockey inadequacies.

http://www.bcliquorstores.com/product/94706#listing_region_7

Last night the Burn managed to put together a couple of lines and 4 defencemen to take on the Black Legion or as I see them, Satan.

These are the guys that have two players with over 40 penalty minutes and a bunch more in the 20s and the same black legion team that gave us one of the chippiest games I have ever played in, over a year ago. Our game with them back then was close and it was physical to the point where I heaved my 165 lbs at #17 (better known as fishlips) by our goal and actually knocked him over. These are things that I should never do and know better, but getting nailed in the boards repeatedly had affected my better judgement.

The dressing room prior to our game was somber as Geoff gave a brief recount of this game and warned us all that it might get nasty. And it did, but not the way we expected.  I started with Uunullua and J-lo and we gave up 2 goals on our first shift.  Serious derailment to my plans to play in the iron league next year.  This is our second game in this new, higher division and I’ve learned that the fore-checking does not happen with just one guy, they like to put two guys in real tight to force cough-ups. After the score was 3-1 the game relaxed a bit.  It turns out that Satan’s defense kinda sucks and they gave up a bunch of chances that the Burn left unconverted.  From a passing perspective, I think I’m starting to work better with J-lo, we had a couple of give and go’s that garnered a shot or two that had me thinking maybe he did actually live in Edmonton (hawk patooey).

At the end of the night, no penalties were called on either team. This was quite amusing to the refs who clearly knew of the Legion’s reputation, as overhead while walking to the dressing room. Speaking of unhappy endings, my U-Brew beers that I brought had ended their shelf life and pretty much disgusted poor Petes. Apologies to the team (I hope the jugs upstairs made reparations).

There are two game stars for the game tonight:

1. Goats – great breakaway goal, but gets first star for trying two different bottles of crappy beer
2. Gappy – for tea-bagging Goat’s gift pants before Goats could even put them on.

★ Unilla

★★ Witmarsh & Petes

★★★ Cory da Goalie

Last night the Burn won it’s first game in a division higher than they started the season in. The opponents were the E-Bombs that only had a couple of wins in this higher division, yet had enough to not get moved down to our vacated spot.
So why am I writing this?
Even this morning after, with an extra hour on my hands due to daylight savings and a baby that does not tell time, I’m still stoked about the win. Going into this game, the Burn were getting it done with good D and average O. Time spent in the penalty box was way more than necessary which I believe kept our scoring down. This game was different. Our D still sparkled, which was necessary because this E-bombs team came fast and usually forchecked two at time. Pete owned their forcheckers, usually conducting his hockey business in his office which to the layperson is behind our red line. The two penalties we took were match penalties, but we did connect on the power play for the first goal.

Eagles call up Scott Whitmarsh had a great game with two goals and a foiled breakaway. Their lady goalie was not the worst goalie I’ve seen, but she did give up a good number of rebounds that were usually cleared by their larger Defencemen. In fact, I think only one person and the goalie were less than 6ft on this team.
Anyway, we skated hard, played decent hockey and Unilla got his cup broken in the playoff circle. He says he took three upward slashes to his groinular region, but continued on anyway. I gotta give him a first star for that. Petes should share the second star with Whitmarsh, and Cory did a fine job controlling rebounds gets the third. There, I picked 4 stars, screw you convention.

Kid is up, enough cyberbabbling.

Heavy? Yes. Off ice, anyway.

During a game with the Eagles last week, a guy on the opposing team got his stick all up in my grill, breaking my Bauer Straight Cut visor at the attachment points on the right side of the helmet. While I was initially pissed at the errant twig, and was summarily sent off to the hockey shop to remove the jagged lexan from my bucket, I was happy that the visor did its job and that I didn’t lose an eye or have to go to BBYGEN to get repairs.

So, thanks to the Twitter operators at www.thehockeyshop.com, I got the whole catalogue of visors sent to me in a link.

After much deliberation and a discussion about the (lack of) durability of the pro visors, I opted for the Bauer X100. You may have noticed that there is also a Bauer DX100, the only difference – other than $10 – is that DX100 frame is “mirrored” versus the D100 which is “smoked”. Ya, I’ll spend less to not look like a 2007-era Ovechkin.

My previous visor came in a plastic bag with a couple of screws. The X100 comes IN A CARDBOARD BOX. I should have known it was going to be heavy. Anyway, I attached it to my lid without much issue. The attachment points are far sturdier than the 4 bolt-and-spacer attachments from my previous visor. In effect, there is a frame that attaches at the sides and to the front with a total of 8 bolts – 2 each on the side holding the mounting plates to the temples, 1 on each side to attach the frame to the mounting plates, 2 to attach the frame to the front of the helmet. This is literally double the amount of hardware keeping in stuck to my bucket compared with my previous visor.

When I popped the assembled visor and helmet on my head, it was noticeably front heavy. The optics are great. The nose clearance is great. The facial coverage is great. The weight is really bothersome.

I’ll be trying it out on the ice this weekend and I’ll update it from there.

On this, the eve of the 2011/2012 Burnaby Burn season, it is worth remembering how we got to this point. Six years of hard work, soft back-checking, too many penalties, about a gazillion beers, and the best group of men I care to associate myself with keep me coming back for more.

One man in particular is Kenny Anderson. Ken has chosen to retire from the Burn this season, and while I will never fault anyone for making a decision to leave the team, I will miss Ken a lot. From his terrible (sometimes even painful) puns, to his bulgy shin thing, to his physique that puts us all to shame, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and he was a pleasure to have as a member of our team.

There will be a 6′ 4″ hole on defense (and one in my heart) where you once stood (figuratively, in my heart).

Ken, we’ll all miss you. And I personally wish you all the best with whatever life brings you.

Thanks, man.

Goats and the Burn

While sitting in a public house, enjoying a beverage, on the giant screen directly in my line of sight played a Major League Baseball game. The teams competing are irrelevant; however one thing was glaringly obvious. Every player on the field was wearing a similar necklace.

Grabbing my phone and taking to Twitter, I tweeted “what are those necklaces all the MLB players are wearing?” Within seconds I had my answer, complete with links: Phiten.

Established in 1983 in Kyoto, Japan, Phiten was initially a principle of health, healing, wellness and energy in body and mind. It was less about a necklace or a wristband (or the true retail plum of MLB branded merchandise) and more about developing a product that will help the human body reach its maximum potential.

Sound ridiculous? Hold on, it gets better.

It bears mention that I am not a professional athlete. I’m barely an amateur athlete. After years of playing hockey my 34-year-old body has taken a beating; a beating which is not over yet. After a night on the ice I do have occasional recurring pain that I have to deal with in the form of a bad hip from a car accident when I was younger. I’m always open to/skeptical of natural cures to ease my discomfort.

Within a few minutes of that initial tweet, my friend BBM’d me and we discussed getting Phiten necklaces. I’d like to make it clear that my years in journalism and public relations have left me virtually incapable of believing a single word uttered from any source, so I knew that before I decided to spend hard-earned cash on something this potentially ridiculous, I was going to do my due diligence.

I did research. I watched videos. I read testimonials. I read a lot of hype. I found it difficult to come across a bad word about Phiten, but I also found it difficult to find any facts regarding the products, which is pretty much the hallmark of pseudo-science.

I have to do this. I have to test this. According to popular opinion, it’s not going to hurt me (other than in the wallet).

My friend and I looked through the Phiten online catalogue and we made our choices, but my friend ended up getting them while he was in Bellingham (the pricing from the Canadian distributor site is appallingly higher than its American counterpart), but the selection was limited, so we ended up with a matched set of 22” X30 Diamond Pattern Titanium necklaces (shown above).

Let’s talk about the technology. Phiten has three different technologies that it applies to their various products: Aqua-Titanium, Micro Titanium Spheres, and Aqua-Gold. The necklace I got uses the Aqua-Titanium “Phild” process, which, according to Phiten, dissolves titanium in water and then soaks the various materials used to make the various products in that now titanium-rich water. The line from Phiten is that the titanium that is now embedded in the fabric of the necklace emits energy that effectively controls your body’s bioelectric current.

But don’t take my word for it:

I wasn’t convinced the necklace was going to help from the outset, or even that the necklace contains any actual titanium, since on the box it simply says rubber, plastic and nylon and I have to assume that they’ve been diligently soaked in titanium water.

The big question that everyone is asking is “does it work?”

The big answer is “not sure.”

I’ve been wearing the X30 for 2 weeks now and I don’t feel any better. I don’t feel any worse, either. To me, it feels like this is something I need to believe in to make it work, like the bible and dreams, so I will remain skeptical.

If nothing else, it looks pretty cool.

UPDATE

I was at my local apothecary filling a prescription when I noticed she was wearing the same necklace, so I asked her about it and mentioned that I had the same one. She told me she tried the patch for a few hours and felt better, so the necklace was no-brainer. I’d only been wearing mine for a short time, and had not really anything to contribute to the conversation, but we were both of the same mind in that it certainly isn’t making us worse.

Thinking about it when I got home, it was a bit surprising to see a medical professional wearing a junk science bauble. Then again, if your job involves issuing prescription medication to the infirm all day long, you’re probably going to try anything to avoid ending up like the folks you serve.

Welcome to Tops & Bottoms, a retrospective of the Burnaby Burn’s 2011 season. And boy, it was an interesting season.

Since this post is coming in waves due to time constraints (Baby Goats and Hijacks summer hockey), I’ll kick it off with a recap of the regular season stats, including the exceptional amount of penalty minutes! Other notable notes of note include the amazing ability of our team to play for the tie an astonishing 8 times this past season, win 3 of those overtime games, and not lose a single game in overtime!

Unceremoniously, with the top 3 in each category, here we go…

Regular Season Games Played:

1. Goats – 28 (12 in net, 16 as a skater, not a single game missed)

2. Kevin U. – 27 (one game missed, probably having an extra “u” added to his surname)

3. Stace – 25 (impressive, considering he gave birth to his child this season)

Regular Season Goals:

1. Kevin U. – 8

2. Stace – 8

3. Gordie – 7

Mox, and Ohashi are up there, but subs get no love!

Regular Season Assists:

1. Tanchak – 9

2. Kevin U. – 8

3. Gord – 7

Regular Season Total Points:

1. Kevin U. – 16 (<sarcasm> shocking! no one saw that coming! </sarcasm>)

2. Tanchak – 15 (see, assists are as good if not better than goals)

3. Gordie – 14 (oh, look who had a pair of 7′s in the G and A columns)

Regular Season PIM, a.k.a. the shame stats:

1. Goats – 26 (um, ya… he only played 16 games as a player, so we’ll call this “economy of infractions”)

2. Jay – 22 (all of these were accrued in the last two minutes of every game!)

3. Tanchak/Fitzy – 20 (well, well, well… Fitzy was all worried that he was going to be the star in this column).

Regular Season Game Winning Goals:

1. Stace – 3

Seriously, a bunch of other guys got 1 each, but 3? That’s telling. Stace is the clutch, especially when he scores 9 seconds in to the game.

Goalie GAA and Save%:

Goats – 2.72 – 0.886

Cory – 2.77 – 0.886

Goats and Cory have remarkably similar numbers, only Cory’s stats are spread over 4 more games, so basically Goats sucks, mostly because Cory stopped 90 more pucks than Goats in said 4 games!

Subs:

Honourable mentions to our subs Mox, Ohashi, and Timmy P., Bobby, and Sean for racking up a combined 39 of 165 total regular season points this year points this season.