Mr. Elk: Wherein IPB Sees An Emperor-God In Muppet-Baby Form

As you may have gathered from last night’s post, we were not entirely pleased with last night’s debacle “game” game against the Toronto Fucking Maple Fucking Leafs. It was late, we were cranky, the game sucked, so when the second intermission started, we couldn’t hit the fast forward button on the TiVo remote fast enough. The fact that Steve and Dano were interviewing the guys from the local high school football show only validated our choice. And then — and then, Gentle Reader — we started the game up again at the start of the third only to hear Doc say, “… And Paul Martin used to play football; you all saw some footage of that during intermission!” What?!? The rewind button nearly fell off the remote thanks to the enthusiasm with which we pounced on it.

It turns out those high school football guys started out sneakily by discussing the Freehold Township team — go, Fighting Raceways! — lulling us all into a sense of complacency. And then Steve innocently reminds us all that Paulie “Mr. Hockey” Martin also played some high school ball. This is not news to PaulieMartinNation. Not by a long shot. But even we weren’t prepared for what Steve’s comment led to…

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Look at him! He’s running right at us! Filled with the spirit of Elk Power! We’re pretty sure he’s singing “Cheer, cheer, for old Elk River!” as he runs. Onward to victory, indeed, Paulie!

(Author’s Note: Check out the arms and legs on high school Paulie. Holy flirking schnitt, he was a skinny guy! Pookie once read a pre-Paulie’s-draft archived newspaper article in which a scout expressed disbelief that Paulie was draftable based on how skinny his legs were. Now she understands what he was talking about. Not pictured here was footage of Paulie being checked hit out of bounds and it appeared to be a miracle that all his limbs didn’t snap like brittle little twigs.)

Here Paulie does his best Augustus of Prima Porta, thanking the loyal Elkites for their support of his record breaking receptions. The Elk River jersey design makes it look a little like their fearless star wide receiver is wearing his top backwards.

We can only assume this picture just gives the impression that he was cheering, when in fact, no sound was actually coming out of his mouth.

Speaking of Roman emperors, you can practically see his laurel wreath here. It’s almost as if he knew even then that he would be the emperor-god of PaulieMartinNation in the far off, exotic land of New Jersey.

Yes, he even got the “carried around on shoulders” treatment from his adoring teammates. After last night’s putrid effort, we’re sure his current teammates wouldn’t be so attentive to the task of keeping him properly hoisted. (It’s not as evident in this shot, but it appeared as if Pauile was forgoing the traditional “we’re #1!” index finger or the “I’m #1″ fist pump in favor of a “I’m a stoner dude who also happens to be insanely good at sports” “hang loose” thumb-pinky hand symbol. Yup, that’s our emperor-god right there.)

And then MSG+ brought it all home with this graphic, which incorrectly praises Pauile for being a “2 sport athlete”. We know for a fact that he also excelled at basketball, baseball, and track and field. If we ever see footage of baby Paulie partaking in these sports, we might just die from laughing/squeeing.

In short, last night’s game was by far the worst of this young season, but last night’s broadcast was the best since Brad Bombardir taste-tested Marty’s Frosted Wheaties (ifyouknowwhatwemean).

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Devils vs. Leafs, 10/29/08 — Postgame Reaction

Some thoughts about tonight’s game, which we watched on TiVo delay and weren’t finishing up until it was going on 1 a.m. (that should give you an idea, Gentle Reader, of how much we enjoyed it):

1. Let us never speak of this again.

2. If he’s going to keep taking stupid-assed penalties, we’re going to start calling Langer “Captain Shit Shit Shit” instead of “Captain Fuck This Shit”. And for brevity’s sake, we’ll shorthand that as “Captain Shit-Cubed”. (If brevity is the essence of wit, we’re pretty sure “Captain Shit-Cubed” is its molecular foundation.)

3. When there was some question about the nature of the injury that was keeping Patty out for most of the first half of the game, we decided the problem was that someone untied that ribbon around his neck and his head fell off. The trainer managed to tape it back on, but got it backwards on his first try. The Devils understandably sagged a bit after seeing such a ghoulish scene in their dressing room during the first intermission, but in the end, a little elbow grease and a whole lot of athletic tape did the trick, and Patty was back to his old ineffectual ways before the night was out.

4. Marty’s finally starting to play the way we expected him to right out of the gate this season. Specifically, like the way he always does when he’s closing in on a record. Even more specifically, like poop. (We’ll be fair and concede that he pulled a Marc-Andre Fleury tonight, rather than just plain sucking; he made a lot of saves that he shouldn’t have, but only gave up goals he shouldn’t have, too.)

5. The defense is starting to play defensively a lot like the way we expected them to right out of the gate this season, based on how they looked last season. Specifically, like poop. Even more specifically, like poopy poop. (We’ll be fair and concede that the defense had a very good offensive game tonight.)

6. We normally yawn in the face of fighting in the NHL, but we saw two examples of fighting being used for good instead of evil tonight. First was Clarkson doing his “losing his helmet, and then getting up from the ice looking like the cover of a romance novel after a fight with a much bigger guy” thing and sparking the team back to life. Second was Rupper doing his henchman duties with gusto on Zach’s behalf after Hollweg had the temerity to hit Zach. That fight was awesome. We actually think Rupper was beating Hollweg with his own helmet while Hollweg was still wearing it. That’s hot. (It should be noted that as soon as Zach took the hit from Hollweg, we started cracking that Zach was lying on the ice, ringing a little silver handbell, and shouting weakly, “I say! Henchman! Henchman, there’s work to be done!” And then as soon as we’d said it, there was Rupper, earning his keep.)

7. After watching an entire game of him, we still don’t care about Luke Schenn.

8. Shootouts are stupid, but they’re even stupider when it’s going on 1 on a worknight, and we’re all exhausted, and we just want this game to be over for god’s sake.

9. PaulieMartinNation has no idea how to process what it saw tonight. More on that tomorrow.

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