Well, hello there! Please allow me to introduce myself, as I don’t think we’ve met.I’m Magic’s Johnson, one of the proprietors and ringmasters of the circus known as Chairman How’s Glorious Army, your best source of all things Syracuse Crunch. Knowing of WAC’s, er, “fondness” for this Tokarski character, I volunteered to liveblog the Ads-Rats game this evening. Given that both teams are in the Crunch’s division this year, it kind of made sense to bring us together on this one. SYNERGY!
Now, if you have some kind of expectation about this whole deal, and you’ve never visited us at The Chairman’s, this is how we handle these things: barring any kind of major event during play, we’ll be updating this thing once per period. I should probably ruin WAC’s night now and let you all know that Tokarski is, like me, watching this game off the ice tonight. Sorry, friends. In the meantime, here are some video clips from last season’s Crunch-Rats tilts for you to enjoy:
And with that, we’ll be back at the horn!
(Update)
Well, after a pretty uninspiring first period, Norfolk leads 1-0 on a Brandon Bochenski goal from Ryan Craig and Radek Smolenak at 12:42. As noted above, Tokarski is riding the pine for this one. That’s really the biggest news to come out of the first period, given that other than Bochenski’s goal, a Bryan Rodney penalty for playing with a broken stick (haven’t we all, Bryan…haven’t we all…) was the only other mark on the scoresheet for the period.
I’d like to tell you that this game has been some kind of end to end exciting battle, but there’s really not a lot going on. I don’t know how they do things in the W, but weeknight AHL games give the feeling that nobody wants to be there, and the officials call the game like they’re double parked outside. With that in mind, I guess I can tell you all the story of how Ralph Macchio called me an asshole last weekend.
Each season, the Crunch bring in some F-list celebrity for the home opener. This list of luminaries includes Big Pussy of Sopranos fame, some seventh-place finisher from American Idol (who actually was booed out of the building while singing the national anthem) one of the suitcase broads from Deal or No Deal, and, several years ago, a dwarf. No, really. He was one of the few surviving Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.
Anyway, this year’s addition to the list was The Karate Kid himself. As usual, Ralph came out for the ceremonial drop, waved to the crowd, and was then available for signing autographs during the first period and first intermission. My buddy Dave, who has been my season-ticket neighbor for quite a few years, put together a glorious Photoshop job that ended up looking like Pat Morita fucking Ralph in the ass, and wanted to get it signed. My job was to photograph the event for posterity.
We headed down to get it signed, both of us wondering how he’d react to such a picture. Would he have a sense of humor? Would he be a prick? Would he even notice? We were brimming with questions. Imagine our shock when the line for autographs and photos was about twenty five minutes long. We’d come too far to back out, so we waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, Dave was next, and he handed the tainted photo to Ralph. The Karate Kid responded with a look that, in order, morphed from shock into disgust, fright and shaky acceptance. He managed a forced smile as he signed it and I took the picture, and I thought we were done. However, he looked at me and asked a simple question:
“You want an autograph?”
I should have let it go, but I’m pretty much an asshole, so the following conversation ensued:
“Nah, I’m good. You were awesome in Happy Days, though.”
“I’m not Scott Baio, I’m Ralph Macchio.”
“Whatever, Chachi, keep the line moving. Can I smell your finger, Scott?”
“Fuckin’ asshole…”
Second period is on, back soon.
(Update)
Well, the second period saw a little more action. Former Crunch fan favorite Steve Goertzen put the Rats on the board at 7:18 from Bryan Rodney and Brandon Sutter, while Stefan Chaput made it 2-1 in favor of the home team, courtesy of Jonathan Paiement and Johnny Boychuk at 12:53. On the physical side of the ledger, we had a scrap between Nick Blanchard and Matt Lashoff at 17:30. Blanchard racked up fives for fighting and boarding in the process, while Lashoff checked in with five for fighting, a deuce for instigating and a ten minute misconduct. Somewhere, Jon Mirasty smiles.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got. So here, let’s have another Mirasty clip. In this one, you’ve got two WHL boys going at it: Mirasty (Prince Albert, Tri-City and Moose Jaw) making a fool out of Riley Emmerson (Tri-City). This one’s courtesy of MJ’s own camera:
Back for one last kick at the can after the third.
(Update)
Alright, it’s over. An empty net goal from Jerome Sanson cements a Rats win. Your final is 3-1. Former Chief Drayson Bowman’s stat line for the night — no points on three shots, and a -1 on the evening. I’d tell you more, but:
- There’s not much else to tell, and
- I’m getting drunk at the moment.
Instead, let’s just call it a night. I wish I could have been more entertaining, but I really wasn’t given a whole lot to work with. Instead, take this as a peace offering.
Er, that’s it. Goodnight!
