All the hockey music questions in an earlier post put me in mind of a fella
named Moishe, whom I'd never had the privilege of meeting but whose legacy is
legendary in the area where my husband grew up.

Moishe (pronounced Moy-shee) was a huge, pure white cat adopted by a neighbor
of Louie's, when he was in high school--Louie, not Moishe. He was less of a
large-built cat than, as the family would say, a cylinder of white fur and
gold eyes. The cat looked like a sausage. My guess would be a knockwurst,
don't they turn up white?

Louie's family had a big backyard which each winter they would turn into an
ice rink. They'd cart out all the snow they could and flatten out the surface,
then turn the hose on it until they had a handsome oval rink. While the
family didn't know how to put in the blue and red lines common to a hockey
rink, they did set up two goal nets on the opposite sides, and the
neighborhood kids would gather at the Singh Stadium to play Sabres vs. (your
team here.)

One night Louie's sister Carol woke up, couldn't sleep, and went to the
kitchen to get herself a drink. She heard a sound of squabbling and went to
check the windows. There on the ice rink was the family's cat Sprintie,
several of the other block's cats, and Moishe chasing every one else around
and knocking them into the little hills of snow that bordered the rink. It
seems that one cat had found the little piece of sponge used for a practice
puck, and they got the hang of hockey very quickly. Sprintie, a small and
quick little runty cat, was clearly the forward (to hear Carol tell it now)
and two or three others seemed to play his front-line partners, but Moishe
was the first star of the game. He was big and bulky, a little on the clumsy
side, but made one heluva defenseman! When he managed to run, or rahter get
into a good slide, he'd knock out one of the front guys like he was going
bowling. When someohne scored, they'd dig the puck out of the net and go for
the next round.

Over Christmas I asked Carol to tell me more about this, because the only
picture she had of it got lost in her moving from California to Boston (drat
it!) And the moment I said cylindrical, the whole family just said in unison,
"Ah, Moishe!" If he could just get us that Cup now...

Blessed be,
Baha