In recent Olympic Games and Hockey World Championships, Canadian athletes have made a point of using coins for good luck. The tradition began at the 2002 Salt Lake City games when a loonie was buried in the Olympic Ice Rink for luck, and both the Men’s and Women’s teams won gold (ahh, those were the good old days). That loonie is now displayed in the hockey hall of fame.

That tradition has since become a bit overdone, as this past Olympics apparently every Canadian team who competed on ice tried to bury something in their rink. (Apparently the Canadian Men’s Hockey team buried Todd Bertuzzi’s mojo). But a new tradition was born this past Sunday, when, as Coveside and Nordic warmed up before their Cup Final match, Cloudy found a nickel on the pitch. He tucked that nickel in his sock, it stayed there the entire game, and Coveside scored a nickel’s worth of goals to cruise to a 5-1 Cup Final win over a surprisingly lackluster Nordic side.

The best weather of the year greeted both teams as we took to the turf at Mahon Park. A very minor bit of trash talking had preceded this match up, as Nordic had pointed out that Coveside managed to win the league while still losing twice to them. And Nordic certainly looked up for it, with an impressive in-unison pre-game warm-up that inspired us to jog back and forth across the field in a loosely ordered group.

Bernie soon brought his troops together and chose his starting lineup. Cloudy and his lucky nickel were in goal. Al and Dave H started in the middle of the back line, with Martine on the left and Brad on the right. Cam and Rich started in the center of the park, with Rod on the right. Mike and Eamon started up front.

But wait! (You say). That’s only ten players! Yes, it was. It took team mathematician Rob Paul to bring that to Bernie’s attention, and Amar was dispatched to bring our numbers up to 11. A classic Bernie Ward Cup Final moment. We had a strong set of subs, including Tim, Craig, Jason, Rob Paul, Graham, and Fergie (braving broken ribs). We also had a superb coffee club headed up by Gord, Andy, Ed, Vinny, and JC. The biggest crowd of the year was out to enjoy the good weather and what promised to be a good battle.

The very early exchanges were fairly even. We knew who the Nordic danger men were, and we tried to keep tight to them and deny them space. But when Brad (who had another strong game at right back) used some questionable tactics to deny a Nordic forward space in our penalty area he received a superb bitching out from Cloudy: “Don’t You F***ing Do That Again!” Cloudy bellowed. Cloudy was so scary the Nordic forward got up and looked terrified, and didn’t come back to the penalty area for the rest of the game.

We were looking solid once again in the middle, with Cam and Rich dominating play. Roddy was once again providing us with width down the right flank, and Amar’s new fitness program, which sees him jog to the Kitsilano Starbucks and back every morning, has given him the strength and fitness of players half his age (i.e. Mike). We began to control the play and create chances.

One of those came off a free kick about 30 yards out in line with the left goalpost. The Nordic keeper set up a wall to cover the left hand side of the net and then, somewhat bizarrely, positioned himself directly behind the wall. The tricky Richie Hawes stroked the ball over the wall with his left peg, and the keeper, anticipating the normal curve of a left-footed shot, scampered towards the uncovered post. But Rich, showing a Blackadder-like cunning, had struck the ball with the outside of his boot, curving the ball away from the wrong-footed keeper into the open net. 1-0 Coveside.

After that goal went in, it was as if some higher power decreed that “From this moment on, Coveside shall completely dominate this game.” We had tons of possession, were winning most of the 50-50 balls, and were knocking the ball around well. Eamon in particular had a superb first half, holding the ball up well and dancing around Nordic d-men with an ease that belies his Iron Sheik-like physique. The little and large pairing of him and Mike were causing Nordic all sorts of problems. And Eamon was rewarded with our second goal of the day.

A quick ball from a free kick found Rob Paul, who had subbed in at right back, with acres of space down the right wing. He took his time and put in a measured cross right to the penalty spot. Eamon met the cross there and, with a subtle flick of his sizeable head, accelerated the ball into the bottom corner. 2-0 Coveside.

3-0 did not take too much longer to come. Newcomer Jason is proving a real handful for the NSCL defenses who have encountered him so far. And when Jason cut across the 18 with the ball it was all the defender could do to nudge Jason a bit wide as he turned the corner towards the net. As a result, Jason didn’t have a great angle to the goal, so we were all a bit surprised when Nordic’s keeper came out to clatter him and concede an obvious penalty. Jason took the responsibility himself and placed a clean, low shot into the bottom left hand corner to give us a 3-0 lead.

We had additional chances to score, including a header from Amar just tipped onto the bar by the Nordic keeper and a Mike Browne header (from a rebound of another cross-bar stopped shot) that found the back of the net called back (correctly) for offside. But although we couldn’t add to our 3-0 lead before the half, we put Nordic in further trouble when Mike out-muscled a Nordic defender to win a ball and a clear run at net from about 25 yards out.

Now, I know it’s surprising to read the words “Mike” and “muscle” in the same sentence, but what’s even more surprising is that the defender in question was pushed around by Mike even though he probably outweighed Mike by about 120 pounds. (If the defender had a neck, it would probably be the size of Mike's leg.) Rather than give Mike a clear breakaway he took him down from behind and received a red card.

We went into the half with a 3-0 lead and with Nordic down to ten men (which was, ironically, the same number we started the game with). All in all, it was probably our best half of the year.

Bernie’s half-time talk was as follows (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Don’t f*** this up by playing really badly in the second half.” Ah, the power of positive thinking.

The second half got underway, and we continued to dominate. We welcomed Graham in to help keep control of the midfield, and Nordic, facing a 3-0 deficit with 10 men, were in were forced to pick their poison: either push men up into the midfield and leave the defense outmanned, or concede the midfield to us and hope to stop us and break on the counterattack. They chose a slightly surprising strategy of both letting us overrun them in the midfield and leaving our forwards unmarked. We were in complete control.

An unmarked Mike pretty much killed things off when he pounced on a loose ball off a hard, low corner from Cam. Their keeper was left to pick the ball out of the old onion bag, and it was 4-0 Coveside.

Another goal soon followed, as a through ball freed Mike down the right flank (for, I think, the third time already that half). He calmly slotted past the keeper for his second of the game and our fifth.

Now, it’s not that I’m biased because I play on the back line, but the back line had another solid game. Brad and Rob Paul (with a brief cameo from Amar) were solid at right back. Fergie was playing with broken ribs, but you wouldn’t have known it from his strong defensive play and usual frequent ventures into the offensive side of the field. Al kept the middle strong and was unlucky (or just not skilled enough) to score on a couple of strong runs upfield. And Martine has been a real revelation at left back, and had an extremely strong game winning and distributing the ball. And your scribe? Well, I was there to give Nordic a brief ray of hope.

A long clearance to our by-line brought Cloudy out of his net to chase the ball, but a Nordic player beat him to it and clipped the ball back towards our six yard box. I had a clear path to head the ball out of bounds, but was flattened from behind by a Nordic player and managed only to head the ball spectacularly into our own net. They had their first of the match on my OG, but even at 5-1 there was no way back. (As an aside, the Nordic player involved in clattering me confessed after the game that he could not believe he didn’t get called for the blatant foul. Cheater. I hope he feels shame.)

And just to return here to the nickel in Cloudy’s sock, his new lucky charm had now, apparently, enabled us to score the 5 goals that matched its monetary value. Little did we know, however, that the nickel would now start exerting some kind of karmic force to keep our tally at five. (Or does someone else have a better explanation why we didn’t score four or five more?)

We had breakaway after breakaway, chance after chance, shot after shot, and were denied by a combination of goalposts and some superb saves by the Nordic keeper. He stopped Mike at least four times, Eamon at least twice, Jason at least once, and Cam at least once, and these are only the saves I remember.

It’s not often that you put 5 goals past someone and say “He had a hell of a game,” but the Nordic keeper kept this one from getting really ugly. OK, 5-1 is still pretty ugly, but 5-1 is more like Rosie O’Donnell ugly when this one could have been Joan Rivers ugly.

The game wound itself slowly down to its conclusion, and the final whistle brought an end to a game that we dominated as much as we have dominated any game this year. 5-1 Coveside, Kilby Cup Champs! (Or is it the Jim Lowe Cup? Or the League Cup? Or that other cup that is always scheduled but never played? And how could we win a gold medal in a Commonwealth Games event called “Solo Synchronized Swimming?” Isn’t the name of that event a logical impossibility?)

The warm sunshine and the warmer cheers of our beloved coffee club greeted us as we celebrated our League-Cup double with our usual post-game beers and laughs. Our best wishes go to Roddy for a full recovery from his strained groin (next time just ask someone to help get the cereal down from the top shelf); to Cam and his family as they expect their second baby (the actual due date was yesterday); and to Randy J for a full recovery from the bachelor party that kept him from making it out to the game (the big pussy).

The treble is still on! See you all at training next week.