Must Reverse Hex After Erik Johnson Injury

(The hockey god POKECHECKTICUS is seated before the Bubble Hockey Table of The Gods, selecting which players to use in tonight’s game. He toys momentarily with a miniature version of OLLI JOKINEN, waving a piece of waffle around the miniature hockey player’s head. TRAPPUS BLOCKUS enters stage right, a scroll and quill pen in his hand.)

Pokecheckticus: “What ho, Trappus Blockus!”

Trappus Blockus: “Salutations, friend Pokecheckticus!”

P.: “These upstart Blues of St. Louis, have they been truly broken upon the Wheel of Frustration?”

T.B.: “‘Strewth, their spirits falter and fail not, much to my dismay. Are they men of flesh and blood or have they been forged of steel, their mothers’ wombs like unto the furnace of Vulcan?”

P.: “I’ll check thusly.”

(Pokecheckticus takes down the miniature of DAVID PERRON and taps it on the side of the head with his finger. Stars appear around the player’s head.)

P.: “To the rolls of the infirm with you, young Quebecois! Ha ha! Come the cock’s first crow, you’ll feel that!”

T.B.: “They are but flesh, then. So noted, as I put quill to vellum!”

P.: “You have a list?”

T.B.: “I do.”

P.: “Do you wish these Blues removed from the area of Lord Stanley?”

T.B.: “Would that they be moved unto hoary Saskatoon, I do hate them!”

P.: “Stay thy wrath, Trappus Blockus! When spake we last unto Pontifex Haxticus Bettman, we said that yon Canadian wheatfields could not sustain our game at such a level of professionalism!”

T.B.: “Ay, our previous jape is our undoing, Pokecheckticus!”

P.: “But still these Blues can suffer! See how we place golden-locked Oshie upon the ice! Their blue jacketed simulacra are the cuplrits!”

(Pokecheckticus places T.J. OSHIE into the bubble hockey set and slams a group of COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS into him.)

T.B.: “Joy! He now walks as an old man!”

P.: “Mike Modano?”

T.B.: “ZING!”

(Trappus Blockus accidentally gives MIKE MODANO a papercut with his scroll.)

T.B.: “I have erred, but it worked well with Roman Polak in earlier days. No matter! Who among the wearers of the Note Azure will fall next?”

P.: “Do you fancy a relapse of an old jousting wound?”

T.B.: “No.”

P:: “Neither does Erik Johnson! Ha!”

(Pokecheckticus places ERIK JOHNSON in the bubble hockey set and spins him into a Red Wing.)

T.B.: “A golf cart’s as good as a wheelchair unto the Hockey Gods!”

P.: “Indeed! And yet even threats of a plague of pantsless blue rats ’pon the ice as a first line breaks their spirits not a bit!”

T.B.: “Shall we toy wih David Backes?”

(Trappus Blockus takes DAVID BACKES from the shelf.)

P.: “Nay, I wish not to test my immortality in such a manner again.”

T.B.: “Brad Boyes?”

P.: “Did we not take his talent?”

T.B.: “And ZING! again! Ha ha, friend Pokecheckticus, we’ll have them cursing our names yet! Who else has not yet withstood our wrath?”