Winter 2006 Goose Droppings

Holy Smokes! Look at the date on the masthead. Somebody’s been ducking the fog. Think of all the holidays and anniversaries we haven’t passed Good Wishes on. Stand back! Here they come! Wright Brothers Day (Dec. 17), Merry Christmas, Boxing Day, Happy New Years, Wrestling Day (only in the Cariboo), Epiphany (?), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 15), Robt. E. Lee Day (January 18), Groundhog Day (Feb. 2), Lincoln’s Birthday (Feb. 12), and St. Valentine’s Day. Oh yeah,… and Susan B. Anthony Day (??) Also it was the Chinese New Year on the 29th of January…apparently it’s the Year of The Doug, so there you go. Pick one (or two) to feel warm and fuzzy about and pass the rest on.

Other Grimy Details After “Practice” Dec. 7 “…a day which will live in infamy…” Rob Rumley made and brought a couple of trays of butter tarts. Very good but Gerry Taylor can’t eat them…says they make him fart.

Dec. 11 “…a day which might live in infamy…” The Annual Over-50 Rugby Hootnanny Ebbtide came over with a full squad of geezers and slid past the Pond Scum (Twit-Evergreens), 2 to 1, Teddy Jung scoring for the Scum, slashing in from the 5 metre line. Nick Oliver also showed up even though he’s not quite 50. Turner said that maybe Nick thought that Over-50 meant “waist size”. The Vintage was out in full force and took on the Odds Bodkins in the second game but by that time most of the coots from the first game were upstairs getting refreshed. I stuck my nose out once into the misty coolness of the porch and watched Dedrick “The Tricky” Watson shred the Vintage defence for a try from his 40 meter line but it was getting cold so I went back in. Nobody came up to me to tell me who won that game or whether the winners of the first game (E-Tide) ever played the winners of the second game (?) and I think we must take it for granted that there was no game to determine 3rd and 4th place. I must really be getting stuck into codgerdom…a lot of these 50 year olds look like mere children.

Speaking of Nick, he relates the following. It seems on a sunny afternoon in central London, Dr. Watson was walking up to 221-b Baker Street just as Sherlock Holmes was putting the last lick of yellow enamel on the front door. “What’s this then, Holmes?”, exclaimed the good doctor. “Why it’s a lemon entry, my dear Watson.”, explained the Great Detective.

Malcolm got the Georgie for most help to the opposition but I don’t know about the coach’s thought processes because Malcolm actually caught a pass without knocking it on and also the opposition did not score so how much help was he to the opposition?

Pantomime December 16 in North Vancouver There was a little old lady in the lobby confiscating carrots of mass destruction. Some of those taproots contravened the Geneva Conventions on, “Size of Debris Allowed To Be Thrown At Pantomimes”. “The Wind In The Willows” went down well with the kids, judging by the racket they made. Maybe next Christmas you should make the effort to attend. Oh no I shouldn’t. Oh yes you should. Oh no I shouldn’t! OH YES YOU SHOULD!!

30 Year Anniversary Dinner What a blast! What was there 105-110 people in attendance? Kevin and a bunch of Evergreens had a table and Duane Stephenson and Dave Valentine came over from the Ebbtide. Flowers on the tables courtesy of Ken and Reiko Matsuo. And what a spread from Chefs London and Grigg. Our first president, Hugh Stroyan, gave a fine speech remembering the founding fathers of the Club and the work that went into the building of the Clubhouse. Hugh also, in closing, urged all of us involved with the Club and Rugby to put lots of time and effort into the Mini-Rugby program. I know lots of the dads who’ve brought their boys and girls out for mini-rugby and stayed to help coach and manage those teams have also stayed around and joined the Twits so it’s turned into a symbiotic relationship for all concerned. Chuck Trainor, another one of our early presidents, had a few merry tales to relate about the early goings on but I don’t know, I thought he got the other cooking crew of George, Wally, Les and Foggy confused with the Trailer Park Boys. What was that all about? Anyway a great schmooze was had by all. Can hardly wait for the 31st Anniversary Dinner!

Book Report Nick relates he just finished reading, “The History of Glue”. Says he couldn’t put it down.

The Semiamhoo Old Boys Rugby Match January 29 How long have these guys been in the league…10 years maybe? And all this time they’ve been sandbagging us. Finally they catch us flat…the day after the 30 Year Anniversary and drop us 2-1. Ohh Nooo! Say it isn’t so! Well it was so. SOBs had a good strong (young) pack and very quick (read: offside) back line and back row. Mike called them a few times for it but they found it worked so well for them that they kept doing it. Later on in the 2nd half the Twits started to mount some pressure and worked the ball down into SOB territory. Truck dug the ball out of a maul, got it to Nick who advanced it and passed it to Duncan who dummied a couple of (offside) anticipators, got the ball to Wade who scored in the corner. That, alas, was the high water mark for the Twits who could not get the equalizer.

Post Operation De-Briefing Coach George is usually quite incisive when it comes to dishing out his Georgie Awards (Most Help to the Opposition) but in Ian Trevor’s case I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention. Ian was playing fullback and maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe, if you’re interested you could ask Ian why he got the award…You know…Just so you don’t make the same mistake he did. On the other hand, it was self evident why David Narod got the Georgie for the visitors. Dave has this predilection for sealing and when he’s attracted Truck or Malcolm’s attention he hangs on to a leg and starts swinging…while he sitting on the ground. Unwise I would have thought. Bunny picked the Truck as SOBs Man of the Match.

Final Observation One “good” thing about this late date of the SOBs first victory over the Twits is that these players are so young they don’t have a vision or sense of the futility their predecessors have had to endure when playing the Twits, consequently the gloating and heckling was no where near as raucous as it could have been had the likes of Craig Angleveldt, Dave Wasylenko, Paul Crane or Terry Checko been in attendance. George Agnew never said but I suspect that he was happy to get this monkey off his back. Also things could be worse…we could have been turned into Leaf fans.

So long for now, Snoop Dougg.