The big day had finally come. The team packed into the buzzing locker room early Saturday morning with excitement drawn all over their faces. It was the annual Secret Santa handoff, and the players and coaches were eating it up. They had all drawn names of their teammates out of Matt Leddy’s skullcap, and the concealed identities of their givers were about to be revealed. Hors d'oeuvres were prepared by Margaret Bradley, mother of Ryan and Mike, who neglected sending her boys lunches all week to prepare for the special day. As they slopped eggnog, the players clamored over each other to hand out the gifts they had so carefully selected to their pollyanna partners. Some of the highlights of the gift swap were more exciting than those of the game itself. Jim Dunn was ecstatic about the threads he received from fellow Offensive lineman John Gazzola. “Gazzy! How did you know?!?” Indeed, John had picked out the exact pullover from the Lands End winter catalog that Dunn had been lusting over for weeks. “Mom, look! It’s that fleece with alternating stripes of rusticated quail and misty taupe I was telling you about,” he exclaimed. Ryan Malarick was tickled over the new iFeel Massage Wand from the Sharper Image given to him by lineman Dave LaPera. “The first thing I did was call my masseuse, Tom "Piano Fingers” Kane, to tell him his services were no longer necessary.” An unshakeable grin was pinned to assistant coach Joe “Tauer of Pauer” Bauer’s face after he ripped the wrapping paper off of the box of popsicle sticks and model airplane glue. Bauer will be able to crown the popsicle stick town he is building in his basement with a four foot high City Hall building. “This is neat because originally I started the village while I was working as a service corps teacher…” he began, but everyone walked away.
