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Ox Monkey · 03-24-2022, 04:10 PM

Hello to all you Homers and Hand Grenades!

The last we left off with JoJo Larkin, he was getting accustomed to life in the Juniors, and specifically life in the Detroit Falcons organization. The Falcons were gearing up for the regular season, after finishing a promising preseason. JoJo was called into the GMs office to discuss his preseason play, and whether or not he would be cut or join the team for the regular season. JoJo walked into the office, removed his shoes, and took note of a new pattern in the sand garden. He sat cross-legged at his GMs traditional Japanese desk, and awaited word on whether or not he had made his impression.

Sconnie started by reading through some of the stats the rookie had posted. The rookie had averaged 7:17 time on ice during the 7 preseason games with no power play or penalty kill exposure. This was pretty straight forward for a rookie in the majors, coaches not wanting big moments to shape future habits on ice. What JoJo did produce during his time on ice was what the GM was most impressed with. He had 1 goal and an apple with a goal diff of +1. This meant he outplayed his counterparts on each team through preseason. Going up against 4th line talent across the league, he had handled his own and was not a liability for the team. In addition to the 2 points, he had actually finished 10th in shot %, which was huge. He had 1 goal on 2 shots, sitting at a 33.3 %. The idea here is that if you increase time on ice, the goals will hopefully follow. With Game Ratings of 54-56-50, Sconnie was prepared to offer the rookie a spot on the team for the upcoming regular season. JoJo would be playing on the 4th line with Pil Sung on the other wing, centered by C Jobin.

With the great news, JoJo went to the locker room to look at the game schedule. They started the season off on the road, opening in Kelowna, then onto Quebec City for a home and home. Quebec City was in the Falcon’s division, and would be high paced games. He saw that the bus to the airport would be leaving the following day at 6AM, so he went through his gear and made sure everything was prepared for the equipment managers to load up and leave that night to meet them there via truck. He stopped at 7 Greens Detroit Salad Co. on the way home and got a ‘Wok It To Me’ Asian style salad. Back at the apartment, he ate and finished up an episode of house hunters, then hit the sack.
The typical flight from Detroit to Kelowna would take 8 to 9 hours, connecting through Seattle or Edmonton, but with the charter flight, would be just under 4 hours. The bus got to the airport around 7:15, and a quick walk across the tarmac saw JoJo entering the Embraer 170 to find his seat. After the various preseason flights, he was now always welcomed to the veterans back table for a little off-the-post. For those unfamiliar with the game, very similar to Acey Duecy, where you bet increasingly on whether or not the following playing card will be in between the 2 table cards or outside. Typical to past games, all 4 players antied $20, and the two top cards were layed out face up for Zayne. Zayne was drinking an iced cold Labatt Blue and wondering what he should do with his ‘2’ and ‘8’. After some minor deliberation, he bet $20 and the Mrs. throws out a ‘10’. Zayne throws his $20 into the pot, and it moves to Sconnie, who is now looking at a total pot of $100. Mrs. deals him a ‘4’ and a ‘Q’, to which Sconnie bets the pot limit. Mrs. deals the 3rd card nice and slowly, so as to build up as much anticipation as possible. The players can see that it’s a colored card, but unsure if ‘J’, ‘Q’, or ‘K’. Upon final reveal, its another ‘Q’! And Sconnie has rattled one off the post! This means Sconnie must now double his bet, and put it into the pot.

JoJo is looking at a $300 pot when he is dealt an ‘A’ and a ‘10’. Now when an Ace is the first card dealt, the player has the option of using this card as a “low” Ace or a “high” Ace. Obviously, in this situation, JoJo would be playing it as a “low” Ace for the better spread. He bets $150, and Mrs. flips a ‘5’. JoJo collects his $150 from the pot, leaving $150 behind, and starts to shuffle. He would now be dealing to Mrs., Zayne, then Sconnie. He lays out the first 2 cards for Mrs. as a ‘J’ and a ‘Q’. Mrs. bets to “hit the post”. In this situation, if either a ‘J’ or a ‘Q’ were dealt out as the 3rd card, she would scoop the pot and receive $50 from each player which would match the pot again. JoJo deals the 3rd card, and it falls as an ‘8’. Mrs. must pay half the pot, and throws in $75 dollars, bringing the new total to $225 dollars for Zayne. Zayne gets dealt ‘6’ and a ‘6’, and everyone gasps and starts chanting “satan’s sixes” in low rhythmic tones so as to annoy Zayne. You see, if another ‘6’ is produced, Zayne has been dealt “The Devil’s Hand”, and must apply 6X the total pot. Zayne bet $50 on higher to try to get the game moving, but ,everyone was 3 or 4 beers deep at this point, and the 3 non-players faces were lit up like Christmas lights, waiting for Zayne to get fleeced! JoJo paused his deal to give Sconnie time to make a fake eulogy for Zaynes money, and discuss in which absurd ways they would spend it. After maximum humiliation had been handed out, JoJo revealed the third card as a ‘9’. Everyone, except Zayne, booed and threw small pieces of trach at JoJo for not crushing Zayne. Zayne, to his credit took is $50 out of the pot, and slid JoJo a $5 for not breaking him. The pot was now at $175 for Sconnie, to which he is dealt a ‘3’ and a ‘Q’. Sconnie, who was on his 5th beer, wanted to put a dent in the game, and bet the pot limit. JoJo flipped the third card, a ‘3’. Sconnie had gone “Off-The-Post’ to the tune of $350. $525 was in the pot, as the cards were passed to Zayne for his shuffle and deal.

By the time they made the initial descent into the Kelowna area, a lot of money had made its way onto, and then off the table. Everyones wallet had been effected the following way:
Sconnie was down $700
Zayne was down $550
JoJo was up $450
Mrs. was up $850

The game against Kelowna would not be starting for another 7 hours, so the players headed to the hotel for lunch and a nap. Kelowna played out of a barn called Prospera Place on the shoreline. They were invested in by some sort of Latin financial services company “Prospera”, which made little sense this far in the backwoods of British Columbia. The place held 7,500 people, and was packed for the home opener. Detroit was rolling out their starting goalie Evert Jansson against Meeka Kepresoft. Everyone on the bench hit some salts, and the puck was dropped. The 1st and 2nd periods were staunch defensive exhibitions, each team feeling one another out. Scoring was opened in the 3rd by Kelowna, sneaking one past Jansson. It would stay 1-0 for most of the third, until Kelowna was able to get an empty netter in the final minute. The final from Kelowna would be 2-0, and a shutout for Kepresoft. Detroit would play Kelowna, an out of conference team, only 5 more times throughout the regular season, so focus quickly shifted to upcoming Quebec City.

The flight time to Quebec City was going to be an overnight ‘red-eye’ that saw them traverse all 6 southern provinces in Canada. They would land some time around 7am in Quebec City to enjoy an off day. There would be no cards or drinking on this flight, as getting shutout put no one in a mood to gamble. JoJo had never flown into the Jean Lesage Airport before, but found all the accommodations to be excellent. On a scale of 1-10 rating, this airport would receive a solid 8.1 in his books. The bus dropped the team off at the hotel around 8am, where some guys went for massage therapy, and others went straight to bed. It was around 2pm, JoJo got his first few texts from guys on the team trying to organize some fun. They could go to the Place Royale, where the city was born in 1608 with an establishment built by Samuel de Champlain; Or they could go to Le Chateau Frontenac, the most iconic building in the provincial capital. It was an imposing fortress built right alongside the St. Lawrence River.

Being hockey players, they made the most on-brand decision anyone could have seen coming: They were going to play putt-putt golf at ‘mini-putt vanier’, followed by beers at ‘Macfly’. Being surrounded by so much cultural importance, the players thought it best to do things they could have easily done in any Detroit suburb. Macfly did have the bonus of being an arcade style bar that had all the old hits like Pacman and Mario Bros. And by the time they got to the bar, one of the players who will remain nameless had a putter duct taped to his head, and another had lost his shoes. They ordered beer after beer and played arcade games into the wee hours of the morning. The following morning’s skate was not going to be fun, in fact no fewer than 3 players arrived late, and would be running stairs prior to being allowed on the ice. JoJo happened to be one of these players because his phone had died the night before and no alarm was set.

Each staircase he faced that morning made him want to puke all the beer out from the night before. By the end of the hour of running, they had completed 32 separate aisles with 64 stairs in each section, totaling just under 2000 stairs run. They were on the ice just in time to play scout team for the 1 and 2 units on the power play. The goal on scout team was to mimic the style of penalty kill Quebec would be deploying against Detroit that night, so the #1 and #2 units could get familiar to beating the style. Internally, JoJo hated these drills, just because playing left winger against Akashi on the boards was tough. He would routinely face 100mph one-timers which would inevitably nail him in a low padding spot. After the power play units had their fill, and confident for the nights game, most of the veterans took off for lunch and naps. For 1st and 2nd years, it was time to have some fun with JR. Today, JR had special on-ice plans with the guys, as he took note of the few players who had already run 2000 stairs. The goal was to not destroy their legs for the night, but improve balance and agility. He brought out 4 giant oversized boxing gloves, which were the size of beach balls. 4 Players would be wearing these gloves trying to knock down the remaining players. It was the goal of the non-boxing glove wearing players to evade them and stay upright.

This led to comical eruptions all over the ice. Guys were getting up-ended left and right by wild haymakers being thrown by the glove clad players. Once you hit the ice, you made your way to the bench until all players were knocked over. They were on the 3rd round of this game, when JoJo finally got his chance to be a non-boxer. His goal was to embarrass the boxers here by staying on his feet no matter what. He was taking punches left and right, but no one could find the power or angle required to knock him off his 240 lb. frame. His head was on a swivel, and he was trying to find all incoming punches so he could lean into them and absorb the blow. He had been skating for a solid 5 minutes, lungs just absolutely burning, still on his feet. The last skater, save himself, had just been knocked off their feet, so it was 4 on 1. He started circling the rink staying along the boards so he could use the glass as a crutch as his legs were turning into jello. With the night game looming, the smart thing would have been to just go down and call it a day. His pride kicked in, and he honestly wondered how long he could go. After 3 minutes of circles, getting punched backward every few seconds, JR instructed him to stay off the boards. He moved to center ice and started doing tight concentric circles around the center dot. This also seemed to work due to him constantly leaning into the turn. He was in the process of laughing at one of his boxers glancing blows that did nothing to his balance, when C Jobin caught him with a vicious right hook from the opposite direction that absolutely launched him head over heels. JoJo came up laughing, and with that, JR told them to beat it.

JoJo spent 40 minutes in the ice batch to get his legs in shape for the night’s game, then went back to the hotel to catch a 2 hour nap, before he had to be back at the rink. The Videotron Center in Quebec city held 18,000 of the gnarliest French speaking fans one could ever go up against. Each Falcon player was determined to take some points away from this team prior to the return to Detroit where they would play again the next night. In the net for Quebec tonight was Justin Time, who came from a long line of famous “time’s”. Detroit would go onto lose the game 2-1, now sitting at 0-2, dead last in division and conference. Detroits division this year features 4 teams, which could mean the Falcons don’t make the playoffs if they don’t right the ship. If you have never been surrounded by a bunch or people who are collectively frustrated and embarrassed/mad, picture a bunch of young adults just sulking in their seats with their headphones on not listening to anyone. This is how the 1:45 flight from Quebec went, not a word uttered.

JoJo knew that he had to start producing, as he had yet to make it onto the score sheet other than name, number, and a single penalty. Much of the flight was spent thinking of way he could motivate his team into the doldrums of the regular season. By the time they landed in Detroit he had gotten no closer to the question occupying his mind. He was left alone to hit the 7 Greens Detroit Salad Co on his way home and get caught up on any house hunter episodes he missed while away.

-Ox
(2,625 Words)