The Adventures of Krystal Kid: Double Deuce

Friday, June 16, 2006

Double Deuce

So as we all know I am KLHOF Inductee #22. Or as it says on the box #0022. Those leading zeros imply great things don't they? Thousands of Krystal Lovers. Rabid Legions of Fans. We'll conquer the world, one small square burger at a time!
Anyway, if you go back to my first interview and my posts immediately after it, you'll see there was talk of me being #32. It seems that for my first interview there was a slight break down in communication and 22 became 32, and thats what the reporter and I were both told. I was overjoyed, as I explained then, because 32 is a very special number to us computer geeks. 32 is 2⁵ (two to the fifth power). Or for those less mathematically motivated 2x2x2x2x2.
(As an aside the following numbers all make computer geeks salivate like Pavlov's dog: 0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024. There's even bigger numbers but only uber-geeks care about those.)
So when I found I was #22 instead of #32, some wondered if I was upset or crushed. The answer is absolutely not. Obviously 22 is less than 32 so it's better in most people's minds. Now being the mathlete that I am, I could quickly point out that instead of one 2, I have two 2s. That's a plethora of 2s. You could also take 22 and divide it by 2 leaving 11 and those digits add up to 2s. Thats a bunch of twos. Have I lost you yet? Good! Lets try a different angle.
My love of numbers and math is rivaled by my love of hockey, and I combined the two (haha) for years by manually tracking statistics at almost every game I ever went to. Thats about 10 years and about 30-50 games a year. In Macon we had several players over the years who wore #22, but perhaps the greatest, and my favorite was Mark Green.

Mark's best years may have been behind him by the time he got to Macon. He was a star in college at Clarkson, and set several scoring records in his early years in the ECHL. He even got short runs in the AHL and IHL, the step below the NHL. While his skating and speed were never legendary, he could shoot like no one else I have ever seen. I saw him do amazing things with a stick and puck during practices and during games. It was sheer magic. Of course the wicked curve in his stick may have something to do with it.

My favorite Mark green story was a game against Fayetteville. The only time I actually sat behind the goal during a game. Mark found himself about 6' from the goal and had a wide open shot. Everyone in the arena knew Mark could score from there but instead he launched a rocket of a shot and hit the goalie right in the face mask. The ref blew the whistle and the goalie launched out of net yelling at Mark 'You did that on purpose!' Mark's reply was simply 'Yup! And I am going to do it again in a second.' Sure enough Macon won the next face off, the puck was passed to Mark who happened to be standing in exactly the same spot. There was a momentary hesitation before Mark launched another rocket shot hitting the goalie in the face mask again. As the goalie went nuts, Mark simply laughed his great laugh and skated away knowing he'd gotten the goalie off his game. Macon then proceeded to pile on the goals until Fayetteville had to swap out their goalies. Mark had single handedly won the game without ever scoring a goal.
Perhaps Mark's greatest quality wasn't his amazing skills, his great hands or wicked slap shot. Mark had a sense of humor that infected everyone around him. You could see it on and off the ice and in everything he did. He had a great smile and a big laugh. He was like a big kid.
So maybe I'm not #32. I'm #22, but that's great, too. I'm honored. I try to approach everything with a sense of humor and spread it around as much as possible. #22 is a lot to live up to, but I'll try.
And if you get in my way I'll drill you between the eyes with a chili cheese pup! (That's my big kid side talking!) I'm A Krystal Lover