After watching HBO’s 24/7 with the Penguins and the Capitals, I realized that the referees in the NHL take a lot more crap from players than the beer league refs would tolerate. NHL refs get cursed at constantly without dishing out any further penalties. A beer league player might only question a call and get a misconduct. So, if it’s really true that NHL refs are more tolerant of being cursed at than beer league refs, then that should be number 11 on the list of Ten Ways Beer League Hockey Is Harder Than the NHL.

It’s been more than ten years since the group of people now known as the Screaming Squirrels started skating together on a rag-tag roller hockey team at the Gardens Ice House in Laurel. In that time, the Squirrels have played roller hockey each summer, and started ice in late 2003. As you can imagine, players have several memories of their time with the Squirrels over the years.

“Feeding the puck to Rob for the championship-winning goal against Dog Star will always be my highlight,” says Matt Borlik, who started with the team in 2002 as a backup goaltender. His runner-up memory? “Runner-up is meeting Tom and Rob for the first time at a pickup rink and nearly getting in a fight with Tom (who apparently was a like an Army Ranger or something). Then somehow getting invited to the Squirrels as a backup goalie a week later (I forget how that happened), meeting the team, and finding out Tom was the captain.” Yes, that’s how Matt met us.

Mike Bronson, who played with the ice team for three seasons before darting off to Chicago, also has several favorite moments. “Dan Carter bringing a new girlfriend around to every season. That big win over Scurvy of course. The same season we played Scurvy we played the Cruisers. We hadn’t won all season (I think we tied Laughing Skulls). I got in a fight with some of those douchey twins on that team and we ended up pulling out the victory.”

Bronson, who also got into a fight and got suspended for three games in his first season with the Squirrels, was also fond of the game where he frustrated the Vikings, including one of their to players who was on the verge of tears.

Personally, my favorite Squirrels moment was winning our first non-shared roller championship in 2005, and winning our first underdog ice championship in 2006.

For those who need a reminder, the first roller championship in 2003 was technically shared. For some reason, the league thought it was a good idea to make the championship game best-of-three. The Squirrels easily won Game One, but the Hurricanes somehow won Game Two. Game Three was canceled because Hurricane Isabel tore through the region.

The Squirrels also won their first ice championship on 2004 in the beginner league, but they were undefeated that year and it was pretty much a cake walk, as was the 2010 ice championship.

The Squirrels also had many off-ice memorable moments, particularly Phil Van der Vossen’s wedding and the years team parties that ended in D.C.

Here’s to another decade of the Screaming Squirrels.