The Championship Celebration

Various NYC Area Bars, New York

It was a historic night in New York City for many reasons on February 20th. For the first time in their 126-year existence, the 2021-22 edition of the Columbia University College Hockey Men’s Hockey Lions won the league championship. This historic night officially caps off one of the most successful and speedy franchise rebuilds in ACHA DIII club hockey history. As one would expect, the celebrations lasted long into the night, as the team had the traditional Gatorade shower in the locker room of Dix Hills arena and partied there well into the night (before, of course, getting kicked out by the custodial staff 45 minutes later as they needed to clean the room in preparation for the weekly Sunday night beer league game that booked the ice after the MET Hockey Championship game). The team then stumbled into the local watering hole called The Standard Biergarten for a few rounds before the members of the team went their separate ways. This article will try to shed light on how the rest of the night went for certain players.

Any championship starts at the top, and that’s where we will begin. After an impressive performance on the ice with the team’s top line, Captain Astro ‘Ben’ Vermette may have had an even more impressive off ice performance at a local watering hole near campus called ‘The Heights.’ While Astro is already a regular and on a first name basis with most of the staff, he believed his recent championship status had elevated him to VIP level as the staff did not make him pay for his first five rounds. It turns out that linemate Pat McGoey, who was also at The Heights, decided to celebrate his five-goal performance by buying five rounds for everyone in the place. By the end of the night, McGoey’s tab was a little too great for him to handle himself. Astro decided to settle the debt by taking an acoustic guitar he found on the wall down and playing half-English-half-French-half-Drunk renditions of Gordon Lightfoot songs. This let them walk out of the bar without paying a dime, they even had a nice security escort take them all the way to the front doors. Hours later, Vermette was spotted being overhead-carried by four frat boys. Astro was unavailable for comment when asked whether this was a celebratory thing or just his preferred method of transportation.

Speaking of frats, two players coming off fantastic seasons were juniors Weston Goodman and Dennis Franklin. The two players spent the night carrying the championship trophy to each and every frat they had rushed (and been subsequently denied from) as freshmen to remind them all of what could have been.

Some of the more mature players on the team opted to have a quieter night of celebrating. After separating from the group, Chris Mendell spent hours crafting the perfect tweet to send to team USA women’s hockey member Hilary Knight. The tweet could not be sent as Chris is still blocked on all social media platforms by both Knight and her title sponsor, Chipotle.

Finally, Coach Bruce Baker celebrated by bringing out a brand-new olive-green three-piece suit. Most New York clubs are known for denying entry due to people being underdressed, but in an interesting turn of events Bruce was denied entry for being too well-dressed. Not knowing how to handle this rejection, Baker did what every strong head coach does––looked to his assistants for help. Baker reached out to Arieh Soferr (who is notorious for being denied entry into places he wants to get into) but Sof was unavailable for the call, as his championship celebrations led him into a passionate drunken debate about foreign policy with a local street lamp.

As for this re-hired junior reporter; I opted for a quiet celebration as this was going to be the first contract I signed through QuantCorp that I would finish without being fired. The Quantcorp Sabermetrics for reporting are difficult to analyze, but I believe I had a successful day of reporting which ultimately led to me being blocked by Sacred Heart Club Hockey’s Official Twitter account. Being blocked by both Sacred Heart and Northern Virginia (still not a state) Community College led me to believe that I had been as prestigious as a reporter as I could be. But as the final minutes before midnight trickled down, I received a call from QuantCorp head offices letting me know that they no longer needed my services, effective immediately.

Mark Rassell was a Junior Reporter for the Columbia University Men’s Hockey Lions. He is unaware how long this bit will last yet he remains committed to Twitter shenanigans as long as he is needed.