Inside The Dressing Room: Kangaroo Court & Apologies

I’ve written before about players putting money towards the team pot for big wins.  In that bit, I danced around the best aspect of raising that year-end fund (which, of course, goes to a pizza and pop party that definitely wouldn’t involve, say, a strip club). 

Kangaroo Court.

A lot of people are familar with the concept, as a lot of organizations use them as a fun revenue generator.

At the professional level, it’s fun, and a decent amount of money changes hands (another reason why it’s a bitch getting traded or cut – guys party on the pot you chipped in to).  At the college level, it’s the highlight of the freaking week, and max fines are only $3 (save for broken team rules, like $15 for being late, etc.).

Random pic of my boy Chuck bout to unload a left, cause when I think of someone I wanna fine, he comes up.

How it works is simple – the dry erase board is hung somewhere visible in the room.  The format is basic: when you want to fine a teammate, you write his number under “fined” and your own under “by”.

16  -  12

No need to disclose topics, or any of the who/what/why/when/where/how circumstances of the fine-able offense until court comes around.

Needless to say, on Mondays, a lot of numbers go up on the board from the weekend.  Half the fun is harrassing the guy you’re fining, or vice versa.  If you’re on the “fined” side, it’s not the money you’re stressed about, it’s the public condemnation/humiliation/verbal-beat-down (Strictly totally clever, Shakespearian witticisms.  Yep.  Hardly any gay sex jokes.). 

What did I ever do to you?  Fine then, I’m fining you for _________ (insert petty thing that’d never stick).

The rule is, you can’t fine someone for something that happened previous to the last Kangaroo Court session, which means you have to get away with whatever it is you did for a full week.

When court rolls around post-practice, the fun begins.  In college, the seniors are the jury, in pro, the captains.  Whoever is running court grabs the board, and it begins. 

First up, 16 is being fined by number 12.  State your case.

You have to save your best stories for court, preferably bar stories, as you have the whole teams attention.  There’s always some gem about a guy throwing a line at someone’s girlfriend, buying drinks for a woman of questionable repute or any other form of debauchery that’s deemed to have crossed the line.  (God I want to tell the photo evidence story.  We’ll all have to go for drinks some time so I can.  All of us.)

The person being crucified, upon just finding out what he did wrong (okay, sometimes you know), has to defend himself to the team and the jury.  Then, the ruling comes in, from no fine to three bucks (it’s not about the money, you may have guessed).  In pro, the numbers are higher, but it’s still beside the point.

College is an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything, and I can’t remember ever laughing harder at any point during my four years than I did during those trials.  Mostly cause I never did anything fine-worthy, and was always on the fun side of it.  Which, I can assure you, because it’s my blog, and I have the power to delete comments.  MUAH-HA-HAAAA.

*****

You know what’s crazy that a lot of fans never get to see?  Guys that apologize to the whole team between periods.

Nate the Great

Nathan Lawson, the amazing/underrated goaltender of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers was always the first person to own up to a bad goal – Sorry about that one guys, I gotta have that.  I’ll be better in the third, pick me up – which is just so refreshing.  Plenty of goalies tend to believe (or at least act) like they’ve never given up a bad goal, so when you get a good guy like that, you really want to work for him, you know?

It happens after bad penalties too, at the end of a period – My bad guys, that was stupid – kill this thing off for me and lets get back on ‘em.

Of course, then there’s the guys who apologize, then go out and do the same thing over and over, which sort of takes the value out of their words.  You know who doesn’t strike me as an apologizer?  Matt Cooke.  Just a thought.

Anyways, that’s all the totally random dressing room stuff I’ve got for today.  Thanks for the support – the site is really blowing up the last couple weeks.  You just wait to see how much traffic we get on here for the first round of playoffs when the Islanders play the Caps!  Yeah!  Islande….no?  Okay, probably not.