Interview with Max "The Kid"

By Dickie Dunn - TMZ Hockey - Online

In a much needed infusion of youth, the IOAH Otter’s minor league development team, the Desert Dogs, have signed speedy and precocious center, Max “The Kid”. 

(This reporter has chosen not to reveal Max’s actual last name due to the fact that he still has quite a long future ahead of him, and I would hate for him to miss out on the potential swing-shift assistant manager position at McDonalds, because of something that was revealed on the internet. – remember… this shit stays around forever).

I had a chance to sit down with Max after a recent IOAH Desert Dog victory against the league leading Sahara Desert.

DD:        Max, you had quite a game tonight. Two goals and an assist. In fact, you almost had six additional goals except you just could not seem to stick-handle and slip between the three defensive players in front of the net.

Max:      Yah, I know. Yuha and Onur were wide open, but I figured I could dazzle the defense walk right through those three guys.

DD:        You have seemed to bring a much needed element of youth to the Desert Dogs.

Max:       You know it Dog! (no pun intended).  These guys a great group of guys, but let’s face it, they are old. I have not seen such an assortment of old people since Grandparents Day at my college.

DD:        I see you attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. What did you study?

Max:      Occidental, or Oxy as we call it is a liberal arts school, so I basically did not study anything. I did however, get into a bit of ‘situation’ with the Dean’s daughter, so my father, who is a high powered attorney suggested that I go abroad for nine months while till things blew over.

DD:        Is that how you ended up in South East Asia?

Max:      You know it.  Korea has some of the most lenient extradition laws, so it seemed pretty safe.

DD:        You taught English while you were there?

Max:      That’s right.  Due to Interpol  regulations, my father had to stop funding my bank account, so I needed to start earning my own money (Won).   God knows I like to talk, so it seemed only natural that I found a job teaching English.  Besides, you know how much Korean tail you can get when you speak English and they think you can get them a Green Card? 

DD:        Did you play a lot of hockey in Korea?

Max:      I was the Bomb! They all called me ‘흰색 악마’, which I think means, “star player”..I was able to tear up the ice over there.  But I will tell you, Korean ice sucks bigtime! Even worse than Ice Oasis ice.

DD:        Being only 24, do you ever look at the guys playing professional hockey and realize that they are your age?

Max:      I know it. I look at those guys playing and think, Gosh that could be me if I only had the strength, size, speed, ability, motivation and talent….  I blame Steve Irvine.

DD:        You mean Steve Irvine the Desert Dogs star defenseman and beer aficionado?

Max:      Yup, that’s him.. When I was growing up and my nanny would drop me off at the rink to keep me busy while she went and visited her boyfriend, I would look up and see all those Polar banners and dream, ‘One day I will be a Polar’.  You see, Irvine was the coach of the Polars and had been churning out NHL prospects like Hans Benson for a number of years.  I was looking forward to his tutelage, but as soon as I was old enough, Steve retired.  Thinking back, I was devastated.  I understand the reason why the rink needed to start doing background checks on coaches, but it did force away many quality coaches.

DD:        Being only 24 and having international hockey experience must really be a benefit for The Desert Dogs.

Max:      I was really digg’n my role as the kid, but that only lasted a few games.  Before I knew it, they signed some 21 year old phenom out of the University of Arizona, and I was suddenly now just another near middle-aged, adult beer league center living with shattered dreams…

DD:        Come on. Shattered dreams?  You are 24 years old. How shattered could your dreams be at this point in your life?  I mean, you are not a gymnast. You have your whole life ahead of you.

Max:      I know Dog. I am just being drama queen.. I have number of things I would like to accomplish ahead of me.  

DD:        Like what?

Max:      I got the crazy plan to develop an App that allows people to connect and “hook up” based solely on their favorite dinosaur.  Think about it.  It would be huge.  You’re out drink’n with the guys and after a few Jell-O-Shots you get the “urge-to-merge”, so you whip out your iPhone and enter in your favorite dinosaur, and ba-da-bing! You get paired up with some hot Stanford gymnast who also likes Stegosaurus. I would call it “What’s Your Favorite Dinosaur?”

DD:        That seems like it could be pretty popular.

Max:      I think the hard part would be to filter out all the 4-6 year olds' who would accidentally download it.  But once I figure that out, it would ROCK.. I would write code so that all those douchbags who would pick T-Rex or Pterodactyls would automatically just get set up with some nasty piece of peanut eat’n trailer-park skank.