btsh.org

Did you know that we don’t have games this Sunday?  Well, here’s someone you might not know, Tia Lendo, this week’s feature of Know Your Neighbor!

Tia enjoys long walks in Central Park

Hometown:  Philadelphia

College:   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  I really love UNC and the Tar Heels.

One of Tia’s annual Halloween Tar Heels pumpkins

This is my annual UNC Halloween pumpkin.

Profession:  I work on the Google for Education team. We try to get educators and school districts to use technology well to improve teaching & learning. I used to be a teacher and have had a lot of different roles in education, but this one has crazy scale, which I love.

Favorite BTSH team other than the Riots:  The Dark Rainbows #Obvi.

Random BTSH Fun Fact: At her very first BTSH game (2013 with Cobra Kai) her nose was broken by a ball someone shot.  She still doesn’t know who it was. Luckily, 6 days later, she went to DC and saw her friend who is an ear, nose and throat plastic surgeon. They had a few drinks, she asked him to look at her nose, and then suddenly, without warning, he popped it back into place.  Talk about dinner and drinks.  Later, she had an X-ray and the doctor told her her friend did a perfect job.

Favorite memory this year at Ocean City:  My favorite memory was watching Coach run into the ocean around 4am Saturday night. He tried to run in gracefully, as a sort of rallying point for all of us on the beach. The problem was he forgot about the 4 foot vertical drop. He fell, but bounced back up almost immediately- kind of like Chevy Chase in Vacation–still smiling. Amazing. He deserved the trophy he got.

Coach took home Michaliga’s inaugural OC Spirit Cup, named after WTP face, you know who, who will not be named

Favorite NHL team:  Flyers

Is that Josh Wilson?! No wonder why you like the Flyers so much you Rainbow loving fool!!!

What celebrity stole your identity: 

I have been told that Toni Collete is my celebrity doppelganger. And she did do a good Philadelphia accent in The Sixth Sense. So I’d say her.

I believe your true doppelganger is BTSH fan favorite, Caroline Webster! For the longest time, I thought Caroline was just everywhere, until I learned of Webster doppelganger, Tia Lendo!

Nobody likes this question, but it’s the best one.  If Sigmund Freud analyzed your game play, what would he conclude: 

I think he’d say that I play best when I’m a bit angry. He’d probably say this means I have some deep-seated issues. But then I’d take him to Ace Bar for a beer and he’d realize I am a nice person and take it all back.

What makes the Rainbows so dark:  We wear pink, but we’ll rip your face off if we have to.

Incorrect dramatization: it appears Olivier is ripping off Rainbow faces #FrenchieFaceRipper

If Noah cruised to Tompkins, what two BTSHers would you put on his Arc (excluding yourself): 

First I’d send John Walker on the ark, so we could all get some more playing time during Thursday scrimmages. I’d also put Tompkins the hawk on. Whenever he flies during our games we lose so I need to get rid of him. Look how mean he is:

Favorite NYC bar:  I like any bar that is outdoors.

Mets or Yankees:  Ewwww. Gross. Phillies.

Tia and the Phillie Phanatic, demonstrating early indoctrination to Philadelphia fandom.

Current Aspirations:  In addition to mastering the electric kazoo so that Lime Walker can work some ELO into our set list, I’m also trying to get better at comedy. I am on a few improv teams and doing some comedy and writing courses. My dream job would be to write for Inside Amy Schumer.

Improving the death of Rich Glanzer–one of the best comedies to hit Broadway this year!

If you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life, what would it be:  Ghostbusters. I discovered their firehouse the other night when I was out downtown and I got really excited.

Would you ever have married Freddie Norblatt, given the chance:  I don’t know who that is, and I am writing this on a plane so I can’t Google it right now.

What the BTSH media will begin to overhype you about:  I feel like I am already over-exposed after earning a star for my kazooing.

If you found one of your teammates at the end of a Dark Rainbow, who would it be and what would he/she be doing:  I think that at the end of the Dark Rainbow you’d find all the former Rainbows who betrayed us. Like Dontolevich. He’d probably be there just rockin’ out.

Happy Labor Day, BTSH!

Why do you hate Rich Glanzer so much: Awwh, that’s not nice!

All right, this interview is over.

3rd star: (censored)

2nd star: Danielle Haselton (pronounced “Hassle-ton”) – Instant Karma

This week Danielle remembered to do something that I personally have intended to do every single week of the season but have forgotten to do every single week of the season. (Even setting phone reminders has not helped the situation, sadly.)  The thing that she did brought a lot of fun to many BTSHers at the courts, and culminated in me getting Vitamin Water Zero spilled all over the front of my favorite Unicorns shirt.  It was worth it.
While everyone knows that the 1st rule of lime toss is “always be ready”, perhaps the 1st rule should be “remember to actually bring a lime”. 
Thank you, from everyone who played lime toss on the sidelines this Sunday, for taking care of the responsibility that myself, Chadwick and Heather A. have been slacking on all season. 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” I assume that he was referring to bringing a lime.  This particular little thing earned you the 2nd star this week.

1st star of the week: The refs. 

This was an, umm, strange? week at BTSH.  I watched a lot of the games and saw that the refs had to make some really difficult decisions, and deal with some things they never should have to deal with.  I won’t go into all the specifics but at least one ref was pepper sprayed by a player during a game, I heard that one woke up with a horse’s head in their bed, and I know for a fact that at least one of them got farted on (sorry about that, Hopper, I had tacos for lunch).  While my admiration for the refs is different this year now that they get paid quite a bit more, it is a tough and relatively thankless job nonetheless.  A job that I have always avoided like the plague.  They make the tough calls and deal with crap that they shouldn’t have to deal with, week in, week out. A big thank you to all the league’s refs, especially those of you who suffered undue abuse this past Sunday. You handled it with aplomb.
I implore you, be nice to your refs, people.  They, among other people, keep the league running. Speaking of running – man, those tacos really did a number on my system.

No skill? No problem! Aerial drones will fly over Tompkins during games to randomly deposit glowing packages which, when collected, provide the player with special powers, such as:

• bananas you can shoot at other players to temporarily disable them
• raccoon tails that enable the wearer to fly
• sticks that can shoot multiple balls at once
• a giant head – it doesn’t really help your game, but it does engender mirth
• money, ammo, and bags of cocaine

Artist’s rendering of the proposed power-ups.

Additionally, stepping on the glowing chevrons on the asphalt will provide a temporary speed boost, and conveniently-placed trampolines will allow a player to leap over the opposition.

Exhausted from Saturday night? Did you leave your liver in the skeeball machine again? Not to worry, Tim Brown has your antidote: fifty cc’s of weapons-grade plutonium injected directly into your spinal cord. While BTSH has not finished testing this program, clinical trials are showing extraordinary potential with only mild hair and tooth loss, alongside arguably positive side-effects such as Floppy Purple Tentacle Syndrome.

After the experiment, researchers noted that clinical trial subject #13 had become “substantially better at hockey, and also more appealing personally,” though there was some apprehension about the “wildly gesticulating flippers where his arms had been.”

 

Rather than convert mid-level players into unstoppable cybernetic hockey machines, there’s a more cost-effective approach to improving the league’s balance. We can’t make all the passengers better, so why not make the superstars worse?

• Gabe Chenard-Poirier and Cherie Stewart will have to play while carrying 50 pounds of stones.
• Highly focused defensepersons like Rob Walsh will have their concentration shattered, as they are forced to wear headphones repeatedly blasting the sounds of foghorns, Fran Drescher’s laugh, parrot squawks, cannon fire, and Gilbert Gottfried routines.
• Absurdly limber goalies like Tim Brown will be replaced by mini-golf windmills.

Gabe “Hands of Stone” Chenard-Poirier (feat. Big Head Heather).

4. “Twilight Transitions,” The Trevor Beauclair Memorial Halfway House

What do we do when none of that helps and I still suck at hockey? Well, it’s time to pack up and call it a career. Thankfully a generous anonymous endowment from Rob Blandi has helped the league create “Twilight Transitions,” in honor of the extremely late (but not dead) Trevor Beauclair. Twilight Transitions will provide a living space in the Tompkins Square restrooms where obsolete players can prepare to function normally in society through fun, educational activities like:

• riding the bus
• purchasing lottery tickets
• petting Justin’s dog and other regional animals
• Yahtzee

Twilight Transitions will be there to help us develop valuable life-skills, with lessons like Trash Can Operations 101, and Care and Feeding of Your Traffic Cone.

Bonus fun fact: Even though it hasn’t opened yet, Hector “$h0w+1m3!” Melendez has already bounced in and out of Twilight Transitions 47 times.

In Conclusion
While BTSH can’t cure everyone’s hockey problems, rest assured that the league recognizes the plight of the amateurish and is finally prepared to do something about it!

Correction 8/31/2015, 1:43pm: all of the above proposed programs have been canceled in favor of Commissioner Brown’s new plan to drive to Tahiti with several sacks full of cash. 

Updated proposal for 2016. (Image credit: Tim Brown’s notebook.)

By Dave Gil de Rubio

This was my first foray into this storied tournament. And yes, an education was had. Here are some of the lessons I gleaned.

1. Mike Dudolevic’s Party Van is an Eric Clapton/Phil Collins Free Zone despite Twin Dekes’ propensity for grooving to Yacht Rock

2. Ten people do in fact fit comfortably into said Party Van.

3. Glo sticks notwithstanding, no one really took into account the lack of light involved with partying on the beach that made it feel like we were having dinner at one of these joints except with lots of sand and cheap beer.

Dining in the Dark

4. According to Caroline Webster, aggro jam-band reggae is in fact a thing.

5. I’m not quite sure if the phrase “Roll Tide” was actually an invitation for any team we played in the tournament to do just that.

Hollywood dramatization of said roll tide about to make a Red Tide

6. Apparently there was an unspoken goalie union code that involved not allowing Rich Glanzer to score and to also endure endless heckling.

7. When digging the eighth goal out of the back of the net during a 9-1 drubbing by the aforementioned Twin Dekes, when they’re going into Soft Rock Mode and providing a soundtrack for the arena, the Michael McDonald/Patti LaBelle duet of “On My Own” isn’t really what I’m looking to hear despite the absolute appropriate timing of this song.

8. I don’t think Ernest Hemingway realized that The Old Man & The Sea would be what people would start calling Coach’s storied attempt to wrestle the Atlantic Ocean into submission (cover photo).

Coach cemented his lead with late night ocean wrestling to win Michaliga’s inaugural OC Spirit Cup, named after WTP face, you know who

Craig loves this idea—he now thinks he may actually get a playoff win this year!