btsh.org

By Glnzr

If you google “Most Successful BTSH Career Ever” undoubtedly, a picture of our last 2021 BTSH HOFer will appear. 

Ugh, it’s some douchebag named Nathan Hodel who used to play for the Arizona Cardinals. 

Anyways, the person I was referring to is none other than Ariel. 

The point is I’m not sure anyone has had a better BTSH career than Ariel. He has tied for the most championships with 4. He has the only OT goal in BTSH Championship history and this is officially the 3rd best picture in BTSH history. 

I’m so sorry Julie.

Ariel started his career with Bad Touch in 2008. After two games, he said deuces to Devlin and Alex and joined Fresh Kills (For the record Jess, saying deuces was in, in 2008). Ariel is known for being one of the smartest players on the court and certainly this decision proves his off-court smarts are on point as well. Fresh Kills won the championship over the Hookers 3-2, in one of the biggest upsets ever. The 2008 FK have the most HOFers of all time with Soko, Dave GDR, Amy, Bob and now Ariel. 

While Ariel loves playing for stacked Fresh Kills, he also enjoys playing for the underdogs. In 2014 he joined the all female team Dependable Scrap. And a week after scoring the OT championship goal for FK, he led the all girl team to a championship by unbelievably scoring another OT championship goal, after a great save by Jamie, a smart dump in by Schuey and a great pass by Jeff.  

In 2017 he won his first of two World Championships in Ocean City with Cecil Harambe.

So with tied for the most championships ever won…the only OT goal in Championship Game history and honestly, one of the best teammates you can ever ask for, congrats Ariel. This was long overdue. 

by Glnzr

2008 was a magical season for BTSH. It’s when the Modern Era began (2008-2015) and The Previous Era Before the Modern Era ended. But perhaps most importantly, it’s when Diane J. (and the Happy Little Elves) joined the league.

After losing to the Elves in Game 1 (I swear this will be the last Elves reference, though there’s still one more picture that has the Elves in it), the Tuque’s captains decided they needed a ringer, and called Diane. Diane stayed with the Tuques for a few years, but as with many BTSHers, Diane felt the pull of Poaching Season and shopped for a new team in 2012. For some reason she had a Mexican Standoff Jersey, and the prospect of playing with Ellery proved too alluring to pass up, so she joined Gut Rot (who had previously been Mexican Standoff)

In one of her first games for Gut Rot, they played Math and Diane paid the ultimate price. Zach N. had literally his only good game of his career, scoring four goals against Gut Rot. Diane immediately called Gabe and said there will be no second date, and started dating Zach instead. It was a mistake that she will dearly pay for the rest of her life. 

In 2016 Diane joined the BTSH admin by becoming Ref Manager/Scheduler. It was a rough season as much of the old guard left or were leaving, and a new admin was in place. The league needed a new yet trusted face guiding the way and Diane filled that role admirably. She took her role very seriously and really helped guide the league to a place where most of the league wanted it to go (A fun but safe place to chase an orange ball around). 
 

But it was 2019 where for me, I noticed Diane prosper both as a player and captain. First off, as a captain dealing with Becca should make you automatically in the HOF. But in truth, I remember reffing a Gut Rot/Riot game and there were some players new to hockey. It’s kinda a you had to be there moment but Diane was not only able to teach them where to be, but also play really solid on D. I remember thinking being a captain has made her step up her game. Which is why it’s no surprise that one of her two proudest moments in BTSH is seeing new players on Gut Rot prosper (obviously no one can prosper playing on a team called Rotten Math).  “Seeing Rotters that had never played hockey before score their first goals and flourish in BTSH! It’s always so exciting and makes me feel like a proud parent.” 
   

Before we go, let’s also celebrate some little known facts about Diane.

• She is good not great at Words with Friends
• Practices Tae-Bo with Billy Blanks on her VCR every morning before her morning oatmeal. 
• Teamed with Rachel Greene to help run the Rose Charity Tournament for many years. 
• Let Rachel go on stacked Rose Charity teams where she went on to win every season, and Diane languished in last place because her best player was Zach. #Yikes
• Her other proudest moment is winning some game against some team but I forgot what game and other team it was.  I don’t want to talk about it.  

• While most women in their 30s focus on career and bettering their lives, Diane quit her job so she can concentrate on not having the absolute worst name in BTSH history next season. 
• (This is actually true) She starred in Chadwick and Walker’s short movie with Zach as parents to Rob Walsh’s daughters and Boylan playing a mermaid. They ended up eating Boylan for dinner. I would say it was BTSH’s first snuff video but I’m sure that’s not true. 

by Glnzr

No one in BTSH history has had a day like Eric Ramirez did on September 27, 2015. We’ll get to that. 

Prior to that day, Eric had a fine career. He made his BTSH debut with the Mighty Squirrels as a “skater” in 2009. He was so awful, the Squirrels decided they couldn’t take watching him play one more second so they disbanded.*  Rachel Greene is no dummy so she made a team called the Butchers and made Eric the goalie. The payoff was immediate as incredibly, they made the semi-finals in back to back seasons (and they were not a ringer team). The Happy Little Elves won the championship in 2010. 

Eric eventually started dating Ashley and they moved to a studio apartment named Gut Rot on 2014. As we all know…if Gut Rot doesn’t play Fuzz, they generally don’t win. But with Eric in net, that wasn’t always the case. Which brings us to September 26, 2015. Zach and Diane had a party in Brooklyn. While the Mets were busy winning the division that day, Eric was plotting his heel turn.

Eric was living in Dover Delaware and wanted to go to the NASCAR race down there during the play-in games. So he desperately wanted the buy but since he played for Gut Rot that was highly unlikely. However there was one scenario where it could play out. Gut Rot needed to get one more point than the Hookers…but the Hookers had two games. He told the party, “I really wish I could play against them.” Someone at the party said the Demons were looking for a goalie. Emails were made, and step 1 was accomplished. Sunday morning Eric woke up to a miracle. Fresh Kills also needed a goalie and Soko asked Eric if he could do it. “He sent it at 9:30 saying he had no goalie for the 11:30 a.m. game vs. the Hookers. I literally said “yes” got my gear together and left in about 5 minutes. The stage was set, Eric was going to play 2 games vs. the Hookers, and play his regular scheduled Gut Rot game vs. Mega. 

I reffed the shortened Hookers/FK game (It was 20-minute halves) and couldn’t believe what I saw. With the game 1-0 FK late, FK called a timeout and despite them being 3-time champions, Eric in his only game with the team was telling them how to play. I noticed all eyes on him and was incredibly impressed. It was that moment I realized what a leader this guy was. He completed the shutout and then ruined the Hookers day with a 4-1 win vs. the Demons. Now all he had to do was get a point vs. Mega.

This wasn’t today’s Mega…but the task was still incredibly difficult, as Gut Rot didn’t score. Thankfully for the heel turn, neither did Mega and Eric shut them out. The game went into a shootout where Gut Rot won in the 8th round. In 3 games Eric gave up 1 goal. A more impressive day has not happened in BTSH. Eric happily saw like 10,000 left turns during the play-in games.

The Rehabs took notice of Eric’s play and he went on to win the championship in his very first season. 

The next year they tried to become the first team to repeat but Fresh Kills beat them 5-4 in one of the most incredible games of all time. 

So congrats Eric…who knows what the future holds as his job may take him away from us, but despite your sudden yet very calculated heel turn, you’re one of the best guys in BTSH. 

*I’m assuming this part as it’s the only logical explanation

by Glnzr

Sarah Herr. The Herr sisters burst on the scene just a few years ago so Sarah’s induction is noteworthy. No one outside of some of the early entries played in so few seasons…and one of those seasons she barely played because of Herr bionic leg. In order to get past this, we’ve given Herr Cheeky’s years of service, so Cheeky now has zero service time, but is eligible for the 2022 female ROY. (I mean everyone is basically eligible since Jess/Matt often give the female ROY award to league vets)

But I digress. There are fewer people more deserving than Sarah. With the worldwide pandemic started by someone in BTSH (https://btsh.org/media/karma-conspiracy-circle-who-did-the-rona) it’s only right one of us ended it…or at least curtailed it enough so we can play hockey. Hicks once said, “None of you know how much Sarah did to keep this league afloat. Hold on, I have to do my pre-workout, and take a dabbing vid and send to Derk.”

In all seriousness, in February she told Hicks, “We need to bring this back.” She took initiative to email captains, set up meetings, etc – she sent all of the weekly emails for 3 seasons. The only time it wasn’t sent was when she was out of town and trusted Hicks to send and of course he didn’t. Sarah did a ton of other work around printing scoresheets, ordering supplies, monitoring the bins for what we needed etc. The only things she couldn’t do were write a schedule and bench press 225 pounds, but that’s why she married below her market value, bc Hicks can do both.

So congrats Sarah and thank you for all you did to keep this league alive. As the cops say, “Your tour is done. Pawn it off to Russ or some other schmuck now.”

Glanzer is doing HOF write ups so you are all getting robbed of his style of stars, if that’s something you’re into.

There are really so many players who could be named today from all of the teams who competed but here we go.

Third Star: Ryann and Sienna

Thank god Rich isn’t doing these because he’d never give a star to a woman, let alone 2 but Ryann and Sienna each scored the game winners in their hard fought semi-final games.

Second Star: Russ and Malik

Both these guys scored amazing tip-in goals. Russ struck first and put the crowd in a frenzy but Malik’s goal arguably cemented in the win for Fuzz.

First Star: Tim Brown

Tim played out of his mind in the Fuzz v Lbs game for a shut out. Fuzz could have easily lost this game if it wasn’t for him preventing the Lbs from gaining any momentum and of course held the constantly attacking Dojo at bay.

Honorable Mentions

Hogg- for laying down the law on Rich during the finals

Hilary- For those who didn’t see the game, Hilary played amazing. Multiple plays she put her body on the line and had great step ups to the ball, solidifying the Lbs already stellar defense.

Campbell, Zisser, Friedman- these goalies are all worth their weight in gold to their teams and they certainly proved that on Sunday keeping all the games incredibly close

Liam, Tom, Will, LJ- these 4 were constantly in the mix, making defensive plays or generating offensive chances

Walsh- The most beloved old schooler on Fuzz (obligatory: suck it, Glanzer), Walsh had 3 assists on the day. It’s funny that he works an incredibly high pressure job and yet was more nervous for these playoff games. Hats off to Walsh.

And of course, everyone who stayed or showed up to make the awards fun and bring the BTSH spirit we all love

Rich is gonna hate how I ended stars. See you next year!