Orange Division

WELCOME TO ANOTHER FUN FILLED SEASON, “ORANGE DIVISION” STYLE

Posted November 30 2009 by Orange Convenor

WELCOME TO ANOTHER FUN FILLED SEASON, "ORANGE DIVISION" STYLE NO LEAD IS SAFE IN OLDTIMERS: I will get to my ( long overdue) BLOG in a moment. But, in case you missed it, or have not heard, I wanted to share what transpired between White/Teal, when they played each other Friday November 20th at Mainway. White was leading 5-3 with a few minutes to go….Teal pulls their goalie, and an ( unknown ) White player has a chance to ice the game with an open net….he misses….Teal, comes back, presses, and scores with 6.4 seconds remaining, making it 5-4. No problem, right?? Wrong! Teal somehow gets the puck right back in the White end and scores with point 2 seconds remaining….Only in Oldtimers! Somehow, it never made the " Hi-Lite of the night" on TSN…. The play which really could have made the TSN highlight package was my own strategic delay to preserve a much needed tie the other night. Wearing the Pink Socks, which I now know for sure are cursed, and thinking that we were leading 4-3, I stood in the corner with the puck for the final 16 seconds much to the dismay of my teammates. Of course I did preserve the tie so I don’t know what they are complaining about.

Now, on to my Blog. First and foremost I do want to apologize for procrastinating for so long and not getting to this sooner. I won’t bore you with excuses, nobody really cares, so I will just get to it, and hopefully this will result in the ending of the verbal jabs ( much deserved), by my fellow Orange Division players ( no names mentioned, Wendall, Don , Buddy, Rob, Adam, etc etc ). I have been criticized previously, for going on and on, so I will "attempt" to keep it short, although there is a lot to mention. I will commence by welcoming the new players to the Orange Division. We had 9 come up from White, who are all very deserving of being here, 1 from Red, and a brand new player, who got somewhat lucky, by registering full time, and was able to hook up right away on a team, due to a few players from last year, that failed to register on time. We did have 6 full time players not join as full time this year ( 2 quit outright and 4 went into the pool), and I’m sure all will agree that the division , yet again, has increased in speed. Also, touch wood, we have had no incidents, regarding chippy play, intent to injure etc. which, is terrific, keep it up, and your sticks down. As mentioned numerous times in the past, we all have our day jobs… For those that do not know me very well, and my goals as convenor, it’s very simple really, to have fun, and to ensure all teams are competitive. Our Division for years has been promoted as very social division , where after the game it’s not uncommon to go to Hectors and finding guys having a pop, that just played against each other . Don’t get me wrong, it is also a very competitive Division, but the majority of players understand that at the end of the season, when it’s all said and done..you are able to play 1 extra game, and win a T-Shirt….The next day, after Championship Sunday, we all forget about the year. ( well, some guys like to hang onto moments and will continue to remind players the following year). I think that I have met or talked to most of the newcomers, but if not, I will. My name is Ken Warren, I wear # 14 on the Blue/Yellow team. I am accompanied by our very efficient pool convenor, Andre Leclerc who also plays on the Blue/Yellow team, and is our goalie, ( and is a big supporter of "back checkers"). My assistant is Mark Anderson, who wears #9, for Red ( usually circling between blue lines, yelling " I’m open" ). I was doing the convenor thing by myself for the past 4 years, and it was decided by the Board last year that convenors should have a 3 year ceiling in that role, so with that in mind, I recruited Mark, who has shown me over the past few years he has the proper mind set to assist me, and will, hopefully, one day jump in and take over for me. Mark has served as a Captain , for 2 years, and an Assistant for 2 years. Now, for the Captains. We have 5 new Captains this year, and to date, have shown exactly what is needed to be a quality Captain in Oldtimers. The most important prerequisite is understanding that we (the Captains, Andre, Mark, and myself), work as a team to ensure the division is kept competitive and enjoyable for all. Our veteran Captain is Glenn Downey ( Red Liners), and our rookies are Mike Downey ( Green Leafs ), Buddy Fugard ( White Bruins), Angelo Sottana ( Teal Ticklers ), David Lenover ( Black Hawks), and Dave Guluche ( Blue/Yellow Buzzards). The true test of the Captains occurred Tuesday Nov 24th, when we all met ( along with 1 assistant from each team), and an attempt to balance out the division. It took almost 2 hours to come up with, what we think, hopefully, the answer in equalizing the teams. For obvious reasons, I prefer to do this just once a year. However, if additional moves need to be made to accomplish our goal of parody, then we will sit down again to accomplish this. This year we have seen our pool player list grow to 37 players, which is huge for the Orange division. Andre has been receiving calls from pool players complaining about the lack of opportunities to play. Andre has a system in place where he attempts to get the same number of games in for all pool players. Obviously, the only time he will be calling a pool player to play is if he receives a request from one of the Captains. It is imperative for the full time players to let your Captain know as early as possible if you are unable to play ( rather than not showing up, or not calling). This will obviously help get the guys in the pool more ice time. After watching/rating some of the new pool players, we have decided to move 7 players out of Orange to the division that we feel is a better fit for that particular player, be it the Red, or White Division. Hopefully, this will help with the ice time issue for pool players. Regarding the " new NHL-like " rules, specifically, penalties for obstruction, interference etc. It is common knowledge that the biggest challenge for the referees at the moment is consistency. Obviously different refs have different opinions on these types of penalties, as most often it comes down to " judgement calls". The refs recognize this, and are doing their best to deal with it, in an attempt at trying to have them all on the same page. They request our patience here, and I’m sure that we can oblige. On the injury front, I would like to wish both Bruce Bishop,( groin/hamstring ) and George Groenewagen ( wrist ), speedy recoveries, as each one of them had to forego playing full time and have dropped into the ( inactive ) pool until they have fully recovered. Lastly…an idea was put forth by David Lenover ( Black Hawk leader), which I believe is a good one ( and supports the " fun/good times in Oldtimers). Usually if a player does not call, or show up for a game, ( family emergencies being the exception), his punishment, until the next player does likewise, would be carrying, and maintain the water bottles. (Recently other infractions have been added, such as forgetting the soft drinks following the game, or skating through the Blue Ice while your team is on the power play). Anyway, Davids idea is that " why should just his team mates know about the infraction? Lets make the whole division aware". With this in mind David sourced a pair of rather hideous looking pink socks that are to be worn by the player who has miscued. A great idea, which will be adopted by all Orange Division teams in the near future. At our meeting on last Tuesday Nov 24th night, each Captain put in their order for a pair of pink socks. An added bonus to these socks is that we can also show our support ( given the color pink ) to Breast Cancer. A picture of the first player donning these stockings ( our ever popular ex-Prez, Frank Mckeown ) was taken by David at Skyway last Sunday, and has been forwarded to the appropriate personnel looking after the BOHC website, and will be posted very shortly….Great Idea David! Any other ideas, such as this are welcome, and I do encourage players to contact their Captain to forward them on to me. Ok guys, that’s all I got for the moment, and I do promise to update this BLOG about every 4-6 weeks to keep you all informed and share my thoughts on how our year is progressing. On behalf of Andre, Mark and myself, we would like to wish you and your families, a safe and happy holiday season, and PLEASE, if you have one too many pops at Hectors, call a cab, or talk to a fellow Orange Division player about getting home, rather than jumping in your car. Ken Warren Orange Division Convenor