Otter Hockey Club: OTTER BLOG TO RETURN

By Richard Cranium

It has been eight months since the last entry into the Otter Blog. A number of events have come and gone, none published.

Many of you have inquired on why the blog has gone silent. You have missed some good laughs. An explanation is due to the faithful blog subscribers. My co-writer, Dickie Dunn and I have experienced some personal setbacks.

Last week Dickie was released from the California Men’s Colony, a male-only state prison, located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He had been serving an eight month sentence.

Dunn had been originally arrested for fraud, embellishment of family funds, failure to obtain necessary permits and contamination and destruction of natural settings in the town of Woodside. He pled guilty to a lesser charge of pandering:

pander 1) v. to solicit customers for a prostitute. 2) n. a pimp, who procures customers for a prostitute or lures a woman into prostitution, all for his own profit. 3) v. catering to special interests without any principles, such as a politician who says to whatever group he/she is addressing just what they want to hear to win their support, contributions, or favors.

“I learned my lesson,” said Dunn. “Everything I do now will be above board. Even though I had a great time down there, played golf every day, I missed the daily grind of work.”

Hopefully Dickie will have some upcoming Blog columns. It is rumored that he spent time penning his memoirs while incarcerated.

As for me, I spent the last eight months at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California for alcohol rehab.

Life as a sports scribe is rewarding but there are too many instances of “partying”, especially in the hockey world where pucks and beer are synonymous. I realized there was a “problem” when I couldn’t find my pencil.

I was hoping to see some celebrities there but no luck. One day they did load us on a bus and took the group to Scottsdale, Arizona to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation to see Ted Williams. I took this picture:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get his autograph because he had no hands.

The time spent at the Center was pretty boring. I laid around the pool, read some books including “War and Peace”, watched movies and surfed the internet. Their internet adult filter was disabled so I spent a lot of time on porn sites. Sometimes, you meet the nicest people on those sites. I think most of them must be into nature since they are scantily clothed. I picked up a new nickname “oh baby” and learned to type real fast with one hand.

The counselors’ said I was no longer an alcoholic. They said I traded my alcohol addiction for a sexual addiction. Sometimes you have to move your addictions around. My California disability ran out so they kicked me out and gave me this t-shirt:

I completed the 12 step program and need to revisit number eight:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.

My list started to look like the old Encyclopedia Britannica so I curtailed that project and wish to use this public forum to apologize to all those that I may have offended in my columns. This includes people that wanted to be mentioned in the Blog but were left out and those that I misrepresented and called bad names like “little” Alan.

So here goes my apology: I feel very remorseful that I offended anyone. The Blog is only for fun so don’t get too serious about it. It’s for laughs. Hey, if you don’t like it, don’t read it, hit unsubscribe. To those that understand, my amends to you is I’ll buy you a beer. Whew, that was tough!!

An Eight Month Retrospective

The last eight months have seen two seasons of Keg championship tournaments, a Stanley Cup by my favorite team, Boston University’s 5th NCAA title and Alan Nolet still being shut out on elk/deer hunting trips.

The Otters were slammed in the March semifinals by the Hot Dog and their developmental team, the Desert Dogs, was also eliminated from Keg contention in the semis.

“I saw the need to retool both teams.” General manager Aden Nolet said in a recent interview. “We brought up the Doctor, Jeremy Wilkerson, from the farm club to the Otters and added a few veterans to that team. We kept the core on the Wednesday team, moved some players out and drafted right.”

There was also a concern of intensity on the Otter team. Aden spoke of the emotional letdown that the team had after winning their first Keg. “In the off season I sent a few of the players up to the Ranch for intense survival training and drills.” Nolet commented. “That and the horror stories of the Ranch sparked the rest of the team to produce.”

The Otters, as the third seed, zoomed through the first two rounds of playoffs in July. In the championship Keg game, the Otters beat the number one seed Old Timers 4-2.