Well, I really didn’t expect to write this, but…. the Snakes have won your 2019, 21-and-over Platinum Division at the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Championships in St. Ignace, Michigan.

7-4

13-8

12-3

12-7

Snakes win.

Wow. Just wow. I really can’t explain what happened last weekend. One because of the pure joy of winning the tournament and two because it was a three-day binge drinking extravaganza where I had a Labatt Blue welded to my hand the entire time. But if there is one thing that I can confirm is we won the fuckin thing. We won the whole fuckin thing. When the tournament schedule was announced and I found out we were in the highest division, I bitched, kicked, screamed, and tantrumed because I didn’t think we were good enough to compete. But sure as shit we won the whole mother fucking thing with our smallest margin of victory coming in at a three count (7-4).

We have now won the Silver, Gold, and Platinum divisions of the tournament and the Snakes are 8-0 with two championships since the rebrand. If you are unfamiliar with the rebrand please refer to our team’s history article. We are definitely not the most skilled hockey players out there, but the pond game is an entirely different animal than typical indoor ice hockey.

If you’re wondering why I kicked and screamed when we originally got put in Platinum, it’s because we’ve lost in Silver, we’ve lost in the Gold championship like four times, and last year we barely snuck out the Gold championship winning by a single goal. So I thought for sure our binge drinking, chain smoking, gaggle of washed-up-never-beens would get completely dick-kicked and dust-busted in the top division. I mean, it’s a 21 and over division and our youngest fella is 26, with our oldest coming in at the absolutely ANCIENT age of 29. If he’s on the team any longer we might as well reach out to AARP for a sponsorship.

But, being our 8th year in the tournament, we have developed a system with distinct roles that play to our skill-set, a very strict system that we have fine tuned, adapted, and made personnel changes that we stick to no matter what, and I think that’s why we were able to have success.

Now the way the schedule works is we leave the Mitten mid-day Thursday, get up there and meet at the Mackinaw Grill where we normally crush beers and pick up our Labatt Swag, this year, we got stuck in the parking lot due to snow.

And saw Darren McCarty in some of his glory.

Thursday night was the usual shitshow. Everyone is all juiced to be up there and we drink and gamble wayyyyy too much…as is tradition.

Friday is the first game day, but it’s nice because there is only one game and it is usually later in the morning or early afternoon. We all have mild hangover but it’s fine because we’re really jacked to get ready, get to the bay, and hit the ice. And boy did the ice not disappoint.

One added element of the year was my buddy’s indestructible speaker. This thing was fantastic. If you saw my Instagram story he wheeled this thing around everywhere we went, and every time we blared Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part II.

Honestly, we didn’t stop.

Our first game was probably our most competitive, but we were able to get the W. Friday night is another wild one, pretty much the same shit as the night before except you’re doing it for longer. We hit the pool/hot tub, hung out, played euchure, farted, burped, chirped and giggled. Stupid shit. Guys being dudes.

Saturday we almost always have an “early” game. This year was 10am. It’s tough after two days of drinking. And on this day you always have two games, this year the weather was pretty wild so it was all pushed back. But after winning game one we decided to tailgate cause the same buddy with the speaker brought up a grill with burgers and beans. So we had a Snake-gate in between games.

And if you’re reading this going “idk how they did all this shit and still played hockey,” trust me, no one on this team is in peak condition (note the Snake above with a cig in his mouth breaking into a can of baked beans with no can opener) …the pond game is a very different game.

Also, throughout the time we hang out at the pond, they have a big tent with vendors, food, beers, live music, and the best people watching in the UP. You get to meet fine individuals like the fine ladies of the Maple Queefs.

I did a piss poor job of getting media of the wild individuals up there, and the live music tent. I’ll do better next year, promise. I am just happy one of the boys was able to snag a pic of the K-Zoo Queefs before we headed back south.

You almost ALWAYS have to go 3-0 to make it to the championship, very rarely do you sneak in with a 2-1 record and get in based on goal differential. So the late game Saturday is key. At half (you play 2, 15 minute halves) we were tied 3-3. But luckily our eye of the Snake kicked in and we were able to completely shut down whoever the fuck we were playing 12-3. We had punched our ticket to Championship Sunday.

Saturday night is when the real freaks come out to play. Most teams don’t play the next day and just completely lose their minds. In addition to that, some teams do play the next day and also….completely lose their minds (like us).

Championship Sunday is normally a quiet ride to the Bay. Everyone is kind of eerily hungover but also simultaneously jacked to play in the finals. It’s a weird combination of eagerly anxious to win and nervously trying to decipher the difference between a fart and a shart. Normally championship Sunday they move you to one of the better rinks available. We showed up and saw that we were playing a team that was bigger and definitely more skilled than us…but the key weakness for them….they only had 5 guys (you’re allowed to dress 7). From experience, you need every guy in the world up there. I would have 10 on a team if the tournament would allow it. Five guys is not enough…you get too tired. But anyways, long story short we stuck to our system and they ran out of gas, and we were able to take home the heralded Platinum Stump ship 12-7, improving to 8-0 since the transition from Dangle Snipe Celly to the Snakes.

It was another wildly successful year. We all won on the ice, while simultaneously losing on the tables. We played a billion games of euchre, chugged a billion beers, and relentlessly made fun of each other. We met locals who were a fan of our play and scuffled with opponents who thought the complete opposite. We got stuck in the snow, saw Darren McCarty, and lost money on the Red Wings who lost every game of the entire weekend.

Each member of the team fights their own internal battle of booze, skating, falling, eating, smoking, and hydrating the entire weekend. Some do it better than others. Everyone there kind of operates on their own schedule and does what works best for them. In the earlier younger years we kind of had this everyone sticks together and no one is allowed to stray from the path mentality. But as we’ve gotten older we tend to let everyone do their own thing as long as they’re not being a colossal pussy. A championship team is not simply put together by the results on the ice, it takes a team effort to make sure maximum enjoyment is had during Ignace weekend. It’s hard to believe we just completed year eight in the tournament, my hangovers definitely last longer these days…but in turn, I think I appreciate going up there a little more with each passing year.

If you’re a hockey player and really love the game, no matter your skill level, it’s something you should consider, it really is an all encompassing celebration of hockey in the most Pure Michigan setting I have ever been a part of. Until next year. #hsssss 🐍

– Frank