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Pig Farmer sows win

When the winning goal in Sunday's game deflected in off his knee, the irony wasn't lost on Pig Farming Forward.

"You use what you can, wobbly or not," says the scoring sowminder, whose career has been imperilled by a series of knee injuries.

Sunday, despite slick conditions caused by an overnight frost, the former goaltender roamed his wing fearlessly and charged hard to the net at every opportunity. He was rewarded with six goals to lead his team to a hard-fought 20-17 win.

It was a performance as surprising as it was dominant. Especially to his opponents, who fully expected their agricultural adversary to retreat to the sidelines as conditions on the cold concrete worsened.

"He was a surprise," says the Living Legend of the productive plowman. "We thought he'd pack it in after the first period, or have some sort of injury. But he played tough out there, he stayed on his feet, and it cost us."

"I figured he'd last a period and then his knee would give out," says Wendel, whose side was repeatedly burned as they allowed the supposedly hobbled horticulturist to streak behind their skidding defense. "But give him credit, he made a lot of good plays and he didn't let his knee slow him down."

In fact, some roadsters questioned the wisdom of Pig Farming Forward's decision to play at all. Since abandoning the goalcrease to avoid further traumatizing his jumbled joint, he's limited his occasional starts as a forward to sunny days when the courts are dry and traction is certain. And while Sunday dawned bright, low temperatures slicked the concrete with an icy sheen.

"It was difficult because the sun start to dry off court in places; you expect to slide and next thing you know, you almost fall on face," says Pig Farming Forward, who might have scored his seventh goal had he not lost his footing for a moment, and then control of the evil orange plastic ball, on a penalty shot opportunity on Lobsterboy, awarded after Kid threw his stick in a fit of defensive desperation.

"It was so icy, the game is being played in slow motion," says Wendel. "We looked like a bunch of 80 year-old men out there."

The frozen surface diminished the dominance of the game's speedsters, Lak Attack and Kid, opening the door for opportunists like the Legend and Bird, each of whom scored natural hattricks to swing the game's momentum to their teams. But it was Bird's side that was able to maintain the pace, as they battled back from a 12-10 defecit early in the third period.

"It important that Bird and Elvis come up huge," says Pig Farming Forward of his hard-charging mates. "They swung momentum totally towards our side."

"We thought we were building some momentum, we thought we'd solved the puzzle," says Wendel, after the Legend's trio of unlikely goals had given his team their first lead of the game. "It just came apart at the end."

Pig Farming Forward's strong performance took his opponents by surprise, in more ways than one. Unaccustomed to seeing the lapsed shotstopper roaming the court without heavy pads strapped to his legs, defenders were unsure how to guard him.
"We don't see him out there much as a forward, so you're never entirely sure what he's going to do," said Wendel of his freerunning foe. "It's like having a new guy out there and it takes a little while to adjust to him."

•••

Billy Idol's second win in as many weeks was especially sweet, coming on the heels of some sharp stings in the road hockey press. Playing with grim determination, he was sharp from the opening faceoff, scuttling the gameplan of his overconfident opponents.
"We wanted to control the game right from the start," said the Living Legend. "We knew we had to hit Billy Idol fast because he's generally a slow starter."
"Billy played a stronger game than we expected," said Wendel. "He felt he had something to prove this week, and he found a way to make the stops."

•••

Unabomber confirmed his injury, a torn calf ligament, will keep him out of the lineup until at least February. The hard-shooting pointman, voted the Most Feared Roadster, first hurt his leg last season, tweaked it in the pre-season, and then commited more serious damage two weeks ago, when he was barely able to hobble off the court.

Posted by jaysuburb at November 28, 2004 03:45 PM