At the end of the last post I promised more photos from the Chelsea/Woodhaven hockey game. You promised to be suitably excited. (Yes you did. Don’t argue.) I’m fulfilling my promise. Are you?

Midway through the third period the game was heating up with some good action and a few solid hits. One particular hit brought the entire game to a halt. How? Well…here, take a look. I think you’ll figure it out.

That’s not a pile of diamonds dropped by some swashbuckling pirate who found himself confined in the penalty box, largely because diamond-carrying pirates don’t play hockey, you weirdo. No, those are the remains of the pane of glass — okay, fine, plexiglass — that shattered when a fine gentleman from Woodhaven gently nudged a fine gentleman from Chelsea into the glass. The fine gentleman from Woodhaven was censured by the authorities because he was a bit dilatory in the execution of his wallop, but there was a more pressing matter to be dealt with: there was a gaping hole where once there had been a pane of glass.

As the teams headed to the locker rooms, the first matter of business was to clean up that mess.

Yes, that mess. Cleanup involved several helpful folks.

It also involved shovels.

Even the man known as the Bulldog Clock Guy, the scoreboard operator for home Chelsea hockey games, pitched in.

Once the broken glass was out of the way, replacement glass arrived by special courier.

When the ref arrived with the glass, the other ref blew his whistle and penalized him for delay of pane. (That didn’t happen. But if it had, he would have been my favorite ref of all time.)

The crew started to install the glass…

…but soon discovered it was the wrong size: it was too large. Off they went to find another pane. Again they began to set the glass in place…

…and again they discovered it was the wrong size: it was too small. If my memories of children’s literature serve me right, the next pane should be juuuuuuust right. Right?

Oh, look! Here it comes now!

The crew again put the glass in place…

And…hey! It fit! It was filthy, but it fit.

If this had been a kids book, it would have been called Stripeyshirt and the Three Panes.

Stripeyshirt tried the first pane of glass.

“This pane is too big!” he exclaimed.

So he tried the second pane of glass.

“This pane is too small,” he said.

So, he tried the last pane of glass.

“Ahhh, this pane is just right,” he said happily and he fixed it in place.

With the mess cleaned up and the replacement glass (finally) in place, the game resumed. If you didn’t see the previous post and you’re wondering how the game concluded, go do that now before I hold you in contempt of blog.

(Programming note: there’s one more set of photos from this game. Trust me, you’re going to want to come back for that post.)