Conducting a Sockdolager: The End of the Line

Upon learning about Seamus’s fondness for trains and the Beaverbrook’s desire to see the “the End of the Line” in Elmira, A. J. MacDonald’s father delivered a sockdolager: "Seamus, I’ll drive you there, son. It’s only handy from where I spent my first fifty years. Let's go before the roads get slippy, eh?"

St. John Journal Entry: The Hapless Hockey Confederates

Written by the Mickey Dupere, the fictitious St. John Journal' hockey scribe:

Losers of their last six contests, the hapless Charlottetown Confederates look for better luck (three post-ringers in the third period last night against the Bridgeport Barnums) when they play the St. Andrews Beaverbrooks this weekend. The Feds will need to shore up their team defense; it's like one PEI Islander commented to this reporter: "They're running around like a fart in a mitten."

Etiolated: Weak Imported Play and Vegetables

The Beaverbrooks, 0-5 losers to the Atlantic Puffins, left St. John's with a favorable impression of the local hockey team, as well as the music and pub scene, but the team was less impressed with its weak performance and the days-old etiolated imported vegetables. (Newfoundland can grow stout hockey players, but the province's acidic and stony soil aren't conducive to cultivating first-rate greens.)

Brown Study: Insight into Despair

During his spiritual and emotional demise, Seamus fell into a brown study, a self-absorbed funk that isolated him from his family, the fourth estate and his teammates.

Riposte: Verbal Fencing in the Locker Room

The banter in the Beaverbrooks locker room, highlighted by Benoit's good-natured attack on Ambrose Bishop's lack of foot speed and the subsequent riposte—Bishop changing the subject— made Seamus J. O'Sheehan forget his scoring slump.

 

Thimblerig: Sleight of St. John's

Seamus J. O'Sheehan and the Lady Beaverbrooks strolled along George Street, where live music streamed from the nearly two dozen pubs. While his younger teammates scanned the St. John's Christmastime festival for pretty maidens, Seamus found himself drawn to the sleight-of-hand artists, for the thimbleriggers seemed like the carnival equivalent of hockey players who juked and jived past would-be defenders.

Redolent: Ready for Lunch in Charlottetown

The blue open-shelled mussels, redolent of paprika, ginger and onion, steamed as the Beaverbrooks anticipated lunch with their PEI host family.

Remuneration: Often Misspelled

Players sometimes groused about the remuneration, or lack thereof, the Lady Beaverbrooks provided; even the best players worked second jobs.

Ambrose Bishop: The Towering Tartar

Opponents who dared to drop the gloves with Ambrose Bishop, the towering Beaverbrooks tartar, often regretted their decisions.

Coach's Gorgonizing Glare

Coach, if interrupted, didn't need to scold the offending yacker; the team leader's gorgonizing glare served as fair warning, as if to say to his Lady Beaverbrooks: "Do not undermine my authority again."

Choppy Play, Hew

Hugh Montenegro, the behometh defenceman's wooden Sher-Wood stick serving as an axe, chopped at Sheamus J. O'Sheehan's ankles. O'Sheehan, retaliated not with force of fist but by scoring a goal and then skating past his nemisis as he uttered this simple epithet: "Attaboy, "'Hew.'"

Impressed by the Fourth Estate

Mick Dupere, an unobtrusive and soft-spoken journalist with an impressive resume, was the only member of the fourth estate that Seamus J. O'Sheehan trusted.

"O Canada" and the Orphic Dimitri

Dimitri Kotsopoulos, the only Greek Canadian on the Beaverbrooks, would often sing "O Canada" before home games. His orphic voice, so low and commanding, offset his lack of goal-scoring prowess.

Jocose and Joue un tour avec Benoit

Most hockey teams have a chief prankster—a jocose teammate who cuts a rookie's tie while sleeping on the bus or saws a stick blade of someone who's in a scoring slump—and Benoit fit that bill for the St. Andrews Beaverbrooks.

Belauded: Much Ado About Mediocrity

The belauded St. Andrews Beaverbrooks, resting on the laurels of early-season success, have lost six straight games and now coast toward mediocrity in the Atlantic Hockey League.