February 2005 Goose Droppings

Woof! What’s that, Bernie? What’s that, boy? Those SOBs came to Burnaby Lake to try to beat the Twits for the first time ever but they couldn’t, even though they scored the first try and it wasn’t till the 2nd half that Pee Wee was able to scorch them around the end and then Gordie administered the coup de grace with a well-timed interception? Is that what you’re trying to tell me boy? Woof, woof, woof! Oh! Oh! What’s that? There’s more? So you’re saying Grigg and Valancius emulated some obscure Tag Team duo and started physically abusing those white shorted youngsters and are maybe on-track to go into the Twilighter Saga as the first Lady Byng doubles winners in history? Wow, Bernie, that’s some story. Hey, where ya going? Don’t you be sniffing Gerry Taylor’s butt now. Oh no! Oh you poor dog!

Pushing the envelope. I guess we all accept that rugby players are usually on the cutting edge of things humourous and are most assuredly not afraid to flaunt our disregard of things politically correct however I think maybe Malcolm might have come up against the boundary of “good taste”. It seems that Malcolm and good lady Inez and Nick and the Memsahib Tish Oliver decided to attend the recent Tsunami Relief Fund Concert with Sarah MacLachlan, Avril Lavigne and Bare Naked Ladies et al. During a lull in the proceedings, Malcolm thought out loud, “Hmm, I wonder what could we do now?” Nick looks blankly at Malcolm for a minute and then gets that little smirk on his face and says, “Oi’ve got it, Malcolm, mebbe we could get this crayowd doin’ the WIVE!” Well that’s the way Malcolm told it to me.

News from the Executive Suite …mumble, mumble…You’re Fired! No, No, No not that suite.

BCRU Motorcycle Raffle. Some yob from the island won it but the Club picked up $750 for its efforts. Many thanks to all who sold and also to those who bought.

Events

PNW "Season Wind-Up" Tournament: May 6, 7, 8 These dates have been artfully chosen to lure itinerant rugby teams to our spring festival, for a warm-up, prior to the San Diego Golden Oldies. We’ll see if Frodo and the Baron’s plan works. The rest of us can keep ourselves available from Thursday the 5th through the weekend for tent erecting, ticket selling, beer pouring and burger making duties. All we have to do is listen for the siren song of our very own “Pied Piper”, John Adams. Jamie London has been designated CBDO or Chief Beverage Dispensing Officer. Cookie and Fog will burger the masses as per usual and Ken Turner will again turn his attentions to the entertainment side of things, that is to say “entertainment” apart from the sight of old men playing at Rugby.

The Famous Twilighters Reverse Draw - April 2. Hmmm…the day after April Fool’s Day…hmmm. This Club absolutely depends on the Reverse Draw to suppress the amount of your yearly dues and you’ll have to admit that at $125 per annum they are very low indeed. So to keep on indulging yourselves in your favourite pastime and keeping out of your wife’s hair on Sunday afternoon it is expected of everyone On the Club’s directory to sell at least one ticket for the Big Board, even if you have to sell it to yourself. The big prize is $1500 and belongs, as you well know to the last name on the board. But between the time the first name is pulled out of the barrel until that time, excitement shall reign supreme, what with your side bets being made and your syndicates being formed to purchase more tickets and your Texas Hold ‘em games breaking out all over the place. L’equipe de cuisine will be providing the menu and what a menu it will be. A Baron of Beef, steamed clams and oysters, wine on the tables and an open bar. So for a couple with meals and all they can drink and one chance at the $1500 and all the excitement they can handle what’s the price? A mere $100! Where can you find such a deal in Vancouver? – You can’t! So give up and get out there and sell those tickets to everyone you know! You don’t want this great club to collapse due to lack of financial support and you have to go and play for the Evergreens or the Legends or Valley Vintage or Sno-Caps or SOBs or East Side Gentlemen do you? Well do ya, punk?

OK, just to go over those ticket prices one more time. Couple for dinner + 1 chance - $100. Dinner for 1 + 1 chance - $75. Dinner only - $25. Extra chances on the $1500 - - $50 each. GET SELLING AND WE’LL SEE YOU THERE!

Scholarship In the name of Jeremy Jenner is being set up. More information later. Glen Beauchamp has already served notice of intention to donate $300.

Masters Games in Edmonton – July 23 – 29 Book your holidays now and get $185 to Turk or the Baron for you 50 + (yrs), or Milne for the 60 + (yrs) guys, BY MARCH 1ST!

Super Bowl A little poker, a little chili, a coupla beer a pretty good football game, what more could you ask? Jamie’s chili won 1st prize, mine got 2nd and Murk and Garry Henry tied for 3rd. Henry’s apparently was a vegetarian with meat…good…for the colon. Kevin Valancius took the final on the pool and graciously sent a few rounds around on the following Wednesday after practise.

Games

Legends Feb. 13 Beautiful sunny but cool day at Connaught Park. Good thing the Twits got up 3 – 0 by the half because the white-shorted Mermaidmen (including one who should have been in diapers) clawed their way back in the second frame to within 1. They might have got it too if The Dick, Layzelle had’ve been refereeing instead of Alex Biddlecombe. Pee Wee challenged their speedy cover and found them wanting. Mumoi slipped through the inside cover with a nifty combination of guile and hard hitting and forced many, many missed tackles. Murkules rounded out the scoring. The Legends might also have scored again if Frasier had only hung onto the ball on a short penalty at our 7 metre line. Somebody noticed this lapse in concentration and Frasier received the richly deserved “Tit of the Match” from his comrades at the post game de-briefing. Speaking of the post game de-briefing, Legend president Jeremy, selected Mumoi as their Man of the Match. Congrats, Mumoi. A sad note. Gordie “Zoom – Zoom Guy” Sanderson blew an ACL. Not known when Gord will be back but we’ll miss him. The Legends were missing most of their usual gang of suspects; Nigel, Billy Walker, Jim Davidson and Peter the Lock, but they managed to dragoon one of the premier rugby sluts of the PNW, Scottie Dowle and played him at second row! What a waste of a monster talent or conversely how low can one man sink. I don’t know who to blame. People having sparkling games included Tyler, Harvey, Garry, Nick, Turk, Truck, Don Jenner (Ho, Ho, welcome back, Don.) and new standoff/center, from the Trojans, Garry Chiang. Final Twits 3, Legends 2.

Ebbtide Feb. 20 Another brilliant day and a pretty good crew of tourists (21 or 22) went over to the Island to see if we could pull off a win from the Redmen. Noting the absence of Pee Wee, Coach Cook thought that because Turner and Sanderson were on the sidelines the club should be looking for another “friend” for Pee Wee. Sort of like when the trainer puts a goat in with the thoroughbred to keep him calm. The Tide scored first and the Blu Cru battled back and went ahead. Alas we could not stand success and we kept letting them back in. One of the Tide’s tries was scored by one of our old friends, 66 year old Jimmie Armstrong down the wing. I say we let them back in but in reality they really kept our feet to the fire with the pressure. Twit try scorers after much hard work were Frodo, Tyler, Garry Henry and Wade Sandberg, all in the first half and the score ended tied at the half, 4 all. Now was it my imagination or did Dave Valentine call a somewhat biased game? Off-side, over the top, in from the side, hands in the ruck you name it, Dave called it…at a 4 to 1 ratio against us and I don’t think the Tide needed this 16th man’s assist because they had a good squad on the pitch. I guess it got a little easier for Dave to call those penalties in the later going because by that time he had Truck, Gomez and Garry Henry chewing the carpet they were so mad and were really flying around. It was the kind of game that could have used the calm, sober adjudication of Seido, or Dick Layzelle, or Barry Callahan, or Jeff Parnham or even Derwent for that matter. It was a tough game with the Fog, Garry Chiang, Gomez, Truck and Chuck Jung all going down at one time or another. (Chuck with finger problems) Even I got hit in the head with a blunt instrument. (Palmer’s head.)

Seen Turk zipping a beauty delivery out to Garry, Gomez steps in and takes in the face.

Our ball moving up the sideline, Frodo or Tyler hands off to Ollie, who dummies to Harvey looping. Harvey ends up under a pile of red and Ollie moves on down the field much to the amusement of the sidelines. I’ve been urging Ollie to utilize those gold shorts, you know just keep running down the field with the ball in one hand and pointing at the shorts with the other. But will he do it? Only time will tell.

Towards the end of the game, Gomez having a disagreement with his opposite number. Both spent rest of game in sin bin. Possible consideration for Lady Byng.

And Finally...

Post Mortem Signs of a misspent youth. Chuck Jung, Victoria’s pick as Man of the Match also wins the boat race against J.P., Tide scrum half, M.O.M, and tricky little bastard. Final score. 6 – 4 Ugh.

Good bye Moto, Snoopman.