Knoxville Ice Bears

Small Talk - The Bus Story

date: 12/05/2011

 

Coach’s Small Talk – The Bus Story

I must say, there really is never a dull moment with the Knoxville Ice Bears team. Wednesday afternoon, coach Craigen came into the office and proceeded to tell all of us an incredibly hilarious story that happened to them in Southaven, MS, during their trip to the home of the Mississippi Riverkings. Not being able to keep this great story to ourselves, I feel that it is my duty to share it with all of you.

This “incident” happened last Saturday, as the team bus was leaving the Mississippi Riverkings’ arena. What was the problem? The power steering hose suddenly broke as the team was pulling in a few hours before gametime. As a solution, a crew of Ice Bears decided to fix the broken hose, in which a pressure of 22,000 PSI was going through, with hockey tape and C-clamps; hoping that it would last us just long enough to get us to the hotel. And for those of you who are not familiar with pressure quantities, 22,000 PSI is a lot of pressure. As they pulled away from the back entrance of the arena, it looked as if it would work – until, of course, the hose broke again right as we were about to enter the highway. Realizing that he could not complete the turn onto the highway, the driver decided to try and drive the bus across the median.

By the way everyone: When it’s been raining for three days, please don’t try to drive across the grassy median; because you will get stuck in the mud – just like how our bus did. Then, thinking that with enough manpower the eight-thousand-pound bus would be free, our Ice Bears players came out of the bus and attempted to push it out of the median. Well, did it work, you ask? Of course not! It’s an “eight-thousand-pound” bus!

In the end, the Ice Bears realized too that their hard work would not prevail and ended up walking a mile with their gear to their rooms at the only place available within walking distance, the Magnolia Inn. Oh, and there’s a bonus: at the Magnolia Inn, Tyler Fletcher and Mark Van Vliet shared the honeymoon suite. The next day the team chartered the Riverkings’ bus back to Knoxville; which apparently as a result spoiled the whole team with its 20+ sleeper bunks.

Now, although this incident brought us much joy and laughter at the front office, I believe that through this story, we learn a valuable life lesson: Hockey tape doesn’t fix everything.

 -Sookie-

 

Coach Craigen’s Illustration

 

 

 

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