Onion Dome Sports Page: Beard-Growing Finals Underway
April, 2008
Clean Monday: Far, Far Away North -- Despite yesterday's inauguration of Lent with the rite of mutual forgiveness, rivalry in the Mega-ArchDiocesan League Of Beard-growers (MADLOB) continued unabated today as the deanery teams began the playoffs with a preliminary round of insults.
Phillip (The Punster) Jardoll, captain of the current champions, the Left Coast Deanery team, started the series of round-robin provocation with a jeer at the Great Big Flat Middle Deanery. "Call those beards? Half your guys have upper lips as bare as a baby's bottom!"
While the ref awarded the LCD team a point, GBFMD team spokesman Fr. Phillip (the Eloquent) Credenza took umbrage at this swipe against his team members, many of whom are drawn from Mennonite stock; however, the rules of the playoff opening insult round require his team not to strike back (turning the other cheek, as it were) at the Left Coast, but rather to face off against the Central Capital Deanery.
The CCD's reputation for corruption of course left them open to attack as the GBFMD team dredged up last year's "ringer" scandal, in which the CCD presented a surprise substitute at the Paschal judging of the beards. The ringer was subsequently identified as an illegal immigrant monk with 30 years' beard growth. (Participants in the Beard-growing finals are of course required to shave clean at the beginning of Lent-"That's why it's called Clean Monday," says one of the hirsute competitors-with only current Lenten growth earning points.)
The BFMD would have been awarded a full point for their shot; however, confusion about time zones at the Alberta-Saskatchewan border caused their insult to arrive late in the CCD. The referee therefore chose to award them only a half-point.
Waiting on tenterhooks for an extra hour for the BFMD to take their shot may have been a factor in the CCD fumbling their play. The CCD's new captain, Dn. Gregory Itchikoff, rattled by the GBFMD's mockery, lost his head and immediately pointed the finger at the Francophonia Deanery: "Well, yeah, but look at those guys. They still haven't even fielded a team since the league was founded!"
"You try eating poutine with a beard!" the Francophonians shot back, as they do every year. (Poutine is a Francophonian ethnic dish including cheese curds and gravy, still awaiting approval by the Mega-Archdiocesan Registry of Officially Orthodox Cookbook Entries.)
"What an excuse!" a neophyte member of the CCD team piped up. "Who's eating poutine in Lent anyway?"
"Penalty to Central Capital Deanery for talking out of turn. And penalty to Francophonia deanery for not turning the other cheek!"
(here the Francophonians interjected something in French, which was probably to the effect of "But we aren't playing anyway you twit.")
Ignoring the Francophonians, the ref concluded, "The offending players will be docked a centimetre of their respective beard growths at the final analysis."
The Left Coast team whooped and high-fived each other, as this placed them in the lead. The LCD's also snickered insufferably and made gagging motions at the idea of eating poutine, beards or no beards, Lent or no Lent. " And we have the best weather too, nyah-nyah!" Fortunately for the LCD, the insult round was already closed or they too might have received a penalty.
The competitors will now settle in for forty days of beard-growing, until the carefully supervised measuring, shaving and weighing, and the judging panel's points assessment for beard quality.
"The insult round is an okay prologue to the main beard-growing event," veteran beard commentator Subdn. Thomas (the Teacher) Wild-Mann opines. "But I was outraged when they added the point system for the so-called beard quality. They have debased one of the last manly sports in Orthodoxy. It might as well be figure skating now," he concludes gloomily.
This report was filed by Canuck Contributor Donna Farley
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