The Witzard

It's been quite a while since our last proper installment of our once-recurring column, Guts of The Ice: An Exploration of "Puck" Rock/Hockey-core... but today, we're back with a spook-tacular edition of Guts of The Ice just in time for Halloween! Past installments featured interviews, artist penned-columns, playlists, etc. with the likes of players from The Boils, Dropkick Murphys, Two Man Advantage, The Hextalls, The Hanson Brothers/Nomeansno, D.O.A. OFFSIDE REIDARS, Pansy Division, Violent Society, RAMOMS, CHIXDIGGIT! Light The Lamp, Protagonist, and Divided Heaven. One of our personal favorite squads we spoke with was Connecticut-based Punk-adjacent band, THE ZAMBONIS. We interviewed "Captain" Dave Zamboni, as well as band mascot The Hockey Monkey , and even had H. Monkey himself conduct a completey B-A-N-A-N-A-S Q&A with Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's own Light The Lamp . "E.B.U.G." by The Zambonis Through our various conversations,...

THE ZAMBONIS & The Hanson Brothers (SOURCE: Dave Schneider) Not entirely unlike Wrestle/Wrassle Rap or Basketball Rap, there's, apparently, a whole sub-genre of hockey-themed Punk/Hardcore—oftentimes, referred to as "Puck" Rock or Hockey-core. Yes, I've been a die-hard fan of Punk/Hardcore for 15+ years and I, too, only first heard about Puck Rock within the last few weeks. Although, once I started diggin' around, I discovered about 10-15 bands at the forefront; this was, then, gradually narrowed down to 10 "front-line" bands, which will be chronicled here over the course of coming weeks. The "top-scoring" bands we selected include: Crippled Youth, SLAPSHOT, The Hanson Brothers/Nomeansno, Two Man Advantage, The Boils, D.O.A. THE ZAMBONIS, Pansy Division, The Hextalls, and The Ramoms' "Gritty Is A Punk" flexi-disc. We sent out a short 6-question interview form to all of the aforementioned bands, received some back, heard a fe...

This past Saturday night, The Carolina Hurricanes squared off against The Toronto Maple Leafs . It was a bit of a nail-biter, to say the least, and The Hurricanes ended up beating The Maple Leafs in a miraculous 6-3 victory. Although, the most astonishing attribute on the ice Saturday night might have been when, in a pinch, The Canes had to turn to 42-year-old emergency back-up goalie (or E.B.U.G.) David "Dave" Ayres to help finish out the game. Ayres was called in midway through the second period when both goalies Petr Mrazek AND James Reimer were forced to exit the game due to injury. Regularly, David Ayres is a Zamboni driver for The AHL's Toronto Marlies and on that fateful night, was the E.B.U.G. for both The Hurricanes & The Maple Leafs . A feat unto itself, Ayres, was, then, able to block eight out of the 10 shots attempted on goal, while, also, scoring a shot on goal of his own. "E.B.U.G." by The Zambonis Saturday night, Adam Gretz at NB...