10 Things I Learned At Ocean City: 2016 Edition
by Dave Gil de Rubio

Back in OC for the tournament that involved an un-air conditioned ride in Mike D’s rock van that gave new meaning to the term Cambodia hot when we were stuck crawling through lower Manhattan’s China Town for two hours. So here’s the knowledge dropped on me during my second tourney:

1. Somehow, singing the Backstreet Boys on the party bus back from Seacrets (as done by Basic Beaches teammate Joe Fiore) will result in a massive sing-a-long. Apparently, the higher the consumption of alcohol is commiserate with your ability to tolerate crap music.
2. Twin Dekes discovered their kryptonite by not having a boom box blare soft rock classics as part of their in-game strategy.
3. In some bizarre, parallel universe, Matthew Newman has become the kind of rallying cry that found players from rival teams rallying around him in his absence, chanting his name in a strange hotel room and starting an impromptu fund to ship him down to Maryland that weekend. (Turns out he couldn’t make it.) It ALMOST made up for Craig LaCombe not being there to steal the Cup and streak around in his jock strap.
   

   Captain Crobvious

4. You haven’t lived until you have a visibly intoxicated Brian Cronaeur visit your table at the Crab Shack looking like Captain Obvious from the Hotels.com commercial and sounding like Stiffler from the American Pie film franchise and proceed to regale you with his porn star exploits. And then get offered the grand total of .79 cents to go away and share the wealth somewhere else.
5. Whitney Houston once sang that the children are the future. For my money, Ben Probert is the future of BTSH.
6. When partying on the beach, there’s no question that Tiki torches were a major game-changer. Glo sticks will only get you so far. Major kudos to tournament organizer Matt Workman for making that happen. Rumor has it that glow-in-the-dark corn hole may be on the docket for next year.
7. Speaking of corn-hole, it was a nice sideline to all the pounding of booze and playing of hockey that went on. And you shouldn’t judge if someone decides to use it as a verb (ie. “When are we going corn-holing?”)
   

   Know who you’re f*cking with.

8. Jen Popack will cut a bitch.
9. Dan Hopper is so competitive that he traveled three time zones to make sure his Shortis repeated as OC champs.
   

   Back-to-back OC champs.

10. Speaking of people traveling long ways to hit the OC scene, tournaments are always better when Nicholas Barretta comes down from Toronto to join in the fun. Seriously. Now if we can only get Showtime to come down next year.

Bonus fact:

I offer a league-wide apology for allowing Rich Glanzer to score an epic goal that found him falling while putting the biscuit in the basket. It was a play worthy of Sports Center. The aftermath can be seen in a pic featuring him, me and Tim Kayiatos (the only other netminder to give up a goal to Richie Hero during league play). The look of abject sadness on my face is in knowing that a little bit of BTSH’s soul died that day.