Wallaby Wednesday: The deprived childhood of Ed Bighead

Among Ed Bighead’s flashbacks, his bowling-championship choke job and Ralph’s alleged betrayal of Conglom-O have nothing on the treasure-map fiasco.

Unlike the preceding pair, the memory depicted in “Sailing the Seven Zzz’s” occurred in Ed’s early youth. It also triggers a tearful outburst that not even his wife, let alone their fellow opera attendees, can contextualize.

In the next scene, the dialogue makes it clear that Ed is only explaining himself to Bev now. If not for their outing to a pirate-themed show, he would have kept suppressing his own play. Although by the time of this episode, a three-year sample size of Rocko’s Modern Life confirms that strategy has not helped him, let alone those around him.

In an upload of the flashback sequence, one YouTube user beat this author to an inescapable theory. Danielle Romero1 commented, “Maybe Ed is grouchy because of his rough childhood.”

Danielle is right to suspect this. After seeing Ed’s temper for three years with a dearth of explanation, Rocko viewers get multiple clues about his upbringing. Those hints cast a streak of new light on some prior sequences, building the case all the more.

“Sailing the Seven Zzz’s” is Season 4’s first segment prominently featuring the Bigheads. (Its Part A partner, “With Friends Like These,” only shows them joining the handcuffed-to-your-best-friend race to the KWOO studio.) It is also the first of two storylines to address the simple pleasures Ed missed out on as a boy. The other comes when he faces and acts on his interest in entertaining present-day children and children at heart.

Dealing with a difficult, antagonistic peer, especially in school, often comes with a third-party explanation along the lines of, “He’s having a hard time at home. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but we should try to understand.” Any attempts to meet halfway may work, although the person in question may revert.

Such is the fluctuating pattern in the final, and therefore most evolved, season of Rocko. As if to restore a semblance of normalcy, such as it is in the show’s universe, Ed’s callousness returns for the final episodes. In the de facto series finale, he is seen holding a monkey captive, with plans to send it to space.

The subsequently premiered Thanksgiving special essentially has turkeys replacing bugs in an abysmal upgrade from Season 3’s “Rocko’s Happy Vermin.” (Incidentally, both of those plots culminate in a piano falling on the bad guy.) Before those two plots, Ed runs for dog catcher with intent to institute policies of animal cruelty.

Yet in between, he obtains more sympathetic collateral to go with his unresolved pirate memory. “Closet Clown” came at the halfway mark of Season 4, depicting him as insecure about an ostensibly stigmatized fun-loving part of him.

Though reluctant to divulge his moonlighting gig to Bev, Ed takes it up all the same at the behest of his Conglom-O boss. As Mr. Dupette hands him his first assignment, he is subtly overcome and nearly speechless.

“A birthday party,” he says with soft excitement. “A real birthday party.”

As basic as that line is, it joins the delivery to pack big food for thought in a small box.

It is worth noting what Ed’s performer, Charlie Adler, said about his occupation at the 2015 Florida Supercon. At the 63-minute mark of the linked video, he states, “This is not a thought process, this is a feeling process.”

The way Ed softens from season to season underscores how Adler’s feeling process with him evolved. Yes, the actor got more sympathetic storylines to work with in the latter stages, but he needed to do his part to enliven them. The beginning of “Sailing the Seven Zzz’s” and the entirety of “Closet Clown” epitomize that.

Why is Ed, a veteran Conglom-O executive with a history of spoiling his younger neighbor’s fun, so moved by the prospect of visiting a stranger’s birthday party? The way Adler puts the emotion into it should spark critical thinking.

After all, the flashback and Ed’s reaction thereto in “Sailing the Seven Zzz’s” is easier to dismiss as a mere joke at the expense of Rocko’s chief antagonist. His could’ve-would’ve-should’ve rant about “That stupid treasure map!” alone is not enough to dig deep into his lasting lack of fulfillment.

“Closet Clown” is different. It evokes memories of the show’s prior depictions of Ed’s history as a father. On its own or along with the premise of “I Have No Son,” it raises questions regarding Ed’s never-seen parents.

Because six-year-old Ed and two elementary-school staffers are the only figures seen and heard in his lone childhood flashback, speculation is a necessary evil here. With that said, what are we to gather from Ed’s melted-heart line in “Closet Clown” if not that he never got to attend “a real birthday party” growng up?

Ed’s handling of his own son could be a continuation of a vicious cycle. When Ralph reappears, his father blasts him for having “disgraced the Bighead name!” He goes on to reference Ralph’s cartoon with a derogatory delivery.

If the pirate-play debacle circa first grade did not singlehandedly suppress Ed’s fun-loving side, his parents may have. His father may have preceded him at Conglom-O or a similar corporate behemoth and compelled him to focus on career training. This would set the pattern for the way Ed raised Ralph, as Bev briefly recounts to Rocko through a photo album.

Under that theory, Ed would not only have missed out on schoolmates’ parties, but also denied Ralph those moments. Even if he does not express it, his regret surely starts breaking out by the time the two reconcile.

His first step toward reversing his attitude comes at the end of “I Have No Son.” He stops hate-watching The Fatheads and even invites his inner-child-pleasing neighbor to share a good laugh over it.

But by that point in the Rocko canon, “Closet Clown” is still two-and-a-half years away. Ed has a long way to go, as his timeline of sadistic deeds slows down a tad, but continues nonetheless.

In Season 1, Ed tries to have Rocko’s house condemned, then ceremoniously shreds Rocko’s baseball. He later tries to have Rocko electrocuted and trampled while testing Conglom-O’s sketchy products. In the mountains, he tries to bury Rocko and Heffer with a colossal snowball.

After its double-segment premiere, the rest of Season 2 depicts Ed as comparatively less cruel. He is still selfish and overbearing, most notably with his bowling team, but has eased off his penchant for peril.

By Season 3, he garners a fair share of sympathy via “Old Fogey Froggy,” as this space previously addressed. But two segments later, his inner sociopath resurges to unprecedented heights in “Rocko’s Happy Vermin.”

In “Wacky Delly,” he shows his son an elaborate plan to melt Rocko and his friends. When Ralph rejects this, they send a tsunami to Hollowood with a clear lack of regard for residents’ safety. He is also the last holdout when O-Town grows and acts on its collective environmental conscience.

Yet we know he is not a mere cantankerous caricature of a cane toad. While he may not fully mollify, let alone turn his personality 180 degrees, his three-dimensional persona is permanent once put in place.

Perhaps he does not use the park, and would just as soon dump his trash there, because that was the site of countless parties he did not get to attend. Following “Zanzibar” by half a season, “Closet Clown” brings that possibility to light. Based on the reception Ed gets when his secret spills, his healthful way of making up for childhood miss-outs is better late than never.

Naturally, none of this absolves him, retroactively or going forward, for threatening death and destruction. But to their credit, Ed’s wife and acquaintances quickly embrace him when they realize he is the clown catering to the first birthday party of Filburt and Paula’s quadruplets.

Perhaps there is hope for his relationship with young nieces, nephews and potential grand-tadpoles.

Wallaby Wednesday: How ‘Flu-In-U-Enza’ is such a relatable episode

Haven’t we all had a moment mirroring Rocko’s ill-timed illness in Season 1’s “Flu-In-U-Enza” storyline? It is hard to imagine not, although I crave confirmation, and thus invite you to share your experience in the comment thread.

All I know is that Joe Murray, along with his cast and crew, for all of the times and ways they overshot their network’s intended demographic, created one simple, appreciable plot for kids who hate being sick when it is most inconvenient. In addition, they demonstrated that one need not outgrow the desire to stay healthy for that which one looks forward to.

With that in mind, this week’s Wallaby Wednesday functions as an open thank-you note to Murray and company.

On this day in 1997, a wave of anticipated events was poised to start rolling in for this author. Our third-grade class would spend its Thursday lunch period savoring a hard-earned Pizza Hut party after collectively reading the requisite number of books. Friday marked our last day of school before a weeklong spring break.

For me, that respite would largely involve following the first round of the American Hockey League playoffs. My beloved Providence Bruins were to face the favored archrival Worcester IceCats in a best-of-five series.

Despite their underdog status, the P-Bruins had stolen a statement-making victory from the Worcester Centrum two weeks earlier before clinching their playoff berth. An upset was perfectly plausible.

Most importantly, though, the first of two possible home games in the series was on the first Saturday of my spring break, and my father had obtained two tickets. We were coming on 51 weeks since attending the overtime loss that ended Providence’s previous playoff run against the Springfield Falcons. Now we would get a firsthand glimpse at the team’s bid to improve upon that shortcoming.

Like Rocko first told Spunky of the WWWWF match before a Nickelodeon audience in the fall of 1993, “The long wait was worth it.” Unlike the pair of Carlos Alazraqui characters, the Daniels might not have had the best seats in the house. But we were to sit in the lower bowl, which was a bargain by all accounts.

But amidst the long weekend’s appetizer that was our Pizza Hut-catered lunch, a bout of nausea robbed me of my appetite. I mustered a few bites, but otherwise subsisted on Sprite before determinedly taking to the soccer field for recess. Assuming my favorite position before the net, I was so out of sorts I accidentally kicked in an own goal.

As it happened, I was coming down with strep throat. School was out of the question for Friday, which hardly felt like a big loss to my eight-year-old self. But the next night’s journey to the Providence Civic Center was in question.

Naturally, and thankfully, there were no questionable treatments or prescriptions from the doctor. Just a brief gagging episode following a throat swab. And because I ate so little at the pizza party, I was spared any undigested upchuck, let alone the sentient kind that comes to nurse one back to life.

 

That aside, I told everyone who had the power to help me what Rocko told his vomit. I had to get better in time for the game I was itching to see the next night.

A recent sequence of similar events gave me hope. The preceding August, my one-off release of nonanthromorphic spew threatened our family’s outing to Boston the next day. Fortunately, thanks to my lack of subsequent symptoms, we went forward with my third lifetime trip to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game.

This was different in that this illness felt more legitimate. It was not a simple case of motion-, careless eating- or summer heat-induced retching. The longer the host of symptoms lingered, the more the unacceptable specter of Saturday night at home lurked.

Granted, I had been blessed to attend more P-Bruins games than usual in the 1996-97 regular season. In previous years, I averaged two outings, but had already made four this season.

Nonetheless, I would only have so many opportunities to see the Civic Center during the playoffs. Besides that, there was a chance I would be relocating that summer.

That scenario would come to fruition, as was confirmed no later than the following week. This twist made the 1997 tournament my last chance to catch the team I had grown up on for the foreseeable future.

I never rested with more determination than I did that whole Friday and Saturday morning. My only stimulation came Friday night, as I loyally listened to the radio broadcast of Game 1 from Worcester. The IceCats erased an early 2-0 deficit to salvage a 5-4 squeaker, further indicating this would be anyone’s series.

Like a player that time of year, I was determined to convince the powers that be I was game-ready, even if I was not really 100 percent. And unlike Rocko, I did not wake up Saturday morning on the heels of a miracle cure. I suppose that was the only downside to the absence of vomit in this story.

Come what may, hours ahead of the Civic Center doors opening, I was cleared to go back out in public. As a pivotal plus, no other household members caught my bug, freeing the ticketholders from any dilemma.

Although, if any pickle had presented itself, I would like to think I would have let the Heffer in my life take our seats. Yes, it was the minor leagues, but I was a devout Rhode Islander, and this was our state’s pro team. Tickets to one of their playoff games, especially ones as close to the ice as ours, were too great a commodity to leave unused.

With that said, I was glad those stubs stayed in the hands of their intended users, right through the turnstiles. Fate had been a little kinder to me and my family than it had to Rocko and Spunky.

It did not even matter that Game 2 ended in another 5-4 Providence loss. As always, but especially that night, just being there was enough of a win for me.

Before and since, I have had other moments where less-than-perfect health threatened to keep me from important events and commitments. But those have been exceedingly rare compared to the succession of near-misses with the Red Sox and P-Bruins circa 1996-97.

All things considered, the mid-April 1997 strike of strep throat on the eve of the AHL playoffs remains the quintessence. Long after I have left my old locale and ceased to be much of a hockey enthusiast, it keeps coming to mind every time I see the original episode. It lives on as my personal “Flu-In-U-Enza” saga.

What’s yours?

Wallaby Wednesday: Turdy, the live-fast-die-young type of bird

If only Rocko and Dr. Hutchison knew the finer points of Turdus Minimus. Then they might have been more understanding of Filburt’s precautionary tearful good-bye to his “precious Turdy.” In addition, the pet-sitting wallaby could have been ready to expect the unexpected while the bird was alive and in his house.

According to Google Translate, the scientific name of this ficticious species translates to “Sylvia least.” Other sources note that the first name connotes relations to a robin. Based on that, Turdy is somehow the least of the thrush (or Turdidae) family.

As “Bye-Bye Birdie” demonstrates, he has the least amount of time to live of any known avian pet. By that token, he also has the least to lose, and his actions suggest he knows it. Based on his sentiments when they part early in the third-season premiere of Rocko’s Modern Life, Filburt knows it too.

When another psychosomatic flare-up sends Filburt to the hospital, he bids what appears to be a melodramatic good-bye to his bird. Hutch rolls her eyes as Filburt tells Turdy to “Remember who loves you the most! That’s right, Papa loves you the most!”

But when he reappears and learns of Turdy’s abrupt death, he indirectly explains his prior emotions. He even admits to neglecting to mention a pertinent fact beforehand.

As it happens, Turdy was of a species that normally does not live beyond three weeks. By contrast, the real-life American robin (or Turdus migratoris) lives for an average of two years. One study found that roughly one-quarter of the population reaches one year.

An exceptional specimen of the American robin reportedly reached the age of 14. In Europe, members of six other Turdus species have exceeded expectations to tunes ranging between seven and 21 years.

But even at one year, Turdus migratoris dwarfs Turdus minimus in its expected time on Earth. To that point, in reference to Turdy, Filburt adds, “I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.”

Whether he is merely mindful of the species’ average lifespan because of its listing in books in unclear. Filburt might know more as to why the lifespan is so short. Based on Rocko’s brief experience with the bird, Turdus minimus has a penchant for peril.

Then again, as far as he lets on, Turdy’s worst behavior in Filburt’s residence was pecking at the furniture. Perhaps the bird’s biological clock had not reached its not-much-time-left warning point before Filburt went to the hospital.

Being in a new setting and away from his doting owner is bound to give him a greater sense of leeway as well. After all, Dr. Hutchison offers Rocko no warning at the beginning of the episode. There may be something to her tired “Good luck” wish, but perhaps she is relenting and refraining from making any points that would upset Filburt. It is bad enough that she does not want to kiss the bird.

Or maybe she has never faced anything warranting a visit from the avian equivalent of Jackson Galaxy. As Filburt’s girlfriend, soon-to-be fiancée and eventual wife, she has implicitly not been a target for Turdy’s pecking.

Even if she had been, at the very worst, that phase ended in due time as the two grew on each other. Although Hutch’s indifference to Filburt’s emotions signal the pet has not wholly endeared himself to her either.

By contrast, being surrounded and approached by strangers can make the bird anything but boring. Even if he is not rattled by the change of scenery, he is poised to play while Filburt is away. He is less susceptible to guilt if his loving owner is not around to potentially admonish him.

Regardless, no later than when he reaches his maximum expectancy, Turdy is more inclined to elevate his inner nuisance. And so, Spunky is his first victim as soon as he breaks out of his cage at Rocko’s. The customers of a complaintant later suffer the same pain by pecking.

All things considered, pecking fellow living creatures is a mere next step from doing the same to inanimate objects. For the bird, that is no different than the way domestic, non-humanoid, territorial cats rub their heads against people and furniture alike.

The what-the-heck, death-defying steps continue. As the episode highlights, Turdy’s most daring and dangerous vices start with repeated intimate interactions with a man’s monkey. He subsequently escapes the house to engage in seven other aggravating activities.

Beyond the typically avian misbehaviors, he ingests enough gas to breathe fire, sets a car ablaze and devours a pony. Inexplicably, the timeless nursery-rhyme old lady’s undoing has no visible effect on the bird that has already stretched its lifespan.

Like Homer Simpson, in the words of Frank Grimes, he logically “should have been killed dozens of times by now.” Even “the monkey guy” could have worked up enough rage to inflict physical harm on the bird. Given the revelation that confirms the nature of the bird-monkey relations, he could have snapped at what he witnessed.

Yet neither emotionally boiled-over humanoids nor flames nor oversized meals spell mortal injury. Whether Turdy has naturally aged or is of a species whose behavior regularly shorterns their lives, he is going against the norm. Barring fatal intervention by another species, he could enter the record books.

Instead, Turdy is sitting placidly, chained to Rocko on the couch, when he finally meets his demise. Heffer’s gargantuan gluteus, which will later nurture Filburt and Hutch’s unhatched children, does in the nuisance bird.

It all happens on the living room’s symbol of inertia, the antithesis of activity. Turdy had thrived on activity, defying death and scientific trajectories all the while. So in terms of keeping him alive, it was the quiet times his caregiver needed to watch out for.

Rebecca Lindblad lives March Madness, fosters fever for more college sports





(Photo by Stephen Slade)

 

The University of Connecticut’s Freitas Ice Forum is just that, an ice facility. It does not change over for basketball the way Husky athletics’ out-of-town home base in Hartford, the XL Center, can.

 

But one member of the UConn women’s hockey program, the Forum’s primary tenant, did make a noteworthy switch from one winter sport to the other last month. And she needed 20 days rather than 20 hours to complete the transition from one event to the next.

While the Huskies’ women’s hockey season ended March 2 in a conference quarterfinal sweep by Boston College, senior forward Rebecca Lindblad’s involvement in sports has merely begun. As an intern in the athletic department, she had the honor of joining the event staff when the women’s hoops powerhouse hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament at Gampel Pavilion.

In basketball, UConn always features prominently in national TV coverage, and this year was no different. However, Lindblad’s internship showcased what it is like to work in the sports industry and fueled her passion for her future career even more.

For the March 22 and March 24 games against Buffalo and Towson, respectively, Lindblad worked as the operation liaison, welcoming the opposing teams and assisting with event preparation.

“I fell in love with it and the excitement that sports brings,” Lindblad eagerly recounted in an interview with Pucks and Recreation.

UConn’s two victories propelled it to the Sweet 16 in Albany, N.Y., followed by a Final Four berth in Tampa. Although the Huskies bowed out to Notre Dame, the two victories Lindblad witnessed were significant in her career aspirations.

March Madness is normally a tumultuous time for fans filling out brackets, but Lindblad embraced the frenzied pace behind the scenes. Not unlike Geno Auriemma’s understudies, she took this experience as a grand reward for a season’s worth of seen and unseen preparation.

(Photo by Stephen Slade)

As an event management intern for nine months, she has supervised interns, prepared for and cleared out after events and welcomed visiting teams to the Storrs campus.

Lindblad juggled these responsibilities while working toward a sports management degree and playing hockey, where she was an alternate captain. However, she views these formative experiences as sign posts guiding her in her job search.

“Similar to hockey, my work in event management exposed me to a unique work environment,” she said. “There are so many overlaps between my job and playing hockey. Things like a positive culture, teamwork, collaboration are significant to ensuring good results. We are all working towards something bigger than us.”

While hockey and her event management internship have cultivated Lindblad’s love for sports, one can say that passion was instilled at an early age. Before matriculating at UConn, the Illinois native starred as a dual-sport athlete in high school.

On the ice, she traveled with the Chicago Young Americans in the Elite Hockey League. Interscholastically, she played golf for New Trier High School, capturing all-state honors and a state championship.

“Golf has always been a huge part of my life,” reflected Lindblad. “My dad and brother played, and I still play in the summer. We also watch many of the golf tournaments every year. With the Masters coming up this week, I will be watching some of my favorite golfers, including Jordan Speith, Matt Kuchar and Patrick Reed.”

Naturally, Lindblad prioritized hockey during her four years in Storrs. While her stats were not the most sparkling, her labor on the ice and in the gym has still drawn accolades. One year ago this week, she was one of four UConn student-athletes named an All-American for their commitment to strength and conditioning.

(Photo by Stephen Slade)

As she told the program’s website at the time of the honor, “I came to UConn full of doubt and insecurity. UConn was more than a thousand miles from home but the school, coaches, and my teammates have brought out the best in me both on and off the ice.”

Despite focusing on hockey, Lindblad’s love for all sports did not dissipate. In fact, she collaborated with other student-athletes and developed her interests even more. As an underclassman, she built her foundation for this via the Husky LEADS (Lead, Elevate, and Develop Student-Athletes) program.

“I was paired with a mentor who happened to be the current director of event management,” she told Pucks and Rec. “In fact, working with Danielle Upham was instrumental in helping me get my current role as an event management intern.”

Beyond networking, Lindblad’s two years in LEADS served as another method of personal growth. The two-year program focuses on identifying leadership traits, developing one’s strengths and improving on one’s weaknesses. In the second year, UConn invites athletes to volunteer in their local community and meet other athletes along the way.

Rounding out her experience, Lindblad spent last summer as a Recreation Intern for the Park District of Highland Park in Illinois. While there, she assisted with the planning and execution of various programs and events.

Lindblad’s leadership and interpersonal skills from these experiences will inevitably assist her as she looks beyond her time in Connecticut. However, all of her Husky teams have certainly left an indelible mark on her.

“In the future, I know I want to work in the sports industry,” she said. “I am currently applying to graduate schools in sports administration. Collegiate athletics is something that I am working towards, and hopefully I will be working in the athletics department at a university.”

-          John Morton

Wallaby Wednesday: Imagining a 21st-century O-Town Zeros ballpark

If Heffer’s fanaticism is any indication, Spike Hammerhead was to the O-Town Yards what Ken Griffey Jr. was to Seattle’s Kingdome. The slugger and stadium shared their best years in baseball, making each other synonymous with the same franchise.

But surely by now, the mid-1990s home of the O-Town Zeros is more obsolete than the landshark’s swinging arms.

Unless he was busted and disgraced for using performance-enhancing drugs, Hammerhead might now be a hitting coach. He may be one of a handful of Zeros TV analysts, either as a color commentator in the both or a pre- and post-game guru in the studio. Or he could hold an official or honorary front-office position.

Whether he is present or remote, though, Hammerhead’s new role undoubtedly accompanies a new venue for the Zeros. Based on how their stadium is depicted in Season 1’s “Spitballs” and in some non-hardball Rocko’s Modern Life episodes, they were due for a change around the turn of the century.

If and when Static Cling sees action, it may or may not catch us up on the O-Town sports scene. Until then, we can only look around the real world and make educated guesses on how the venues have evolved.

“Spitballs” premiered, and presumably takes place, in 1993. More than half of the 28 real-life big-league ballparks at the time were multi-purpose facilities. Beginning with Houston’s Astrodome, a slew of stadiums sprouted in the 1960s and 1970s to house baseball and football teams plus miscellaneous events.

Besides the Zeros, Rocko shows the O-Town Yards hosting jackhammering competitions and WWWWF matches. Between that variety of events, its vast seating capacity and its circular outward appearance, it clearly qualifies as multi-purpose.

But only 10 MLB venues from 1993 are still in use as of 2019. Concomitant with Rocko’s production, waves of retro-modern and retro-classic ballparks were taking shape.

By 1993, Baltimore’s Camden Yards was already open, replacing Memorial Stadium the year prior. The following season, Cleveland moved its team from the 74,438-seat Municipal Stadium to the 35,041-seat Jacobs Field. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers opened the Ballpark in Arlington.

Coors Field became the permanent home of the Colorado Rockies in 1995. As with Cleveland, this marked a substantial drop in seating capacity. The Rockies previously cohabitated with the NFL’s Denver Broncos at the 76,273-seat Mile High Stadium. At Coors Field, they started with 50,200 chairs, and have since cut it down to 46,879.

Since then, apart from Miami’s “contemporary” Marlins Park, every new MLB stadium is of a retro variety. Common consensus in 2012, when Marlins Park opened, was that the retro movement had peaked. But 2017’s arrival of SunTrust Park, a retro-modern venue in Atlanta’s suburbs, suggests otherwise. This century’s retro model is still very much in.

Being the satirical conformist to corporate-infused Americana that it is, O-Town is sure to have gone that route in giving the Zeros a new home. Fundamentally, the place must be an old-time diamond and seating bowl garnished with state-of-the-art conveniences.

Non-baseball events are still feasible here, but the latest venues are built with the game more expressly in mind. In addition, all of the modern retro ballparks have a seating capacity south of 50,000.

At the O-Town Yards, a front-row seat meant needing to watch for wild pitches by the Psychos’ flame-throwing reliever. The new venue may have more intimate stands, but that comes with a greater need for cautious spectating.

 

And based on the Static Cling trailer’s glimpse of the current O-Town movie theater, the retro-modern ballpark’s HD screen will bear risks of its own. Fewer seats and fewer square miles likely mean a higher percentage of attendance relative to capacity.

Combine that with the venue’s modernized accessories, and vigilence is imperative, lest game day become “a very dangerous day.”

For major-league franchises who abandoned the shared football facilities, the capacity cutback meant a drop in cumulative ticket sales. But inflated prices and private luxury suites can help them recoup that, to say nothing of stadium naming rights.

Other than shared company/family names, there was not much in the way of corporate naming rights circa 1993. But two-thirds of the active MLB parks have since submitted to the bug that began to bite high-end sports and entertainment facilities mid-decade.

The aforementioned Coors Field was one of the first places to do that. In addition, Colorado boasts one of the ballparks that took the name of a sponsor synonymous with the market. Milwaukee’s Miller Park and Minnesota’s Target Field come to mind on that front.

Those are also among the few venues to not undergo any name changes since they opened. Others have either reverted to a non-corporate moniker or transferred the rights to another sponsor.

Given the way one corporation owns all of O-Town, city hall included, there is a heavy favorite for the new Zeros stadium. The odds favor a 50,000-seat (or smaller) Conglom-O Field or Conglom-O Park.

Dark horses include Chewy Chicken, Pizza Face and the newly arrived Buzzbucks. But even without paid preferential treatment, those companies can bank on a substantial presence at the concession stands.

Beyond the old-fashioned wait-in-line stands on the concourse or at the food court, they likely have a full-fledged restaurant within the stadium, across the street or both. Given the all-encompassing array of food options in most modern ballparks, the Chinese restaurant from “Fortune Cookie” and the Schnitzel Hut from “Schnitheads” are potential options as well.

And if no combinations of those entities are coming together for a unique, Frankenstein-esque dish unique to Conglom-O Park/Field, equivalent competitors must be.

The days where you can spot Heffer holding a plain hot dog while fixated on his favorite player are long gone. Friends, and maybe even strangers, will now keep him and Rocko from getting back to their seats by daring him to reprise his Knockwurst Nightmare Platter feat with the biggest and best the stadium’s concessions can dish up.

The Schnitzel Hut may even capitalize on the locals’ love for sausage by lending four of its weenie costumes to a between-innings race, a la Milwaukee. If it is not that, then the race may pit four varieties of reliably funny cheese.

When neither that nor other in-game presentations nor the game itself is sufficiently entertaining, Slippy the carny is there. If Detroit’s Comerica Park can feature a Ferris wheel and carousel, so can O-Town’s new ballyard. In fact, Conglom-O Field/Park would likely go beyond that with its assorted carnival features.

If the lines are too long for that, the stadium wi-fi will fuel ticketholders’ O-phones with interactive Zeros apps. Heck, if you hurry, you can use a given app to beat your fellow fans to first dibs on any game-day perk available.

And to think that, circa 1994, Rocko unfavorably compares his first attempt at camping to “walking in a mall.” If only he could have more of a heads-up on the new O-Town Zeros game-day experience.

Baseball’s exponentially maligned pace of play may stretch the average O-Townie’s patience and interest thin. But Rocko, who prefers Mr. Sensible for home entertainment, the fast-paced sideshows could be too much to handle.

Life After Hockey: Greg Andrusak fishing for compromises

(Photo courtesy of Greg Andrusak)

Fittingly, a river was the boundary between the co-hosts of Greg Andrusak’s most momentous week in hockey.

Incidentally, it was none of the forward-liners comprising the Golden Triangle of the city he represented. Nor was it any of the streams he now oversees in the career his puck pursuits postponed.

It was one of North America’s household-name waterways, shadowed by the continent’s most massive metropolis. And, at the time, populated by two men with lasting cases for the GOAT crown in their respective on-ice positions.

Given its place in the world, the Hudson River cannot help connoting greatness. But uttering the word river on its own can evoke simplicity. A vision of running water and its natural inhabitants does not seem to have much to it.

Then again, untrained eyes have a similar way of deceiving hockey spectators. No matter how effortless a pack of pucksters may appear in their element, no matter how superhuman and resistant to outside disturbances they seem, they are subject to untold and often invisible variables.

Yes, team builders put each player in a given position because they see a natural fit. With that said, each individual signs up for the short end of a symbiotic relationship. With selective exceptions, everyone takes far less from the game than they give.

Furthering their modicum of control, they can never predict the twists in an environment and situation that fluctuates the way people claim their local weather does. A twist can influence a whole team’s course, or just that of an individual.

So at least Andrusak, 15 years after his final season, has less chaos going for him in one sense. He has settled in a permanent home market, back where he began in British Columbia. There he does and experiences a lot less moving than in his former vocation.

His last transaction came in the spring of 2016. He had followed his father’s footsteps to fisheries, and the two Andrusak generations headed a consulting firm in Nelson, B.C.

With Redfish Consulting Ltd., Harvey Andrusak, a three-decade veteran fisheries biologist, and Greg’s most noted collaborations included studies of Kootenay Lake, the province’s fifth-largest, and the spawning and exploitation therein.

In 2017, Harvey became the president of the BC Wildlife Federation. One year prior, Greg had shuffled from the inland town of Nelson to the coastal capital of Victoria and the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRORD).

At his prior employer, he had logged a dozen years in his self-described “niche” as a consultant and risen to Redfish’s vice presidency. Ultimately, he told Pucks and Recreation, “I was starting to realize that I’m not getting any younger.”

At 46, he took his chance to make a bigger stride, and assumed the B.C. government’s provincial rivers biologist’s office. On some days, the lifelong defenseman follows a more goalie-like regimen, staying in one physical space at his desk. But like a puckster in some youth ranks, he will also venture to a more outer position, surveying his jurisdiction firsthand.

Regardless, he is a crucial figure in his other lifelong passion’s “Show.” He has his head on a swivel, ready to answer shots from any party and any direction.

All federal, regional, private, nonprofit or simply concerned groups with a stake in B.C.’s waters are in his web. The seven organizations he mentions by name in his LinkedIn summary hardly cover it all.

“The most important part about success in hockey is the same in government,” he said via phone from his office. “Collaboration is how we mainly do our business.”

That principle, combined with geography, lends favorable familiarity to Andrusak’s post-puck profession. He is back where a love of fishing inspired him to build on his biology bachelor’s toward a long-term career in inland freshwater management.

And where, as he said, he “grew up idolizing” Wayne Gretzky. That detail was the X-factor of the front end of his peerless week on ice.
 

A graze of greatness

One mid-April Sunday in 1999, the year Redfish was founded, Andrusak was a month removed from rejoining the Pittsburgh Penguins. The organization had drafted him out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 1988, only to summon him for 12 sporadic games between 1993-94 and 1995-96.

But they signaled they wanted the third-year European-leaguer back for a guarantee-free playoff push. Andrusak inked a new Pittsburgh pact on March 18, 1999, and worked his way to a regular roster spot beginning April 3. Paired with Bobby Dollas on the third tier, he saw action in each of the final seven regular-season games.

As it happened, the Penguins went a toe-curling 2-5-0 in that stretch. They could not keep the comparatively streaking Buffalo Sabres from leap-frogging them for seventh place in the Eastern Conference.

But by April 18, the eighth and final playoff seed was safely Pittsburgh’s. In addition, a 2-1 overtime triumph in Manhattan secured a high note to take cross-Hudson for the first-round series against top-dog New Jersey.

Despite playing a stay-at-home role where stats rarely sparkle, Andrusak had something of a career day. He sustained a plus-two rating by being on the ice for both Pittsburgh strikes, including captain and regular-season MVP Jaromir Jagr’s walk-off tally.

That meant Andrusak was one of a dozen players in action when Gretzky’s career abruptly ended.

The Rangers, like the other teams below the playoff line, had not caught nearly enough fire to catch up. And with Gretzky having announced his retirement, effective at season’s end, the April 18 card would be Andrusak’s only chance to play against his old idol.

Mixed emotions ensued for every soul in Madison Square Garden. The Penguins promptly offered the man of the hour a personalized handshake line.

From there, they took their place along the bench and watched The Great One’s second round of swan-song ceremonies. (Before the game, the hockey world stood still as players and spectators in other arenas watched the ceremonies remotely.)

The ice-level personnel, to say nothing of the press, all wanted a moment at that moment with No. 99. But being one man, the owner of 61 NHL records could only oblige so much. The majority, if not the entirety, of his postgame attention went to home allies or non-padded guests.

“I wish I would have been able to approach him at the time,” Andrusak admits, “just to say thank you. That would have been a capper in my mind.”

Instead, he accepted his lack of an open shooting lane and moved on to his Stanley Cup playoff debut. His week as a growing fish in a vast, crowded, spotlight-laden aquarium was only starting.

At the time, the then-29-year-old’s postseason experience featured two Turner Cup contests along Lake Erie with the IHL’s Cleveland Lumberjacks. Now he was fostering a career hot streak of Penguins lineup inclusion and preparing to meet the other half of the Hudson River rivalry.

The Devils, backstopped by future NHL career wins and shutouts leader Martin Brodeur, were looking to restore their contender’s persona. The 1995 champions had attained the conference’s top seed in 1998, only to fall to a scrappy eighth-place Ottawa team.

If proverbial lightning was to strike twice, Pittsburgh would make it happen. After dropping Game 1, the Penguins regrouped to issue their first threat.

On Saturday, April 24, 1999, they put four of 21 shots behind Brodeur for a 4-1 victory, knotting the series and usurping the illusion of home-ice advantage. By polishing Pittsburgh’s second strike, Andrusak earned credit for the clincher.

Though he would miss the next night’s tilt due to a bout of food poisoning, the momentum continued. Back home, the Penguins seized the upper hand in the first of the set’s maximum possibility of three lead changes.

When that back-and-forth was over, the underdogs were celebrating again, Game 7 victors at a silenced Continental Airlines Arena.

“It was just sort of a whirlwind tour,” Andrusak reflected. “Going from Gretzky’s last game to (the upset). I look back at it now like it just happened yesterday.”

His illness-induced absence from Game 3 was his only benching that spring. After suiting up for six first-round games, Andrusak added another half-dozen in Pittsburgh’s conference-semifinal loss to Toronto.

But his personal playoff thrill ride was not over. He rejoined the Houston Aeros early in the IHL’s Western Conference final, and dressed for six games en route to the Turner Cup championship.

“I guess that would be the most productive and memorable time of my hockey career,” he offered.

Not that Y2K yielded too much of a letdown. Andrusak credits the Maple Leafs professional scouts who witnessed the Pittsburgh-Toronto series for offering him a contract the next season.

With the Leafs, he mustered nine regular-season and three playoff games, which ultimately finalized his NHL transcript. In between, he played for the IHL’s Chicago Wolves, with whom he won another ring in the spring of 2000.

That split campaign along two of the Great Lakes (Ontario and Michigan) added to a surplus in Andrusak’s log. When he met Turner again, he had no way of knowing his big-league basin had evaporated. But when it came to a career on climate-controlled ponds, he had long bargained with caution.
 

Vocational water cycle

Andrusak was born 350 miles inland from British Columbia’s coast in Cranbrook. That made him a virtual contemporary of future Stanley Cup-winning captains Steve Yzerman (three-and-a-half years his senior) and Scott Niedermayer (four years his junior). Other NHLers from his birthplace of roughly 20,000 included Jon Klemm (773 career games) and Jason Marshall (526).

Another 1970s Cranbrookian child, Corey Spring, mustered 16 twirls in The Show after four years at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Along with Andrusak, he was an exception to the norm of B.C.’s top-tier talent taking the major-junior route.

Through his father’s vocation, Andrusak capitalized on a wealth of opportunities to explore his province’s fisheries. Still, he was raised in what he described as a “middle-income family,” and wanted to “utilize hockey as an opportunity to get an education.”

“That had always been a focus because you never sort of felt like the NHL was achievable,” he elaborated. “Going to university was key.”

After rounding out his youth in B.C.’s Junior A ranks, he accepted coach Mike Sertich’s invitation to UMD. In the neighborhood of Lake Superior, he majored in general biology while bolstering his on-ice prospects.

The Penguins gave him his first boost after his freshman year, choosing him 88th overall in 1988. He later postponed his senior season, spending 1990-91 with Canada’s national team, opposite Stu Barnes, Craig Billington and Joe Juneau.

After he graduated, his studies would not see professional action in earnest for 12 years. Although, as one testament to delayed gratification, the University of Minnesota would become one of Redfish’s affiliates.

Come what may, Andrusak honed a critical chameleon-like habit of adaptability in the interim. During his first stint in Pittsburgh’s pipeline, he played for minor-league teams in Muskegon, Detroit, Cleveland and Minnesota. Over the four nonconsecutive years that he did see action with the Penguins, he never wore the same jersey number twice.

He also formed a juxtaposing pair of memories with the same batterymate. On Oct. 27, 1995, while representing the IHL’s Detroit Vipers, he took a bare-knuckle punch to his visor-shielded face from prolific Indianapolis Ice forward Kip Miller. Moments after the skirmish, Andrusak confronted Miller in the bowels of the arena before being restrained by ushers.

Fast-forward three-and-a-half years, and the two journeymen were sharing a common purpose with the Penguins, with whom Miller had just spent his first NHL-only season.

On April 24, 1999, the depth forward fed Andrusak for the latter’s only NHL goal, regular-season or postseason. The new allies combined for two strikes and six points in Pittsburgh’s seven-game upset of the Devils.

In between, Andrusak played all of 1996-97 and 1997-98 in Berlin, and also spent a portion of 1998-99 in Switzerland. By 2003-04, which he finished as an assistant coach for the Swiss-B league’s EHC Chur after conceding to persistent knee injuries, he had represented 14 cities in four countries over his career.

As fulfilling as it turned out, 1998-99 was arguably his most turbulent campaign. In nine months, he went from Berlin to Geneva to Pittsburgh to Houston.

Back in B.C., where he and his wife settled to raise their four daughters, Andrusak still makes good on his intangible takeaways from that wheel of change.

“Being adapatable and being able to weather the storm, as we call it,” he said, is a key carry-over from his first field to his second.

Working in government, he also recognizes the long-term benefit of his exposure to the Maple Leafs media masses. His final three NHL games closed out Toronto’s second-round loss to the eventual 2000 champion Devils. Not exactly the follow-up the Buds buffs and brass wanted after a journey to the 1999 Eastern Conference final.

The scrutiny and the subsequent summer rebuild that sent him back to free agency gave Andrusak a firsthand feel for the accountability Anglophone Canada’s Original Six franchise upholds. He senses the similarities in how the B.C. press covers his new team’s larger-scale resource-management mission.

In the NHL, it is all about establishing a balance conducive to a winning formula and an entertaining product. In the MFLNRORD, it is all about squaring conservation with the needs, wants and rights of diverse demographics.

Harvey’s precedent sets a sound example. A longtime collaborator with BC Hydro, the province’s premier energy provider, he was also instrumental in establishing the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area.

Since the area took root in 1998, resource exploration and extraction have met various and respected degrees of restrictions and permissions. Four cut-and-dry categories — protected areas, special wildland resource management zones, special resource management zones and enhanced resource management zones — physically divide a land as vast as Ireland. But the boundaries have also kept the peace between all parties concerned.

“In most cases,” the younger Andrusak said, “negotiations are best served when common ground and compromises can be found.”
 

(Photo courtesy of Greg Andrusak)

 



Messaging mogul

Recent initiatives concerning the First Nations tribes and other stakeholders have impelled Andrusak to evolve from more than a master of natural science. He must now also approach his job as an up-and-coming scholar of sociology.

“There’s a lot of outreach to the public, coming from an industry that is so media-driven,” he said. “Being able to communiciate with people is one of the biggest assets we have.”

In terms of social media, Andrusak sticks primarily to a passing game. On Twitter, his hockey content is mostly his 1998-99 Penguins action-shot profile picture and retweets revolving around his daughter, Devan’s, team at the Delta Hockey Academy.

Sometimes his two worlds overlap, as they did this past Thursday when he retweeted a post on current NHLer, fellow conservationist and fellow B.C.-bred fishing enthusiast Andrew Ladd. He has previously retweeted an argumentative salmon-preservation message by Willie Mitchell.

Otherwise, he focuses on sharing articles and retweeting posts on the status of B.C.’s endangered fish stocks. His own commentary, if and when he offers any, is short, crisp and to the point.

One such report, published in the Vancouver Sun on March 8, detailed the dire findings of the Wild Salmon Advisory Council. The group noted that the local salmon and steelhead stocks are vanishing despite a decades-long slew of conservation initiatives.

From his Victoria office, Andrusak is working with regional counterparts to get the species on the emergency list. Meanwhile, as he shared the Sun story, he tweeted, “Still need to address better management of fisheries.”

As it happens, Andrusak’s former line of work has a history of accentuating fish’s importance to his province. From 2004-05 to 2010-11, the Victoria Salmon Kings played in the ECHL.

Neither that team nor the locale was alone. Since 1997, the Idaho Steelheads have competed at the same professional Double-A level the Salmon Kings did. In the Ontario League, Mississauga’s major-junior team has also used the Steelheads moniker since 2012.

Being in Idaho’s bordering province, Andrusak keeps his eye on similar population preservation efforts there. (Idaho Fish & Game was listed among Redfish’s partners and clients during the firm’s Andrusak era.) While he hesitates to draw conclusions on the team nickname’s awareness effect, he welcomes any potential help.

“If we can rise the profile of a species through sport,” he said, “I don’t see that they should be disconnected.”

He should know. His sport bridged him to his studies and beyond.