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WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

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  • WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

    There's been some discussion of late regarding how things aren't quite the same in Hockey East these days, and how the league's good ol' days have long since passed, back at around the turn of the century (and millennium). Which got me to thinking … and that's always a dangerous proposition now, isn't it? Anyway, I've been kicking around going back to revisit those "good ol' days" through the prism of time since passed, and I came up with something I hope you folks will find entertaining and enjoyable - or at least it will give you a reason to check in while we wait for the 2019/2020 HE season to begin.

    I'm not going to start this up today, but I'm posting this here and now to force myself to stop kicking the can down the road, and to get the show on the road. So, next up …

    Once Upon a Time in Hockey East
    Sworn Enemy of the Perpetually Offended
    Montreal Expos Forever ...

  • #2
    Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

    OMG while we wait for that can you revisit The Godfaddah?? Still one of the best things ever to come out of this site.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

      Should be a fun thread. Chuck's campaign to be next HEA Commish was launched in the Joe Bertagna exit-after-2019/2020-season thread, also worth a read.
      Last edited by Snively65; 08-12-2019, 01:27 AM.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

        Originally posted by Scarlet View Post
        OMG while we wait for that can you revisit The Godfaddah?? Still one of the best things ever to come out of this site.
        Somebody's got to have that somewhere.

        I wonder whether 90% of the people here now have any idea just what on earth we're talking about.
        FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY: 2012 FROZEN FOUR


        God, that was fun...

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

          Gotta change the title. WIS gets me every time.
          Wisconsin Hockey: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 WE WANT MORE!
          ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Come to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
          ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Originally Posted by Wisko McBadgerton:
          "Baggot says Hughes and Rockwood are centering the top two lines...
          Timothy A --> Great hockey mind... Or Greatest hockey mind?!?"

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

            WIS Disclaimer

            What follows here - Once Upon a Time in Hockey East - is a semi-literate work of semi-fiction. Some names, characters, programs/businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the vivid imagination of WIS, and/or used in a borderline fictitious manner. Any vague resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is somewhat coincidental and somewhat imagined, and meant to bring some level of good-natured entertainment to the semi-tolerant USCHO cognoscenti.

            Setting The Scene

            Emerging from the shadows cast in the aftermath of the Great War in the middle of the preceding century, college hockey was a niche sport that stumbled across the deserted plains of the larger American sports scene for decades in relative anonymity, far from the bright lights of Broadway or Montreal. Programs were existing on the fringes of their school's athletics budgets, well behind the larger sports, which were played on grandiose gridirons. Games were played in primitive barns, unheated and dimly lit, sometimes surrounded by chicken wire fencing. Media coverage was sparse, where it existed at all. Players played for the thrill of the competition, and opportunities for advancement in the sport were effectively limited to the goon leagues with teams placed in hardscrabble mill towns where players were kin with the working class folks many of them would soon enough become themselves. Helmets were mandated, as if to further reinforce the players' limited prospects, in sharp contrast to the helmetless gods playing at the top levels. All players were four year players … but only three years would count, and then only after an enforced year-long apprenticeship. Grades mattered, and if you didn't keep up, you'd be off to that goon league destination sooner than planned, and likely to that job in the mills, too. Alcohol and tobacco were staples, both in locker rooms and as training supplements, as if to cope with those harsh realities, present and future. These were commonly known as the Dark Ages of College Hockey.

            But then, something happened, when a group of these young cowboys broke off together to take on the world in what became a watershed moment not only for college hockey, but for international hockey as well. Suddenly, the players who were used to the harsh realities of their anonymous sport were thrust into the limelight, and with it, more attention began to be cast upon college hockey as the incubator for this world-wide "miracle". This newfound attention brought with it the usual growing pains, as old ways clashed with new thinking, and the resulting dynamics and upheaval led to new approaches. Among those was the birth of Hockey East, with 7 teams cleaved out of the stale and stodgy ECAC. At a time in an era where the way sports were viewed was radically being reshaped, as evidenced by a precursor league in a different sport over much of the same footprint, Hockey East offered the long-standing devotees of the sport a new, broader outlook. Its players - now far less anonymous - enjoyed better prospects and more freedom, and took training more seriously. And its coaches - well, some of them became mythical figures.

            Some of these mythic figures did battle amongst each other, as well as against the mere mortals among them, overlapping both sides of the turn of the century. And then, slowly but surely, it all but faded away. But the feats of these mythical men remain alive, as they themselves have faded away. Here at USCHO, those of us fortunate enough to have been there still recall those years of glory, when great battles were fought by mythical figures, for both worthy and not-so-worthy causes.

            That's where we'll pick up next time with the first installment of Once Upon a Time in Hockey East


            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USK1...-fDfEI&index=2
            Sworn Enemy of the Perpetually Offended
            Montreal Expos Forever ...

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Hammer View Post
              Somebody's got to have that somewhere.

              I wonder whether 90% of the people here now have any idea just what on earth we're talking about.
              While looking for that one, could someone please find the "who is Holy Cross" post?

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                Originally posted by Snively65 View Post
                While looking for that one, could someone please find the "who is Holy Cross" post?
                That was written yesterday compared to the WIS stuff.
                FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY: 2012 FROZEN FOUR


                God, that was fun...

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                  Originally posted by Hammer View Post
                  That was written yesterday compared to the WIS stuff.
                  I think I saved Da Godfaddah somewhere, but I doubt it's still accessible on USCHO. I did an offseason re-run about 5 years after the initial run, and I haven't gone back to it since. Doing the re-run took almost as much time as the original, with all the cut and paste from the original source. Had lots of help at the time from former USCHO/UNH poster olddog, who I need to catch up with soon. If I figure out when it first ran (I know, I make it sound like a feature film this way ) maybe there will be a 20th anniversary edition a couple of summers from now, if I make it that long myself?

                  Hoping to get to the first real installment of OUATIHE in the next few days.
                  Sworn Enemy of the Perpetually Offended
                  Montreal Expos Forever ...

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                    I am hoping this thread touches on posters who have since disappeared like Stevef, Bobo, the BU guy who boasted about how much he made...Ritt18? The TBAs. The list goes on and on.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                      Ritt was a BC guy. Well, I’m sure he still is.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                        Originally posted by J.D. View Post
                        I am hoping this thread touches on posters who have since disappeared like Stevef, Bobo, the BU guy who boasted about how much he made...Ritt18? The TBAs. The list goes on and on.
                        darin, too.
                        FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY: 2012 FROZEN FOUR


                        God, that was fun...

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                          Mookie still thinks nesn should have done a reality show “layin’ gravel” starring our favorite hea ref
                          a legend and an out of work bum look a lot alike, daddy.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                            Chapter One - Once Upon a Time … Somewhere Near Effingwoods

                            It was a cold, sunny, early Spring day at the train depot, as the diminutive depot master updated the day's arrivals and departures on the depot's chalkboard (*1), while his loyal assistant Wild E. Cat silently swept the floors and tended to the other chores around the station's inner sanctum. Another day, unlike a countless stream of similar mundane days … but the quiet of the daily routine was interrupted by the arrival of a group of strange-yet-familiar stooges in the various entryways of the depot. The men were silly and boisterous initially, cladded in full length hooded caribou skin parkas. But the seriousness of their mission gradually squelched the festivities, as they turned their attention to the station master, towering over him with their concealed firearms now apparent …

                            BS: Good day gentlemen! What kind of fares you lookin' for today?
                            CM: We're not goin' anywhere, old man. We like it here just fine.
                            NC: Almost a nice as my usual hangout, except without indoor plumbin'.
                            BO: Yeah, really comfy digs here. You hirin', shorty?
                            BS: (annoyed) Real funny, you clowns. Don't you know who I am?
                            NC: I dunno, I give up. Governor Sununu? John Lynch?
                            BO: No, dummy. it's that jockey guy … Willie Shoemaker, right?
                            BS: Ha ha, very funny. Listen up, no one rides for free here, sorry.
                            CM: I said if before, old man. We're not goin' anywhere. We got business right here.
                            BS: No you don't - I'm in charge here! Basic fare is $10 apiece to the end of the line.

                            The station master tried to force three paper tickets into the leader's hands. The leader tore them up slowly, then cast them to the breeze created by the ceiling fan that rotated slowly above the men …

                            CM: We're not buyin' nothin', Willie. Now go shuffle your papers up real nice, OK?
                            BS: (really annoyed) You don't know who you're messin' with. Keep this up, and I'm gonna hafta …
                            CM: We're shaking in our shoes. Listen up, little big man, take a chill pill …

                            With that, the leader motioned to his cohorts, one of whom leaned over to grab the depot master by the collar, while the other swung open the door to the depot's utility closet, where the small old administrator was unceremoniously hurled into a state of temporary captivity. With the de facto hijacking of the depot completed, Wild E. Cat skated off in terror along the frozen brook nearby to seek safety from this newfound looming menace with her beau Gnarlz, who had led a sheltered existence to this point (no worries, readers - this will NOT become the "When Wild E. Cat Met Gnarlz Story" ) in the snowbanks of nearby Greenland.

                            The men fanned out across the station's platform, as they waited for the arrival of an eastbound train and its expected cargo. Fuel for their three parked snowmobiles was purloined from the depot's own supply tanks. When the depot's FAX(*2) machine started to whirr noisily and spit out paper, the leader wandered over to it and quickly ripped its lines out of the wall, silencing the only means of communication to the outside world (and further annoying the imprisoned administrator). Now that things had been secured, all that was left to the men was to wait for the arrival of the eastbound train, and the mysterious cargo they'd been sent to meet …

                            NEXT UP - THE ARRIVAL OF THE TRAIN AND ITS CARGO … AND THE COMPLETION OF CHAPTER ONE

                            -------------------------

                            Footnote *1 - a chalkboard was once used for adaptable communication, but now replaced by whiteboards
                            Footnote *2 - a FAX machine was once a cutting edge communication tool, but is now largely obsolete
                            Sworn Enemy of the Perpetually Offended
                            Montreal Expos Forever ...

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: WIS Productions Presents ... Once Upon a Time in Hockey East

                              ".....along the frozen brook nearby....."

                              In the pre-Snively Arena days of outdoor Batchelder Rink?

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