Your typical Chuck-a-Puck. But if a Chuck-a-Puck takes place and no one chucks a puck... (Photo: Flickr user Travis S.)

After weeks of missing live hockey because of my upcoming wedding, I am finally in the midst of a multi-game weekend. Thank goodness, because this multi-game weekend allowed me to see two of the oddest intermission events I’ve witnessed in years of attending hockey games.

Friday night, the Boston University men’s ice hockey team hosted Northeastern University in their last regular season home game. BU beat Northeastern 4-2, which would go miles towards improving their status for the Hockey East playoffs. It was a double mites team game, with both intermissions host to a youth hockey team scrimmage. The teams usually have around five minutes to show their stuff, with the announcer and music timing their scrimmage, before the waiting Zambonis rev their engines and warn them off.

During the second intermission, I was chatting with a friend and not paying attention to the mites. Around me, I vaguely heard the announcement thanking the mites for their time and congratulating them on a scrimmage well done. Briefly after, my fiance nudged me.

“They won’t leave the ice.”

Sure enough, the entire team of mites were still down on one end of the ice, skating as if this was their home rink. The Zamboni was in limbo, resting on the lip of the rink, nearly seesaw-like. The opposite side ice door was open, with the security guard awaiting the mites coming off the ice. And the mites were still playing. On the ice, Rhett the mascot looked mighty perplexed.

It took the announcer getting back on the microphone. “Can our mites team please make their way to the exit?”

The kids still skated around the goal, oblivious. The maintenance man off to drag off the net stood, stagger stepped and with a drill in his hand a few feet away.

Finally, the coach realized that yes, his team actually might have to leave the ice. He zipped the mites off the ice, the Zamboni impatiently inching out during the mad dash.

Saturday, while at the Women’s Hockey East Semifinal game between Boston University and the University of New Hampshire in Providence, the announcer kept announcing a Chuck-a-Puck contest being held during the second intermission. A few of us played around with the idea of actually taking part in it for sheer novelty purposes, but vetoed against it. We’d never win – we’re in our late twenties. Our aim is shot.

The second intermission begins, the BU women up 1-0 (they would eventually win 4-0). The announcer proudly announces that it is time for the Chuck-a-Puck competition. “Get your pucks ready….and fire!”

Nothing is thrown on the ice.

“Time for the Chuck-a-Puck!” he exclaims again, trying to will us all to throw something, anything, on the ice.

A little girl next to the glass starts throwing pucks. With aim unbefitting of her age, she throws her three pucks right near center ice. Two more join from the other side of the rink, not getting anywhere near center.

The announcer eggs us all on, “Last chance to chuck those pucks. Five! Four…”

He pauses, realizing that those five pucks on the ice are all there will be. A rink employee begins to stroll onto the ice to pick all five pucks up.

“Threetwoone,” the announcer rushes through, purely to make things official.

My fiance turns to our group of fans. “Why didn’t I enter Chuck-a-Puck again?”

Photo: tkellyphoto from Flickr

For the fourth Olympics in a row, I intended on blogging the Olympics. I’ve been an Olympic junkie since age two, thus writing about the Olympics for my blog or others seems like a no-brainer. I have Winter Olympic encyclopedias on my bookshelf, and my parents currently hold my collection of taped from TV Olympic coverage VHS tapes.

Athens came and went. I was in grad school and was not able to watch until the last night of gymnastics. Turin, I was in a blogging hiatus, with lack of inspiration and an arena of writer’s block. Beijing, I was on a two week trip for my full-time job.

Vancouver was going to change this. I was going to blog. Maybe not every night, maybe not every event, but I was going to blog. My encyclopedic knowledge of figure skating would be on display. My endless search for blog topics would be over.

I settled onto the couch each night to watch the Vancouver Olympics, computer fired up, notebook next to me. Despite NBC’s lacking coverage, I was memorized as only a lifelong Olympics junkie could be. Turn to MSNBC, there’s hockey. Turn to CNBC, there’s curling. Then all of the skiing aerial events, which are just enough on the edge to be exciting, but don’t feature those hoodlum snowboarders with the long hair and iPods. Then, although the coverage couldn’t touch the hours upon hours I remember from my CBS Olympics childhood, there was the figure skating.

The Olympics are just one of those events where you can’t look away, no matter how magnificently manicured the coverage is, how sweetly sappy the fluff profiles are, or how unethically un-amateur the athletes are. It’s a spectacle of sport, the two weeks every two years where sitcoms that have overstayed their welcome and seventeen versions of the same dramatic series are replaced with hours upon prime-time hours of sports. Weird sports. Popular sports. Unpopular sports. Fallen sports. Growing sports. Sports that only Scandinavian nations play. Sports that Russians rule. Sports that only the US and Canada can compete in. Sports that you have to be under five-foot-three to be successful in. Sports that combine two sports into one. Sports that are just competitive, greased up versions of sledding in Uncle Eddie’s backyard in Ontario.

Writing didn’t happen. I sat, dazed at the television screen, and when the delayed late evening news finally began, I would immediately fall asleep wherever I was. The 7 News logo provoked an a Pavlovian response – when it appeared on screen, my eyes shut without effort and asleep I was. I would wake up in the morning, and realize for yet another night, I didn’t blog. I would resolve that that night would be the night when I finally did.

And through two weeks of the Olympics, that never happened. While I didn’t blog, and thus was a gold medal example of how not to grow or maintain your blog readership, I enjoyed. If you don’t take that time to sit back and enjoy a sporting event every once and a while, without the blogging, Tweeting and analysis, you begin to lose why you even love sports in the first place.

Vancouver, thanks for the refresh.

Despite my past failure, in my Northeastern-Providence personal ad preview, I rhymed quite effectively. My creative writing teachers would be so proud of me…if only they knew what I was talking about college hockey wise (although Mr. Painting would demonstrate his brain full of football knowledge if you egged him on.)

Luke Popko in the 2009 Hockey East Championship Game (InsideHockey.com)

While livetweeting the Beanpot for BU Today last week, I remarked how much I enjoyed watching BU senior forward Luke Popko on the penalty kill. He may be diminutive, but he is one of the most effective penalty killers I have ever seen. He is especially effective when BU is two men down. He also doesn’t shy away from blocking a shot, and stays out there and gets peppered, often barely limping off the ice after taking several shots to his body. He truly plays like a second goalie, just without the extra padding.

During the Beanpot championship game this Monday (which BU lost 4-3), I was watching Popko on the penalty kill for the seemingly millionth time in the past four years when it finally hit me. Popko is a short, extremely effective, and fearless special teamer.

He is, by analogy, the Steve Tasker of the Boston University Terriers.

For those of you who think Tasker was just the sideline reporter for Sunday’s Super Bowl (who had the un-enviable task of interviewing Indianapolis Colts head coach Jim Caldwell post-game), au contraire. Tasker, as much as Doug Flutie, is every short Western New Yorker male’s inspiration for living. (Just ask my 5-6 tall father.) He was a member of the Buffalo Bills for 13 years, playing from 1985-1997.

Tasker is considered by many football journalists, football players and the like to be the greatest special teams player to play football in the modern era. He was tiny – listed as 5-9, but that must have been when he was wearing the Buffaloian uniform of five layers of socks, huge snow boots, and standing on a snow drift – but was fearless, throwing himself at punters and kickers, tackling kick returners twice his size by the ankles, and speeding down the field like a stolen Ferrari at 3am on kick returns.

He got kicked in the head, he got flattened by men double his size, and yet he yearned for more playing time. He rarely got looks at wide receiver (much like Popko is mired on the fourth line), but when he did, he made the most of them. Quarterback Jim Kelly begged head coach Marv Levy to insert him as a receiver because Kelly could count on Tasker’s athleticism to make a difference on the down. You could rely on Tasker to make key special teams plays in every game, much like you can count on Popko to be one of your most consistent penalty killers (considered special teams in hockey) no matter how many of his teammates are hanging out in the penalty box.

Much like Tasker never makes it to Canton (he has made it to the list of semi-finalists several times, but the voting committee is loathe to give a spot to special teamers because they only play a “third of the game”), Popko is never going to be Player of the Week, Player of the Month, or under Hobey Baker consideration.  But heck, you don’t want to be on the penalty kill or kickoff without one of them.

(For those of you who did not grow up with a father who promoted the legend of Steve Tasker at every single meal, here is a good summary from the NFL Network.)

The back of the Gryba Senior Shirt.

This year’s shirt honors BU senior defenseman Eric Gryba – lover of flannel, avid hunter and fisherman, and the tallest defenseman since Tom Morrow (the subject of Jason’s 2006 shirt). Gryba is a fan favorite everytime he checks an opposing player or even thinks about getting in a position to score. The BU student section responds to Gryba much like fourteen year old suburban teenagers react to Nick Jonas – there’s screaming, cheering, and the occassional sobbing.

Gryba is a stand-up defenseman who is very comfortable with his role on defense – he’s not often trying to be fancy with the puck, and he very conscientious of his duties at the blue line. He holds the program’s record for penalty minutes, set during January 2nd’s game, but he’s not necessarily a dirty player. His penalties come from his tendency to play at the boards during defensive situations – he isn’t always laying guys out, elbowing, or aiming for player’s heads. It will be interesting to see what he does after college.

Gryba may not be my favorite BU player ever, but he’s definitely a personality I have enjoyed watching progress through his collegiate hockey career. Thus, I took $15 out of my wedding fund and ordered one of these shirts from Jason.

If you too want to commemorate the personality that is Gryba by purchasing a t-shirt, find “The Hockey Shirt at Boston University” group on Facebook and chat with Jason. The shirt is only $15, which is a deal when it comes to any fan shirts. Orders are due Tuesday, February 9th.

Per usual, I’m all over the Beanpot like wanna-be rock stars up on MySpace. Catch my extensive overview of Beanpot Players to Watch on Beantown Athletic Supporters. Tonight, I’ll be live tweeting for BU Today along with several of my co-workers and students, and you’ll also be able to catch my reports direct from Twitter.

Later this week, I’ll be profiling the Charity Beanpot Challenge, a game featuring Beanpot alumni and supporting the Travis Roy and Mark Bavis Foundations.

Happy Beanpot Monday!

But tonight, they had finally changed them to this year’s captains. Or at least, who we had thought this year’s captains would be:

My screen capture of the official Beanpot website at 11:05pm, Sunday evening.

Did Brian Strait suddenly return from Wilkes-Barre Scranton to BU? Wow, he must have forgave all of those awful things Coach Parker said about him in that USCHO piece from the summer.

Maksim Mayorov (Photo: Syracuse Crunch)

Lindsay Kramer of the Syracuse Post-Standard is one of my daily must-read journalists. He is not only one of the most prolific hockey journalists in the US (he also has a regular NHL.com beat in addition to his newspaper work), but his dedication to covering minor league hockey exceeds that of many of his counterparts on NHL beats.

My favorite part of Kramer’s coverage are his Notebooks of leftover material from Syracuse Crunch games. The following was buried at the bottom of his Friday night Notebook from Syracuse’s 5-4 shootout win over San Antonio:

(Starting Crunch right wing) Maksim Mayorov’s father, Oleg, is still visiting from Moscow, although Maksim has stopped being all warm and fuzzy about it.

“I’m so tired of him already,” Max noted. “You have these problems with parents. I just want to come home, sit on the couch, relax for a couple of seconds. Sometimes he asks me some questions. But that’s OK. I think everyone has those problems.”

Isn’t this quote felt at some point in every teenager’s life?

Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy also featured the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers’ March promotion where their team will be dressed up in special Girl Scout jerseys.

Las Vegas's Girl Scout tribute jersey (Illustration from Puck Daddy.)

Former Girl Scout me would like to point out that that jersey is based off the Junior Girl Scout uniform, which when I was a Scout, came with the option of either the sash or the vest. In true Western New York fashion, I was forced into uniform hand-me-downs, so I wore the 1979 edition – flared paints and too-wide insignia prints! (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Lastly, the ECHL Utah Grizzlies will be celebrating a pair of unique promotions over the coming days. Saturday is “Guns and Hoses” night – a charity game between local police officers and firefighters will take place Saturday afternoon, and during the Grizzlies’ evening game, the team will don special “Guns and Hoses” jerseys (picture not yet available.)  I thought the name of the promotion was quite suspect, until @QuickFacts, one of the sources of hockey knowledge I totally defer to, informed me that many teams have such games annually. You learn something new everyday. I’m still interested in seeing how the Grizzlies will include both police and firefighter imagery in the same jersey.

Monday night, the Grizzlies are hoping down-on-his-luck and recently jail sprung Utah resident Gary Colman will join the team for the ceremonial puck drop. “The organization has reached out to his agent and attorney in an attempt to bring him to the E-Center and is hopeful to have him in attendance Monday for a ceremonial first puck drop,” read a Grizzlies press release on Thursday. Adrian Denny, the team’s Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting added, “Gary has struggled a bit since his move to Utah, but we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce him to Grizzlies hockey.”

Something tells me Gary’s not going to be there…

While watching the New York Rangers take on the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday evening on Versus, my friend Laurel wanted to look up Rangers rookie Michael Del Zotto’s exact age, so I pulled up the Rangers website on the good ol’ MacMini. A Flash overlay popped up immediately across the bottom of the page – one that included Boston University hockey alum Chris Drury doing his best James Bond impression.

The overlay was an advertisement for the Rangers’ Casino Night to benefit Madison Square Garden’s “Garden of Dreams” foundation. The event is February 8th, and it’s for high rollers only – tickets range from $500 to $2000, and attendees must be dressed to impress.

Drury has represented his country in the Olympics, fulfilled every dream of any kid who grew up playing hockey in New England, and now he gets a picture of himself looking like he’s about to order a “shaken but not stirred martini” at a swanky bar splashed across a NHL team’s website. Chris Drury, we salute you. Until Matt Gilroy starts busting Russian spies and jumping from speeding trains, you get the award for being the most Bond of any BU Hobey Baker Winner.