November/December Trip in Review: Of scoreless hockey games, almost getting into a fight and beer

Posted: December 17th, 2008 | Author: Zim | Filed under: Babble, Beer, Hockey, Kegerator Nation | 2 Comments »

Big B and I went to an ECHL hockey game and a soccer game broke out.

Reviewing the recent trip home with picture evidence…

Big B and I make a trip over to the Germain Arena in Fort Myers to watch some minor league hockey…

Beer flowed, a flirtation with disaster came with that and a good time was had by all.

by Mike Zimmer, Mmmmmmbeeeeeeer.

Well, I neglected to properly chronicle my trip back to the states.  Both down to the future worldwide HQ of publishing for this here site and back to my beloved home in the Buckeye state.  Time to fix that one little bit at a time.

My trip back to the United States was supposed to be about business.  The business was to find a job down in the sunshine state and or perhaps back up in Ohio if the conditions allowed and permitted it.  While that was a grand failure, I did have a pretty damn good time.  On top of a business trip, I had to include some good times right?  Well, you’ve already seen that Turkey Bowl IV was part of the adventure back home.  But, what you didn’t see and I failed to post about was all the other entertainment and happenings on the trip.

First, I blame Big B’s TRS-80 computer which has the capacity, speed and ability of a retarded turtle.  He has since seriously upgraded by venturing out on Black Friday to buy a brand new machine that is both speedy and to my liking.  That however was after he and I had jumped into the car and headed over to see some minor league hockey on the 2nd day of my visit back to the states.

The Florida Everblades defeated the Augusta Lynx in a shoot out 1-0 after the game ended scoreless after OT.

All in all a good time was had by all.  Germain Arena, home of the Florida Everblades of the ECHL is a pretty nice venue in my book.  I could see making occasional trips down I-75 to the new-ish arena and the not to distant university shops with all the trimmings.  They’ve done a pretty nice job with the arena and making it a nice enjoyable sporting event.

We first hit the club level and the in-arena sky bar which offered up a nice look out at the ice and I could see being a regular hang out if I were to frequent such things.  We had a few beers before making our way to our seats to join a few of Big B’s friends from work who had taken a pair of extras off his hands.  It seems that minor league hockey and the novelty of my visits to Florida had worn off in the eyes of Big B’s regular guy friends who I’ve played softball with and enjoyed having company with in the past.

The beer was pretty cheap from what I remember.  And that’s the thing, I don’t clearly remember much of the actual game other than to know that it was a bore fest with both teams having to come back the next night and play one another again.  Such contests usually offer a pretty tame bit of entertainment with the fighting and rough stuff coming only after an entire game to ”get to know” the other team.  Sure enough, the Saturday affair offered up a rougher and more action packed game with plenty of fisticuffs.  Oh well, what can you do?

The Everblades out-shot Augusta something awful but couldn’t dent the net resulting in a scoreless draw at the endof regulation.  Mostly though, the beer kind of put a haze on things.  In combination with my horse tranquilizer pain meds for the pinched nerve in my back, I was feeling no pain that evening.

A pair of sessy dudes.  See ladies, beer makes everyone pretty!!!

The actual highlights were the other people in the stands around us.  High class, high brow and or even non-mildy retarded they were not.  We had what we Big B and I supposed as a mother and son in front of us with thick Northeastern accents screaming silly things.  Especially when it came to the Augusta goalie with the familiar name of Brodeur.

Well, Mom and Son Retard (or as they might say, Re-Todd-ded) decided that Marty Brodeur was old enough to have a 24-year old son playing in the equivalent of AA hockey.  They began to scream things like “Yer Daddy ain’t heeya to see you stink!!!”.  Mostly they were unintelligible and we just laughed at them.  Big B and I drank our beer, laughing and hoping not to be drooled on.

Across the isle was another displaced local, obviously from some where in the Northeast.  I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that a good amount of these newly Floridian Northeasterners were formerly Hartford Whalers fans.  They looked pretty comfortable in blue and green mind you.  This other yahoo across from us though was a beauty.  All he yelled all night long was “Presh-ahhhh!  Blades!  Presh-ahhhh!!!”  Or, to you and me, “Pressure, Blades, Pressure.”  Very funny.

But perhaps one of the night’s more interesting features was my penchant for staring a bit too long and being drunk, nearly starting a melee.

Yes, I have a bad habit of people watching.  And, yes, as a man I have the wandering eye in typically checking out women’s backsides.  Well, apparently as we stepped out for what I do believe was our 14th beer of the night I was propped up against a garbage can and had found a target worthy of a good ol’ long look.  Yes, my wife is now rolling her eyes and will later shake her head in disgust over this.

Well, as I stared and Big B spoke to some other guy he kind of knew, I stared squarely at a rather fine and rather small booty.  The curiosity to me wasn’t that the woman was even all that attractive.  Her ass was, but she wasn’t particularly all that.  But, it was an oddity: hanging from her were 4 small children.  She wasn’t all that old either.  And there was no way in my mind that 4-kids had made it past those hips and not effected that ass in a more disastrous way.

The Writer’s re-imagination of said small and fine booty in a much different setting.

Noticing the attention paid to said booty, the occupying booty’s date, a rather large and aged gentleman of about 6’4 and 275lbs. was none too impressed.  He wreaked of Aqua Velva, was dressed about 25-years beyond his age group and none to happy that I was taking my time admiring his date’s ass.  He soon stuck his phone in my face with the camera feature displayed.

“Take a picture!  It lasts longer!”  He shouted as he startled me.  I was in a daze.  Beer and booty make a man hazy you know people.  I think I smirked at him and at about that time Brian motioned for he and I to perhaps find our seats for the final frame of the game.  For the old dude, not too sure about his physical ability and not wanting a drunken red-headed mick to rough him up in front of his “family”, all he could come up with was “take a picture, it lasts longer”.  Who says that anymore?  I’m a lover, not a fighter anyways, so physical violence was avoided both out of this dude’s lack of giddy up and my hazy good mood beer buzz.

The guy that was talking to Big B was the happy couple’s limo driver for the night apparently.  The woman wasn’t the mother of the children either, apparently, we would later find out.  See, I told you!!!  No way 4-kids don’t affect a booty like that!  It was all a good laugh.

Big B and his guests and I after the game made the short trip over to the University Shopping Center where we had intended to go to the Bar Louie there.  Well, a long ass line quickly smacked that idea in the ass and we instead ventured over to the local Steak and Ale for what was a fun time on their awesomely large patio.  More beer flowed.

The evening ended appropriately enough at Big B’s local called Back Streetz.  A live band was kicking it old school 90′s and we screamed drunkenly for ‘Possum Kingdome’ from the one hit wonder’s The Toadies.  The band complied only after we screamed in between about 5-or-6 songs.

Needless to say, a pretty good hangover was awaiting Big B the next morning.  He had trouble throwing beers back over at The Godfather’s while we watched Ohio State beat Illinois.  On the other hand, I cured my hangover with Captain Morgan’s.  Such a good liver!

Ahhhh, good times.  And no violence!  See Big B, I posted about that fine evening out after all.

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