Friday, January 29, 2010

Rampaging?

At NHL.com today, Dan Rosen pens an essay titled, "Capitals' rampaging offense has been unstoppable."

"Rampaging" is one of those words that trip a nerve cell deep within our addled brain. And that nerve cell is linked to the memory of a line from a somewhat obscure movie about a woeful college football team playing through a year under suspension from the NCAA.

The movie is titled, "Necessary Roughness," and one of its characters is an old school coach with a gruff (but heart of gold) personality, played by Robert Loggia (whose picture you will find in Websters if you look up "gruff").

What the phrase "rampaging offense" triggered was the memory from the movie of a locker room speech that, if you set it to the Caps -- and how an opponent might deal with that "rampaging offense -- might go like this...

"YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY WINNING HARD-NOSED HOCKEY? YOU PLAY HOCKEY LIKE THE WASHINGTON CAPITALS PLAY HOCKEY! A team that skates like hell for their fans! They have three lines that can score, and THEY PLAY LIKE GODDAMN WILDMEN! ... NO! ... LIKE GODDAMN RAMPAGING BEASTS! And that's the way you got to do it! YOU GO OUT THERE! YOU TEAR THEIR F***ING HEADS OFF, AND YOU S**T DOWN THEIR NECKS!

"Let us pray."

Washington Capitals... "rampaging beasts"

We kinda like the sound of that.

2 comments:

Iafrate's Baldspot said...

I cannot rec this post enough.

Hateoffseason said...

I was in college at SMU in Dallas when this movie released. It was filmed 35 miles north in Denton, at the University of North Texas. Got into a premier screening of the movie, where almost the entire crowd in the theater had been extras in the movie (stadium scenes). If you ever get a chance to watch a movie with people who were in it, I would recommend taking the time. It was like actually being at a football game.