In Sunday’s main event, Spiders prevail

Nov. 14, 2010

Spiders out-skate, out-shoot and out-score the Muskies 3-2 to extend winning streak

As I reviewed the game film from Sunday night, it brought me back to yesteryear. Sunday mornings covering Verne Gagne, The Crusher and Mad Dog Vachon on All-Star Wrestling...“Mean Gene” Okerlund reporting. Saint Louis Park arena more closely resembled a wrestling ring than hockey rink as for one night the AHA sadly became the AWA.

“This actually is not surprising to me,” Okerlund commented, “The Muskies team is named after Tommy ‘husky musky’ Muskalowski...factory worker by day, AWA stooge by night.”

It didn’t take long for the Muskies to realize that they could not compete with the speed & finesse game employed by the Spiders. As a result, their objective was to knock the Spiders off their game-plan by any means necessary...even a foreign object or two.

Spider player/coach Dave Schliesman knew the Muskies may bring an Old-Time Hockey strategy, thus he countered by suiting up Spider enforcer Jack ‘the hammer’ Delsing [a healthy scratch through the 1st two games]. The move proved to be a stroke of genius as it was ‘the hammer’ who opened the scoring on a blast from the point. The line with the Killer B’s (Butalla & Bedessem) notched the second goal as they fed Hilden for the easy tip-in. The Spider steam-train continued to build momentum as ‘The Black & Blue Express’ line tallied it’s first of the season: Bortnem slammed home a crisp pass from Gus.

After being out-shot 24-11 and down 3-0 through 2 periods of play, it was time for the Muskie goon show.

It was an almost surreal moment as before the ref dropped the puck to start the third period, a microphone came streaming down from the ceiling and our tuxedo-clad scorekeeper walked to center ice and yelled to the cheering fans: “It’s time to drop the puck...Let’s get ready to Rumble!” I even think I heard a bell ring as the puck fell from the officials hands.

The physical play did seem to be an effective strategy as despite sending a number of players off for Roughing calls (Kenny ‘sod-buster’ Jay #9, Jake ‘milkman’ Miliman #18, Bobby ‘the weasel’ Heenan and even Muskie new-comer Carl Racki #60...recently acquired from the Thunder Bay Bombers) the Muskies mustered a couple goals to close the gap to 3-2.

The Spiders, however, carry a little muscle of their own. Spider #24 (1st cousin to former AWA great Baron Von Rochke) had seen enough when his German tenacity overtook him sending a helpless Muskie defenseman crashing into the turn-buckle. With all the physicality, Spider enforcer Jack Delsing was beginning to salivate...“It was like Pavlov’s dogs on the bench..hammer was foaming at the mouth.” He did take his traditional 2 for roughing but in the end, stellar D and solid goal-tending were able to stave off the Muskie rally. In the end...your division champion Spiders prevail.

During the post-game press conference Spider forward Brad ‘the body’ Butalla (sporting a pink feather boa and the division championship belt around his waist, a mug of beer in one-hand and a cigar in the other) could be heard yelling to the Muskie fan-base “You wanna touch the belt? You can’t touch the belt!”

We’ll see you next week on All-Star Wrestling. Mean Gene signing off.