Wizards Classic Tales of Shame

Coast to Coast

They called him YY-OO-GG-II !!

It happened during the winter of ‘92. The Wizards were participating in its second tournament in Thunder Bay, Canada. Again bravely facing AA and Elite players, and abject humiliation, the Wizards knew they were outmatched, but were there for the experience of playing against the best. Freshman coach Johnson had a new goalie that year, Paul Norstrem, - A.K.A. "Yogi". Yogi’s previous position with the team was Enforcer, err..., Defense.

The tale which is still retold in taverns and ice gardens on both sides of the border, occurred during a Wizard’s game against the Nakima Warriors. The were a team comprised completely of native Canadian Indians. Nakima, by the way, is a town in central Ontario where the road literally comes to an end. You can’t drive any farther north than Nakima.

The event itself, happened in less than two ticks of the clock. Within those two ticks the game of broomball changed forever.

Sometime during the game, the Wizards were still holding on with their fingertips. The Warrior goalie from his goal crease, the lane clear, launched a shot instead of passing up ice. With all eyes watching, the ball left the goalkeep’s stick on a chest high knuckleball line drive. The ball never left it’s altitude, nor touched anything until it passed by Yogi, and was snagged by the back of the Wizard’s net for an unassisted "Coast to Coast" goal.

For the remainder of the game, and those that followed, the crowd of native fans could be heard chanting YY-OO-GG-II over and over again. The fascination with our golaie became so great that Yogi felt compelled to remove his name from the back of his jersey (sweater in Canadian).

To those that remember, Yogi’s typical retort after an giving up a goal was that he was screened. Yogi knew that he could not plead "Screen!" for the excuse of letting in the "Coast to Coast" goal, because there was a wide, clear, rink long avenue during this two second epic duel between goalies. Yogi’s only pathetic plea: "it was dancin’."

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